Expert Insights on Strategic Recruitment Challenges and Career Development in the Medical Industry

1. RECRUITING Making Career Choices Sharon Hulce President/CEO Employment Resource Group, Inc Interview by Darwin Shurig CEO/Founder, Shurig SolutionsInc. 2021 Do you have a challenge currently with a strategic initiative relevant to RA, Quality, Engineering, Clinical, Operations or Marketing talent? Let’s schedule a Needs Analysis Conversation! Please feel free to schedule directly on our calendar. 6814 S CR 100W,Clayton, IN 46118 info@shurigsolutions.com 317-983-4473

2. DARWIN SHURIG PRESIDENT - SHURIG SOLUTIONS INC. Darwin Shurig understands the key qualities that companies look for in candidates to grow market share, while enhancing their positive culture and team environment. He has a clinical background of over 20 years, including 15 years of sales experience within: medical device, diagnostics, medical distribution, and sleep therapy; 8 years in sales management success; 3 years in operations; and extensive experience in negotiations and business development. SSI has been growing for over 6 years with a focus on RA, Quality and Engineering within the Medical Device and Pharma industries. With over $3 Million in revenue and a 91% offer acceptance rate, SSI is helping companies find unique talent that makes a difference, brings value, and decreases the risk of a mis-hire. Sharon Hulce PRESIDENT/CEO, EMPLOYMENT RESOURCE GROUP, INC Sharon Hulce is President/CEO of Employment Resource Group, Inc. (ERG) based in Appleton, Wisconsin and a 25-year veteran of the Executive Search industry. Sharon is known in her industry as an innovation leader who works tirelessly on finding the right talent for her clients, while also focusing on the empowerment and retention of that talent. Sharon understands the emotional intelligence, competencies, knowledge and social interaction necessary to integrate new hires into a corporate culture for success. Sharon has been a Top Ten Owner of the Decade, having personal billings over $20 million and was recently honored for her innovation as Management Recruiter International (MRI) Person of the Year. Sharon is very passionate about her community. She was a 2019 recipient of the Walter L. Rugland Community Service Award, which recognizes an individual who over many years has positively impacted the quality of life in Northeast Wisconsin through their leadership. ERG’s gift to the community is its transformation of the non-profit community, having conducted over 80 leadership searches pro-bono, valued at over $5 million in donated search fees. Sharon has served on numerous boards including Fox Valley Technical College, Fox Cities Chamber of Commerce, Fox Cities Performing Arts Center, Theda Clark Medical Foundation, YMCA of the Fox Valley and United Way Fox Cities. She has also been involved in many national boards throughout the staffing industry and is an Executive Board Member of The Pinnacle Society, a consortium of the top 80 recruiters in the country. Sharon is a sought-after speaker, sharing her thought leadership at countless corporate presentations, national conferences and even a TEDx talk. She has received many awards for her work and recently became a Forbes published author of her first book, A Well Done Professional Midlife Crisis available on Amazon, Barnes & Noble or SharonHulce.com.

3. What is your why? Darwin: The purpose and the vision list that you discuss in the book resonated with me. In terms of putting together a business plan and joining MRI, a lot of that's been part of your process, which is important. I enjoyed using the worksheet in your book and seeing what that looked like for me. How should somebody look at and evaluate that list? The Story Video Link 1 Sharon: We all have what we would call a bucket list; here's where I want to go, here’s what I want to do. We all have these things that we want to accomplish. The piece that struck me as I started flipping over my leaves, is that my life will look very different. I had to understand my ‘why’. Why do I want to do this? Not just that I wanted to do it. So, if I'm going to set this as a goal, I have to know the purpose and ‘why’ behind doing it, and if I couldn't come up with why that was important to me, then it would ultimately end up not being something I would accomplish. So, when I made my list, I made the list first, and then I went through and did the purpose of why I would do that. Surprisingly, most of my list the first time I did it was somebody else's list. A list of things not for me, but for other people. (Continue to video links) Keep Your Value Proposition Relevant Darwin: One of the first things I did when I started this business was to create a mouse pad with a saying that resonated with me because I think your ‘why’ is extremely important. If you don't have a ‘why’, if you don't know your ‘why’, then you won’t understand how to protect your value prop. Sharon: I worked for another MRI office, and I ultimately bought my desk. That was the perfect time for me to change my value proposition and the awareness of what I wanted it to be. I wanted my business to be different than what it was with the previous owner. My message to any businessperson is that you have to change your value proposition over time. You constantly have to reevaluate it to remain relevant in the world of work. Video Link 1 (Continue to video links)

4. Reinventing Yourself Sharon: If you're not looking in the mirror and evaluating not only what's going on in the industry, marketplace, and you're not looking to reinvent yourself, you're going to get passed up by others. Darwin: Your career is going to get stale as well. It's not going to stay enjoyable, and it's not going to be exciting if you don't continue to evolve. Video Link 1 Sharon: We have the great resignation going on right now, and there's no doubt that it’s a real thing, and the changes COVID made to the workplace with hybrid and remote work, we're all challenged by that. There’s this whole other contingency of people between 45 and 55 who are worn out and are trying to figure out how to get out of this professional midlife crisis and love what they do again. You don't have to leave your current employment to make that happen, but you do have to figure out how to reinvent yourself and bring reinventing yourself as a value to your employer. Because if you know why that makes sense for your employer, you can put together a business case for why you are doing something different that makes sense for them; it's a win-win for everybody all the way around Talent (Continue to video links) Talent that Adds Value Darwin: My perception is that people miss out on talent all the time because they're focused on a job description or a particular resume versus what they need the person to do in this position; what other areas are there for opportunities to grow; and what other skill sets that we don't have that might bring value. If you're open to talent and crossover talent and areas of growth, you will find the right talent; it's not just about a job description. Sharon: I have two questions I ask every client and every candidate I present to that client. The first one for the client is if we're sitting here a year from now and you say, “That was the best hire ever," what did the person do? And the same thing to the candidate, “What is it that you would do in that first year that would jazz your soul?”. Video Link Every business I've ever been exposed to in my 25 years has problems, issues, opportunities, and challenges; that's what business is. So, I ask the client, tell me what challenge or issue or opportunity this person coming into the organization will encounter that I need to be cognizant of to ensure they know how to solve it? With the candidate, I say if a company's having issues with XYZ, how would you approach it? (Continue to video links)

5. Career Advice Mission Statements Darwin: When you think about Corporate America and the mission statements of those companies, I don’t believe most employees know their company's mission statements. Sharon: In today's environment, company mission statements are just plaques on the wall. Everybody went through the exercise when Stephen Covey came out; they created their statements and put them on the wall, then never revisited the behaviors behind those words. The behaviors behind the words get companies and people in trouble; it's not the words. As you said, most people don't remember the company mission statement, and new employees are not onboarded with the purpose of those words. Video Link Darwin: Often, when writing a mission statement, you get these long multi-sentence scenarios. I think it should tie into what your ‘why’ is, and you should be able to explain what your ‘why’ is specifically in terms of what you do for work or business and then how that ties into your family. (Continue to video link) Touching Lives Sharon: There are good and bad people in every industry, and there are people within our industry that drive me crazy because they are just focused on the placement, not about people's lives. I think you, myself, and many of our friends within the network look at it from a very different lens. I tell every candidate this "mama doesn't need new shoes bad enough to put you in a bad job". I tell them if it isn't right for you at any time, you tell me ‘this is not feeling right’ because it is your life and your career. Video Link 1 Quite frankly, a good hire is significant for a good company, but a bad hire is also significant on the other side of the equation. So, when you get someone who takes that seriously as you and I do and many of our colleagues, it can be pretty amazing when you look back at your impact on a candidate. I look back on my 25 years and the people that it has made a tremendous difference in the lives of not only the lifespan of the corporation but also just the life of the individual that you were able to touch. Darwin: Every time you interact with somebody, you either gain credibility or you lose it. (Continue to video links)

6. Preparing for Interviews Darwin: The time frame that I've been doing this, I honestly have yet to have one person get an offer or a position that didn't take the interview prep seriously. That's an area that we try to differentiate and bring value to. If the position is relevant, there will be two, three, four candidates who have the right skills and experience that are going to be interested. The difference between who gets that offer and who places third or fourth if it were a letter grade could be the difference between a 98.5 and a 96. They're all A's, but how they do on the interview will determine who gets the job. How do you prepare your candidates? Interviews Video Link 1 Sharon: I tell the stories of why I love the organization and maybe what the leader has done in the community to give them a sense of the heart. At that point, I'll talk a little bit about the things that I think are important for them to ask. One of my favorite questions is, “After a year, what does success look like for you?” because I want to make sure I understand what success looks like for you. The area that most candidates miss when I'm prepping a candidate is that they miss understanding the organization's values. So, I try to prep them on questions that will get at who fits you. I always tell them to ask this of the leader, “What is most important to you if you had to force rank values like courage, business acumen, ability to see around corners? There are all these different things from a business perspective; what is most important to you? What resonates with you as a good fit in your organization and what values don't resonate in your organization”. And then don't talk. Because he who speaks next loses. (Continue to video links) Natural DNA Gifts Darwin: Let's talk about your book and the natural gifts piece. The personal SWOT analysis and then how that leads you into taking ownership of your career or your journey if that's entrepreneurial, staying at your own company, or moving to the next opportunity. Sharon: I think out of everything I've learned, it's one of the most important pieces for people to identify. Think about the athlete in high school who was fabulous at baseball, basketball, football and hardly ever practiced. They didn't need to; they had that natural DNA gift, right? Or the gal who never cracked a book yet got straight A's? Those are natural DNA gifts. Every person has natural DNA gifts. Video Link If you work to your natural gift, you don't have to work hard because it comes naturally to you. First, make a list of things you didn't educate or train yourself on; it just comes naturally to you. Once you have those two lists, look at those lists, and you will see the right brain, left brain, detail, or creative. This will show you how to apply the natural gifts to what it is you're passionate about. (Continue to video links)

7. Wednesday Wisdom Sharon: Wednesday wisdom was born of the theory that somebody had to get to the point where they just said ‘I've made that mistake, and here was my thought process around it’ or ‘I'm just feeling overwhelmed and here's what I've done about that. Everybody wants to be positive and keep upbeat yet being real about this is not an unusual way to feel. Wisdom Video Link (Continue to video link) You’re Not Hiring a Resume Sharon: Career decisions are not just significant for you; they're significant for your family. They can alter retirements timelines, benefits; there are a million things that you've got to think about when you make career decisions. In addition, sometimes it involves relocation, and you must make sure that you and your spouse, and your significant other can duplicate their life in the new location. Video Link 1 Darwin: It's not completely separate, career and family. Ensuring the family is on the same page of why mom or dad does what they do, the value that the career brings out in the world to other people, and then when you make those moves, it's one unit. Sharon: I always tell people you're not hiring employees; you're hiring people. They bring all of it with them, their values, how they were raised, their current family, all of that comes with them. The more you know about that, the more it helps you understand what is important to them. (Continue to video links)

8. What is your legacy? Sharon: I wrote this book because I knew exactly how people at this point in life felt. I have been there myself, and I have been at a place where I said to myself, ‘I can't imagine my life just being this’. There's so much more I want out of my life. I knew I had to make changes to be happy. To hand the book to someone, not have to worry about if they paid the money for the book, but to be able to give them the book and say this will help just read it. Then they call me two weeks, a month later, whenever they finish reading it, and they say, “The book was what I needed”. Hearing that is worth the price of admission on publishing a book. (Continue to video link) What’s Changing in the Industry Darwin: Think about your career and what's changing in the industry, is there one or two things that you would share that you see coming. Sharon: There's no doubt that COVID has changed the world of work. For somebody like myself, it's hard to embrace things that are different, the working from home or hybrid model. Many of my clients are my age or a little bit older, we've got five to ten years left to work, and we love the interaction and the socialization of everybody being together. We're trying to figure out how to embrace what the younger generation wants while feeding our souls with socialization. I worry about female leaders remaining relevant, remaining connected. So, I think for me, it's not so much the change it's how do we make sure that we don't get dinged through the transition. Out of sight, out of mind could be a real thing if you don't pay attention to it. (Continue to video link) Full Webinar Do you have a unique product? Are you in a growth phase or lead a company disrupting the MedTech market? Reach out to see about setting up a webinar for your company to promote your product. If you have an inquiry for Darwin, you may reach him at: 317-771-7677 or darwins@shurigsolutions.com.