A leading dermatology-focused pharmaceutical company had moved its field sales resource into a different commercial division, leaving its flagship skin treatment without face-to-face clinician promotion. With sales growth slowing, the decision was taken to reinvest in a UK-wide field force. CHASE was appointed to recruit and mobilise the entire contract team within a tight timeframe.
For a number of years, this well-established dermatology brand had relied on omnichannel and remote activity rather than direct face-to-face engagement with clinicians. Without field-based promotion, sales growth stalled. The company decided to reinvest in a dedicated field force targeting primary care, including GP practices, PCN leads and community pharmacists.
The brief called for eight roles: a National Sales Manager, six field Account Managers, and a Virtual Account Manager covering the UK. The Initial Training Programme (ITP) was fixed for 16 March, a hard deadline that had to be met. Recruitment commenced on 12 January.
Four existing employees within the client’s commercial team were also to transfer across to CHASE headcount under TUPE as part of the new contract field force, requiring a formal employment transfer process to run in parallel with the open recruitment campaign, with both workstreams landing on the same start date.
CHASE competed for and won the contract against other suppliers, on the strength of our recruitment capability and our track record in building outsourced contract teams at pace. The full regional recruitment consultant team mobilised quickly, mapping and directly approaching candidates with the right dermatology and primary care profile rather than waiting for inbound applications.
For the National Sales Manager, we ran a two-stage process: an initial Teams screening interview followed by an in-person assessment centre, which included a one-to-one with the client’s Commercial Director. For Account Manager and Virtual Account Manager roles, a single-stage in-person assessment centre followed candidate sourcing and shortlisting. In total, 17 candidates were assessed across four assessment centres.
The assessment centres were designed from scratch in close partnership with the client. We developed new exercises specific to these roles and this organisation, rather than applying a generic framework, ensuring candidates were assessed against criteria that genuinely reflected the client's needs. CHASE provided both assessor expertise and all logistical support across every event.
We managed the TUPE process for the four transferring employees with equal care. Pre-transfer briefings, regular touchpoints and direct access to senior CHASE leaders ensured that those individuals felt informed and supported throughout. All four rated their first impression of CHASE as “very positive” and all four felt “very supported” during the process. All four found the pre-transfer briefings “very helpful.” One transferring team member put it directly: “All communication with CHASE has been good. CHASE made me feel valued and have been welcoming.”
Every role was filled. 100% occupancy was achieved on the Initial Training Programme, with the project delivered from commencement of recruitment to all job offers in just 4.5 weeks and under salary budget.
Of those assessed, 65% passed the bespoke assessment centre. Every team member then passed their Initial Training Programme validations (a knowledge exam on the brand and a sales call role-play) and was customer-facing within one week of going on territory, meeting a KPI built into the original project brief.
Within weeks of going on territory, one team member was invited to lead a session at the client’s national cycle meeting after developing ideas for improving how the client runs its dermatology engagement meetings. Those ideas are now being rolled out across the wider business.
Overall client satisfaction was 98.3%, with 100% of client stakeholders saying they would use CHASE again and 100% saying they would recommend CHASE. Several client stakeholders independently described the experience as collaboration rather than a client/supplier engagement: “It felt that we were a team together working to build the team, not just me being there as the client.”
“CHASE won the business on the strength of our belief in CHASE’s capability to find and recruit great talent. You didn’t let us down.”
Commercial Excellence & Operations Director
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