The MedTech Employment Outlook for 2026 How AI is changing expectations, evaluation, and career

Hey, good morning, everyone. I know that we're a few minutes early, but I wanted to start letting people in. If you'd like to be, promoted to panelist, just accept when, Francesco makes you panelist. Hey, Gary, welcome. And… We… are gonna get started in a few minutes. I'd like to give everyone a chance to say hello. meet our speaker today, who I will introduce formally at the top of the hour. Do you guys know Elena? Curia? No? You know?

So, now I do. Hello!

Yeah, I know Alina. Hello, Alina. Hi.

Hi, Stephanie, good to see you.

Good to see you too.

Familiar… some familiar names there in the list.

So, Elena is a talent expert from London. And, she, is founder of… How many people are in that group? On LinkedIn? In your LinkedIn group?

I think… I wanna say it's definitely more than 13,000 people, I've lost track, but yeah, a lot.

What is the group, exactly?

So, it started off as a, MDR IVDR discussion forum, where regulatory people, so everyone was vetted before they joined, and, were very strict on, like, no spam, only interesting, you know, content. And it sort of evolved a little bit broader into just asking and connecting with peers around regulatory global questions now.

Awesome. That's fantastic. Let's see, it's 1 minute till… People are rolling in. Well, happy Friday, everybody, we made it. Those of you in Europe have really made it. Those of you beyond Europe are like, you know, having a nightcap at this point. Luke, welcome. And, nice to see everyone. I'm happy it's Friday. There was a small dog emergency this week. My brother's Rottweiler, 110-pound Rottweiler, fell and couldn't get up. Apparently, at four and a half years old, he already has arthritis. Apropos of nothing. So I wanted to start out, with a couple of announcements,

while we're… while we're waiting for everyone to join. Let's see… I'm gonna paste… There were… there were a couple… Good… Webinars… that you may have missed, including last week's launch party, Tuesday's Global Human Factors Strategy for MedTech, and, yesterday's EU Regulatory Roadmap Part 2, Avoiding Liability and Pitfalls. with Bastille Accra and Eric Volbrecht. That was really good. And, a woman, Tricia, from Head of Regulatory at…

Phillips Ambulatory So, yeah, I'm gonna paste the links to watch the replays. If you want the slides, if you want any other information, please, let me know. I'm gonna put that in the chat. And the other thing that I'm gonna put in the chat is, a direct link to this awesome 10-page strategy kit from Claramet. And there's no, There's no landing page, just download the thing. It's… it's pretty great. Let's see… chat… Need to restart laptop. Okay, everyone, Ctrl-V, and then the last thing that I'm gonna say is that at the end of this call.

We're gonna take about 5 minutes and let, Jose introduce, the MLVX.ai platform. You can go there now, mlvx.ai, and please register. Love to get as many people using this. as possible. It's free. We do not collect any, proprietary information. We're not spying on you, we're not using your searches to… market to you, just get in there and play with it, and tell us what you think, please. But he's gonna introduce that at the end. Jose, are you here?

Yeah, you can't see me?

No, I can only see a certain number of people on my screen.

Yeah, we've added a bunch of features this last week, so… Give you guys the quick preview of those.

Awesome. Let's see. So, here we go. Let's get started. I want to learn about who's in the room first. So what, we decided was we would try to keep this as simple as possible. Put in where in the world you're calling from, your job title, and a 1, 2, or a 3. A 1 is, unemployed looking for a job. 2 is, employed, but open. And 3 is, a hiring manager, or, working for an employer who may be hiring. And then, let's do a 4 for, I'm a consultant. And… let's see. So while you're putting that in, I'm gonna go ahead and introduce Elena. Elena is our speaker today, and she's going to be leading us… well, we're gonna have the conversation, and we're gonna try to make this as interactive as possible with

getting as much input from the audience, but what we're really talking about here is the employment outlook. What does the job market in med tech look like? What does the economy look like? What are people seeing out there, in terms of hiring, in terms of… firing in terms of, how people are looking for a job, the influence of AI, all sorts of things, coming into this. Technology shifts, sociological shifts, political shifts. Well, where are we? And so, before we level set that, I'm gonna allow Elena to explain who she is, and why we should listen to her.

Thank you, Sean, for the very nice intro. And, yes, who am I? So, my name's Ella Kiria, I'm the CEO and founder of Eleamed. We're a boutique talent consultancy. I've been working for the last 13 years, specifically in recruiting regulatory quality and clinical people for medical device and medical technology, companies. So, I've worked with small startups all the way through to the big multinational names in the med tech space. As a business, we have covered Switzerland, the Duck region, the Nordics, we're covering the US, we're pretty global as an organization, and we are typically called on by companies when they are really struggling to fill their roles, because the talent that they're looking for is often

passive, the good people are not sending their CVs everywhere, and ultimately, the industry that we operate in is one that operates on a currency of trust. So, I, I, I, on the other side, have, helped recruit, my personal expertise is in, senior level, so director, VPs of regulatory quality and clinical, for med tech organizations, and I spend… me and my team spend all day, every day, basically speaking to people about their career options, about what the job market looks like, and so it gives us a really nice bird's-eye view of, what's actually going on across the industry, because if you can imagine having 10 conversations a day, you know, 5 days a week, it starts to be able to, pick up some really nice patterns, and so

Thank you, Sean, for the invite, to be able to share some of those insights. And also answer questions, on what we're seeing in the industry. You're on mute.

I'm looking at the chat file now, and we have a PhD student, we have a lot of consultants on the call, let's see, we have, people that are looking And… between jobs. And… Yeah, I mean, it's a really, it's a really good mix of people dialing in from around the world. We've already got more than 140 people on the call, and so… we want to make sure that we, get a chance to, explore some of these topics. Before I go any further, I did want to ask you a personal question. You know, when you were 12 years old and you were dreaming of being a med tech

talent recruiter. You know, tell us, tell us about how you got from… 12 years old to, being in this position, because one of the things that I find really interesting, and I want people to, put it in the chat as well, is what first pulled you into med tech?

Yeah, it's a really interesting, question, because obviously I have a different background to most people here. So, when I was 12 years old, I wanted to be a Disney princess. And, that was really my dream. And I almost achieved it, because actually, when I was at university, I started up a company where I was essentially a kid's entertainer, and I do that still sometimes. That's a secret, by the way, nobody knows that, but I'm letting you all 155 of you know that sometimes at the weekend. and I still dress up as Princess Jasmine and entertain 5-year-olds. For fun. But, after I went to un… so I went to uni and I studied languages and linguistics, which essentially is…

the science of language. I got really interested in humans and dealing with people, and after realizing that I wasn't going to be a famous singer, or have a… or pursue performing arts, although I did apply for The Apprentice, which is the equivalent of, oh, what is that in the US? The Apprentice. it's like a… you know where you apply, and it's, I think Trump used to do it. What was that show?

It was The Apprentice also.

Oh, you have The Apprentice, okay. I applied for that, and I got to the last 20, and they had, 6… they put 16 on the show, so that was a unique experience that, for me, just kind of, like, changed the trajectory of my life. My dad turned around and said, you better find a job, or I'm gonna find one for you.

So, I knew that I wanted to do something with the languages, because I speak four languages, I wanted to do something with people, and I found myself joining a recruitment company. And I kind of, at the age of 20, I just got pointed at doing something in sciences, was, like, my mandate. And so I started to just speak to lots of people, and I found my niche really quickly. Because I really liked medtech, because it made sense to me, right? Like, I was speaking to people in pharma, and I found pharma quite abstract. When I… when I started speaking to people in med tech, it was, like, physical medical devices that you could really start to actually understand how they worked.

And I decided to build my expertise specifically in the med tech space. And, and within that, part serendipity, part relationships and networking, I… I made my… my first, I had my first big break from a senior VP within Zimmer Biomet, who opened a door for me that opened, then, my career to, the med tech regulatory quality and clinical space, and… since then, it's kind of grown. And so, although I don't have a scientific background of having a PhD, I would say that I'm a real technical recruiter in the sense where I know what Flight 10Ks are, I know what PMAs are, I can really talk in detail with these senior leaders to really understand what they're looking for, and that helps build credibility and, helps us, you know, put the right people into the right opportunities.

That's awesome. So, we have, a number of people that have put in their, their pathways, I'd like to ask one or two of them to come off of speaker, and in one minute, say, you know, how they segued in, into MedTech. Volunteers, anyone? First come, first serve. Okay, well, while you guys are thinking about that, I'm gonna, start with my first question. Okay, Tracy Lomax, let's, let's hear from you. Is she unmuted?

Tracy… Sorry. Technical difficulties. While I'm working on Tracy, Stephanie, you can go.

I'll try to keep it to 1 minute. I got into med techs, actually, because I really want to help people out. And I love the fact that there is, medicine combined with engineering, so I came from an engineering background, and it was actually a later decision to do a Master's Science in Biomedical Engineering, and I'm happy that I can see results from the work that I do, so I think that's really quite motivating.

Awesome. Tracy, did you get promoted?

Yeah, yeah, I am, yeah, thanks, Sean. Hi, Lena, Nice to hear another UK voice, on these calls sometimes. I'm kind of the only one, I think. So, I'm actually a linguist, by a degree also, so that's a, that's a nice kind of, common background to share. But I went from, I pivoted immediately into manufacturing engineering. straight into… Quality, and then, eventually finding my way, always in quality and bearing that responsibility for reg, as is in every other industry apart from pharma, med devices, it's all under quality manager. But, so I'm 9 years now in IBDs.

But yeah, find myself auto-doing the still to this day, even though I've, I've been a… technical expert in every… every kind of company. I've been in every industry that's been across aerospace, food, automotive, you know, I've been kind of everywhere and… and got all of the… all of the skills that we prize in this industry, just, yeah, under different label in some respects, but find myself still kind of saying, yes, I don't have a scientific degree, but, and, yeah, kind of really had to work, I think. Hard and fast to try and, at each stage, kind of earn my… earn my credibility, if you like. So, yeah, I'm… I'm glad that you can kind of, like.

Promote, this as an industry that is open to people that don't come straight through with degrees, because I think we bring a lot of knowledge, and, you know, a broader skill and understanding that actually benefits the industry.

Yeah, thank you for that, Tracy. I'd just like everybody that's an engineer on the call to put engineer in the chat, because I think we have a lot of people with engineering backgrounds, that make their way into med tech, and I think that's pretty interesting. So, Elena, you know, I want to start with some questions, like, what feels different about 2026 versus 3 years ago?

Yeah, there's been a massive shift, right? So, if we go 3 years ago, we were kind of coming out of the back of COVID, and so… I'll tell you what I saw, and the transition, right? So you had, when COVID hit. it killed the job market, right? Companies just stopped hiring. It was a really difficult time for us, right? Because, yeah, how do you keep a business that focuses on talent moving when nobody's hiring? That's actually when we launched our mentoring program, that was really successful at the time. And at that time, it just completely stopped. No companies were hiring, nobody was looking for a job. At the end, after COVID, companies came back to the market, and if you can imagine, this is not just in our industry, this is the whole world, right? Like, every company in every industry, for all the hiring that they were planning to do, it all built up, and they went, boom, here are all the jobs that we need to hire, and we now need, immediately, right now, to hire all these people, and it flooded the market with jobs.

But people weren't really ready to make that move, because they were coming out of what had been a really uncertain period, right? So, it created this massive… it's all supply and demand. It created a huge supply of jobs, and a low demand of people willing to do those jobs. So what that meant was that companies had to work really, really hard to hire people. It meant that we saw things like a lot of flexibility, a lot of remote working, companies negotiating on things that in the past we hadn't seen them negotiate on before, salary increases that we hadn't seen happen before, people making really big stretch moves, because they were, you know, in a small talent pool of people actually willing to make the moves. So, we saw big jumps, in seniority level, and loads of things that were happening then in the market. Since then, it's almost come full circle, right? And so now, what we're seeing is a situation where

There's been layoffs, and companies actually, have, decided to reorganise, and what that has caused is a demand-supply tension, but the other way around. So it's caused a lot of people to be available on the market. companies, like, less roles open for hiring, and so now, what we're starting to see is a shift of companies really being in the driving seat. If we look at last year, like, Q4 last year, it was a tough market, you know? Like, every… like, I have never had so many conversations with senior people telling me that they never thought that they would be, looking for a job, you know, and actually that they had either been made redundant, or laid off, or

I've been speaking to consultants that were saying that actually the project flow had dried up, that clients were not hiring as much or putting as many projects out in the market, and it kind of stagnated. Now, I'm really happy to say that in February 2026, it's picking back up, right? Like, there's energy, it's still a job-short market, there are still a lot of people looking. But we're seeing more movement, we're seeing more activities, we're seeing more of our clients coming to market to say, hey, we are hiring, we're seeing more companies say, hey, we want consultants for projects. And so, it's rebounding back, although not towards where we were just after COVID.

So I'm… I'm… you know, you said… companies change the way that they're hiring. How are they hiring now? What kind of flexibility are they offering in terms of remote work, or, you know, and I also sort of wanted to get into the AI screening, aspect. You know, are they employing technologies to help them screen candidates? If so, what should the people on this call be aware of? With regard to that, like, how does that screening technology work? And then, like, you know. Where are they letting you work?

Yes, okay. So, in terms of what we're seeing, kind of, on the company side right now, companies are much more in the driving seat. So, unless… the company has truly been set up for remote work, then… Like, if, let's say a company has a team, and there's one person that's remote and everybody else is in the office. they want people in the office, right? And so we saw a shift where companies started to say, hey, we want you to be based in the office, and then if that one person wasn't willing to do that, you know, they were deciding to part ways. you know, so there are companies that still hire remotely and globally, but they are companies that really have that at the core of how they operate as a business. They're more digital, they're more agile, they, you know, they have policies that allow for those type of things to be possible. But companies that, you know, historically have had a strong office presence, we've seen, you know, want to move back to… move… move back to that.

Roles like regulatory affairs, and medical writing tend to be a little bit more flexible in terms of location, so… so we tend to see more, kind of, remote, kind of, setups with those type of roles. Roles in quality or clinical operations tend to be much more site-focused, and so it depends on the role, it depends on the seniority, but… but… we're seeing more of a shift to the companies being able to dictate, you know, this is what we want this role to be. And because of the fact that there is a lot of choice out there for companies now, with candidates on the market, they're able to essentially, you know, if somebody's saying, hey, I want a 100% remote role at above market rate, you know, and X, Y, and Z flexibility, unfortunately, the company's just saying, okay, well, we'll just choose someone who

who aligns more of what we're looking for. In terms of the, the use of AI, that's definitely… that's definitely a thing. That… but that's not new, right? So, like. companies for years, have been using ATS systems that… so, an ATS system is like, you know, if you go to a company website, and then you probably have to fill out a whole form, upload your CV, and put some stuff in there, in order to apply on their website to a job. And those ATS systems typically would rank candidates, right? So I wouldn't say that that is particularly new. what I think the biggest shift has been for us when it comes to AI is how AI has made it so much easier to apply for jobs. And so…

It's created an environment where it's… overwhelming, right? Like, so, you know, you post a job, you get 400 applicants in 2 hours, right? You go away from your desk, you come back, and you have 400 applicants who… everybody, you know, has a story, everybody has, you know, everybody's… you know, everybody wants to hear back. Everybody wants to hear back in a tailored, custom way, and so companies find it difficult to manage that. We find it difficult to manage that. And so… I think AI has created a lot of noise around the application stage. It's still there in the filtering stage, but it's really in the ability to, en masse.

You know, like, in the past, you would sit there and tailor your CV, right, for each job. You can use AI to do that en masse for 20 roles, click easy apply, and do it in an hour. And so, I think that's the challenge, and that's the real shift that we've seen when it comes to AI in the early stages of the process.

Amazing. I'm wondering if anybody on the call has had experience with applying for jobs recently, and, what, what their experience has been, if you want to volunteer to, You know, come off… come off mute. and share that with us. But while I'm asking that, I'd also like the other people to put in, you know, what's the single biggest force shaping hiring right now, in your perspective? Is it AI? Is it regulatory pressure? Is it the startup funding climate? Is it the political, atmosphere, cultural shifts, remote expectations. What do you think is the biggest thing shaping the job market? And just love to hear everybody's opinion. And you can put, you know, something other than what I said if you… if I, you know, left something out.

Did we get any volunteers for the… for the sharing their experience with looking for a job recently? I'm not sure. I wasn't… I was too busy running my mouth to, to manage that. And then, you know. I'll just ask… I'll just ask you, Elena, what do you think the… the biggest factor is right now?

the biggest factor in driving change, and it's a very good, very, very good open question. I think… the uncertainty In the market, for a lot of organizations, has, has, has led to… quite a negative market until now, although, as I said, I think it's changing. one of the biggest things that I see in terms of pressure for organisations, like, if I speak to VPs and I say, you know, what's keeping you awake at night? Is this intense pressure to have to do more with less? So, it's like, there's more global regulations, there's, like, more work to do, but companies are not giving them the same budgets that they used to, so… so they're… or even, like, even for them to maintain the same team size they have, that same team needs to do so much more work.

And so it leads to conversations around how can we optimize, and that's where you start to look at AI tools for the profession. So that's a big trend that we can see as well right now.

So we have a volunteer to come off mute. Melanie? I believe that… Am I muted?

Hey, Sean. Hi. How are you?

Good, Melanie, why don't you tell us who you are, where you're calling from?

Sure. My name is Melanie Lannan. I'm calling actually from, Palm Harbor, Florida. And I work for probably what would be considered a mid-sized medical device company. I actually kind of have a unique entrance into med tech. I was a surgical assistant, for 15 plus years. I also had opportunities to work, with doctors privately in their offices, both in their front and back office, and then work with them in surgery as well. Most of my experience has been with neurosurgery, orthopedics. general surgery, but I literally can do… did anything from cataract surgery to liver transplants.

So a wide gamut, but unfortunately, I had an injury that happened in the operating room. And I couldn't return to that career. And so, my doctor's like, well, you're too young to retire, so you're gonna need to find something else to do. And, luckily, the company that I'm in with now, I've actually been here for a little over 8 years. they were looking for a complaint reporting specialist, and so that's how I got my foot in the door. I did that for about 2 years. started asking a lot of questions about clinical affairs, knowing that that was really my passion. I wanted to still be able to help patients however I could.

And, ended up… they had a medical rider opening, and of course, I was in the OR, right? computer is fairly foreign to me, so… but my boss was like, no, no, you're gonna be really good at it, and I'm like, told her she was crazy, but, I applied for it, I got the position. And… just kind of learned a lot about clinical affairs and, you know, learned that we didn't really have the structure that we needed for the type of company that we were. And I was given the freedom, through my company to build our current clinical affairs department. So basically, we… I started it from the ground up, and I now have a team of nine, so we handle…

all this, you know, all the regulatory documents, primarily EU, but we also work globally, so I do stuff for Brazil, Australia, Canada. But we have a post-market surveillance side, we have a clinical trial side, we have clinical study side now, so it was actually really cool, and it's really unique because I can build my team with medical people. And one of my passions is to let people know about this field. and let people know that have medical experience, and maybe don't want to be in the operating room theater anymore, or maybe can't be in the operating room theater anymore. They have a way to come into this side of the field and share their experience. It's invaluable.

Because most people that are doing this don't literally have the hands-on experience with these medical devices. And we do. And so, because of that, I've been able to open up my job descriptions to allow for nurses that maybe only have a 2-year degree. People like myself that had a two-year degree, but maybe went back to school. I actually went back to school for a bachelor's in clinical research. But, you know, I mean, it opens up that field, because that experience, you can't teach that. And it's, you know, huge, and so I love the fact that my company allowed me to kind of open that to… Maybe a field of people that they would have never thought could do it.

That's a great point.

applicable.

Yeah. That is… that is… thank you for sharing that, because I think that the way that people come into med tech, you know, it's not like you get a degree in med tech in undergrad, usually, you know? Right. And we… you know, a lot of us have a variety of different backgrounds, and we… we come here in a whole series of ways. Elena. you know, listening to what Melanie just shared, you know, seeing people who might not have the exact match might think, oh, I'm not qualified to move here, I'm not qualified for this, you know. How do you see employers handling that in the job market today, in terms of, like, you know, oh, well, are they willing to take a chance?

On somebody who is a nurse, or is a, you know, whatever, a technician.

Yeah, so, so, so in particular, so this is an amazing story, so thank you for sharing that, and in particular, like, in clinical, we see, actually, now, we see companies with preference for people that actually have, like, experience within the hospital, in the field, especially when they're bringing them industry-side, because these are people who have actually lived, you know, on the other side and actually used the product, so that's actually… a value add for organisations. So, and to your point there, Sean, so… It depends, it depends, right? So, I'm a big believer in the wildcard candidate, right? I can't tell you how many candidates that I've placed that have been the wild card in my shortlist. And so, I have a knack for, you know, advocating for the wild card, which is the person that might not fit 100% on paper, but just has something a little bit different about them.

And so, if you have an organization that's open-minded to that, you know, these are the people that are… these are the people that are gonna transform, like, the way things are done, because they bring a slightly different way of thinking, you know, they have a unique experience, and so, I think that that can be really, really powerful. However, for that to happen, you need an advocate, right? Like, it needs to be either the hiring manager, or the HR, or internal talent, or if you're working with a partner like us, I'm… often the advocate. What I would say to someone who's maybe on the candidate side, though, is something very powerful, which is this story… do you know this story of the bear?

The two guys that are… okay. So, the story's something like… so, forgive me if anyone knows this, like, better than me, but this is, like, the gist of the story. There's two guys that are, like, walking in a forest, and then all of a sudden, they hear a bear. And one guy stops to tie his shoelaces. And then the other guy turns to him and says to him, what do you think you're doing? Are you crazy? Why are you stopping to tie your shoelaces? You're never gonna outrun the bear. To which the guy that tied his shoelaces turned around and said to the other guy, no, I don't have to outrun the bear, I just have to outrun you.

And this is actually something really powerful when you think about job search, right? Or anything like that. You don't need to be the perfect, most best candidate. You don't need to fill 100% of the requirements on the paper. You just need to be better than the other people that have applied. And yes, there might be 400 applicants, but I can tell you that most of them are irrelevant. And so the reality is, out of the 400, there might only be, like. 50 that are kind of, like, look actually decent, right? And out of the 50, you know, they have to align the right salary expectations. There's so many ifs and buts. So, in truth, you're probably only competing with, like, maybe

15 or 20, like, really strong candidates. And so, you don't have to be better than 400, you just need to be better than everybody else. And so, I always advocate, especially for women, women, there was a study done by LinkedIn that showed that women are less likely to apply unless they fulfill, like, 100% of the criteria. Whereas men are more likely to just throw their hat in the ring and see what happens. And so, I always encourage… so, to apply with intent. So, don't just apply, you know, if it's like… let's say it's a software development role, you have no experience in software development, obviously, right? But if you're kind of, like, at, like, 70% of the way there.

And you're not sure, give yourself the benefit of the doubt, because if you don't give it to yourself, nobody else is gonna give it for you.

So, while we're on candidates, let's go to a couple of the questions that I have written down. What makes someone stand out? You know, like, you're in the final 15. What is gonna make the person stand out? I mean, it could be any number of things, obviously, but, you know, in your experience.

for me, it's… and not just for me, sorry, but for my clients, right? What makes… what makes somebody stand out is… is… is… everything around the technical skills. So, the technical skills are going to get you to a level where you need to be, right? That, like, hits the benchmark. But then it's stuff like communication, leadership, influencing skills. And the single most important thing Is, can you understand how what you do impacts the business. and talk in business terms. And what I mean by talk in business terms is, can you literally draw the line between this thing that you're doing over here, and how that either makes or saves money for an organization? And if you can't do that, then when… when you're…

when companies talk about strategic, or leadership, or commercial acumen, what they're talking about is your ability to connect what you're doing over here in this department on this team, to how does the company actually make or save money. And so, the people that are able to go into an interview and talk about business impact, rather than, daily activities, they're the ones that get the job. Every time.

Yeah, when, I was applying for marketing jobs, I found that the magic words to say to an employer were, marketing needs to be a profit center, not a cost center. Yeah. And, saying that immediately set me apart from any number of other candidates who were just like, I want my budget, I want my team, I want my schedule, I want to know, you know, when I get my vacation time, I want to know this other stuff, and that, you know, their focus during the interview was very different than my focus. And so, that's… that's some good advice, telling people how it's going to affect their bottom line. Because a lot of times, when the C-suite is hiring, particularly, they're, really concerned with return on investment.

The other thing that I would say that, as a hiring manager, I am particularly wary of is making the wrong hire. You know, getting the dud, and then taking 6 months to figure out that you got the dud, and another 6 months to get the dud out of the role. And, you know, how can, how can we… how can we as employers avoid the wrong pick?

Yeah, it's a really… so, so, again, really, really good question, and I think… interview processes really need to change, you know? The organisations that are doing it well are the ones that are testing what people do, not what they say. And a lot of hiring has been done on gut instincts, which is… I believe in gut instincts, and I believe in having an energy… like, feeling an energy with someone, right? But I think what I see happen is that companies will not really have a clearly designed interview process to start with, so they'll kind of, like, start and then go, oh, let's pull this person in, or let's pull that person in, which creates a terrible overall experience for the candidate and demotivates them through the process.

And then on top of that, they don't… you have different stakeholders that don't have clarity on actually what they're looking for, right? So, you might have a… we're hiring a reg director, and then you might have, like, the VP's looking for one thing, the CEO's looking for something else, and then there's a business partner who's looking for something else, and they haven't come together in a conversation to say, these are the three things that we actually agree that we're looking for, and this is what we're scoring the candidate against. And so, a lot of the, mistakes around hiring the wrong people, a lot of blame is put onto the candidate for overselling and all of that. Actually, I say it's the organisations that don't have strong recruitment processes.

and don't have clarity on actually what good looks like and what they're looking for. And then the other thing is then, when you go into the interview, they ask a lot of questions, like, if you had this situation, how would you handle this situation? As opposed to, let me put you in that situation, or simulate it as much as possible, and show… and you show me what you do, right? And I think that the difference between hypothetical and actual reality, that is where you start to actually see how people respond in given environments, and so… I think with AI, I think with AI, being able to write people's CVs and helping people actually prepare scripts on what to say if they were asked this question or that question, I think companies definitely need to move towards more of a structured recruitment process where they're actually testing for specific

attributes, and also for things that you can't plan, right? So, like, how do you test for communication or leadership skills? And I'm not saying do a personality test, I'm saying, like, create a scenario where somebody has to do something, and then score objectively against that, and then use that on top of your gut instinct. These are the organizations that do it super well, and those are the ones that… I mean, mishires happen all the time, but I definitely think by doing that, you're gonna avoid… you're gonna avoid a lot of mishires.

Yeah, I know from my own hiring that, having… you know, at a lower level, you know, we just had a proofreading test. You know, take the proofreading test, and it was amazing that some of the people from Ivy League schools failed the test, and some of the people from state colleges just blew it out of the water, you know, and it was completely unexpected results, but it was… do they take the time to concentrate to get the test right, or do they do it as quickly as possible, turn it in, and, you know, just like, I'm not doing this test. So, part of the test is the willingness to do the test. But what I wanted to ask you about tests is I've also seen less than scrupulous employers that are fishing for ideas. We want to fish around for everybody's best

marketing ideas, so we want you to write a sample marketing plan for us. I've been asked to write marketing plans, and I just say no.

Yeah, yeah, free consulting, right?

They just say no. I'm not… I'm not… I'm not… you want to hire me? You want to pay me $300 an hour to write a marketing plan for you, I'll go ahead and do it. But I'm not doing free consulting. Has anybody else experienced that sort of…

Yeah.

Recruiting tactic?

I think there's a couple of things here, though, right? There's two angles to this, right? So, like, one is, like, if it's a permanent role. And if it's a permanent role, I always encourage… so. as part of our process with the companies we work for, we help design the tests, right? And actually, we have, like, a suite of tests, depending on the role type, that we can offer to offer to the companies. I'm not a believer in giving people homework, so, like, I'm not a believer in, like, take this on a Friday, work on it over the weekend, and on your interview on Monday, come and present this, like, nice strategy, and, you know, what I'm a believer of is, like, you know, here's a scenario, take 30 minutes.

And then, rough, rough, just give me, like, what you would do, right? Just, like… and here, you're looking more at, sort of, like, how they think about the problems, and how they come to where they've gone, and then you can kind of stress test. The, the free consulting piece, So, the question is why, right? And so, oftentimes. what I see is sometimes it's companies that, you know, they're fishing around, right? And they have no intention to buy. But then I think, like, as a consultant, then, how well are you qualifying that potential client, right? And filtering them out early on. And then, secondly, wouldn't it be really powerful if companies approached you because of who you were, already knew your value, and wouldn't need you to justify it? And that's where I think that visibility starts to become more and more important, because there are certain people in the industry that…

because of their name, because of… because of… because of them being known, right? And really known for what they do. like you, Sean, right? Like, if a company came to you and said, write me a free marketing strategy, you'd just be like, no, you can turn it away. comfortably, because you have a high demand, and because you're a person in demand, right? And so, my interest on the consulting side is how do we get consultants to a place where they're creating a steady stream of inbound business, where it's qualified, high-value clients coming to you, where you do less consulting, but actually, they already know your value, and you can share that value, you know, through content, which is something that

obviously you do, Sean, really, really well. And so, there are also consultants that will say, I don't post on LinkedIn because I don't want to share all my best ideas, but the thing is, if you don't, someone else will, and then they'll be the ones that the clients contact first anyway. So, I really think that there's an opportunity there for consultants to build a little bit more visibility and brand.

Let's talk about consultants some more. We got a number of consultants on the call. Martin, I saw you had your hand up earlier. Are you still there?

Yeah, I'm still paying up.

So the consultant who posts a lot on LinkedIn. You know, let's… let's… I mean, I obviously have a bias towards LinkedIn. I think that, you know, let's put in the chat, love it, hate it, don't touch it, different, you know, how do you feel about LinkedIn? You know, and… You know, Martin, you're obviously a fan, but has it helped you?

Yes! Yes, I don't have to look for work. The work comes to me. And if I hadn't made that attempt to… say, hello, I'm here. Which is, for me, what LinkedIn is all about. And hello, I'm here with substance. then… then I probably wouldn't have enough work. And I need a lot of work. That is my downside. I need a lot of work to keep me occupied, so… So I… So that's my view, yeah. Use LinkedIn to say, hello, I'm here, and say hello regularly. And I also believe it's a reinvention.

You know, the earlier question is, how did you get into MedTech? Well, I was born in MedTech. My first job was in MedTech, basically, and I've been in and out of MedTech along my journey, but basically, I've been in MedTech a long time. So… so that… that's an easy answer, but how did I get the first job? By chance, I went for an interview, and I had no clue what I was interviewing for, and I just bluffed it. And I was fortunate. But in 1979, that was probably a lot easier than it is now.

So…

So there's that whole aspect to it. But, at the end of the day. you know, and I completely agree with Eleanor and this whole thing about People have, you know, people have to show that they have value. And how do you do that? you know, I'm at a point in my… in my journey where people say, can this guy really do anything? You know, it's not enough to say, hello, I'm here. You have to be able to show that you're hands-on. And I see CVs where people write that they've done some course in using ChatGPT. That's why I put up my hand, you know, because it's like, how many CVs do you get? Because…

And when people come to me, and they say, what should I do? And I look at their CV, and I see something like that on it. It's like, take it off! Move it, you know. Get rid of it. No one's interested, because the bottom line is… is that the story is reinvention. And I'm very fortunate that I've been in… at the executive level and at the lower level, and I bounce in between. And I've remained hands-on, and a lot of people climb the ladder, and they don't remain hands-on.

But guess what?

Now It's not enough to be able to use ChatGPT, or Copilot, or Claude, or Gemini, or DeepSeek, or whatever. You have to be able to configure your own GPT. And not only that. the new… the new merge is you have to configure the skills for this GPT. It's not enough to write a description that you're a person as old as me who's been working in med tech all this time. You have to tell the thing what skills it has to have. So, yes, it's a continuous reinvention and a continuous, hello, I'm here, I reinvented myself.

That's a great point. The continuous reinvention theme, is a theme that I've been exploring, actually, with ChatGPT. I get into arguments with ChatGPT on a regular basis about the impact of the LLMs on the job market, on the employment environment, on the future of work. And I think a lot about the future of knowledge work, and I think a lot about, you know, how it is that we're going to be making money five years from now. And I'm trying to build my company and my clients' companies for that environment, for not the job market of yesterday, not the, not the, business climate of yesterday, not the website of 2 years ago, but the website of 2 years from now. And…

trying to look at it in terms of how are people going to hire consultants? How are people going to evaluate expertise when everybody sounds good on paper, you know? And that's… that's the downfall of the LLMs, is they make us all sound like rocket scientists, even if we're, you know. not. Not anywhere near that.

And this is where… this is where authority, and I've got this concept of what I call quiet authority, right? Because I think, sometimes we talk about brand and visibility, and that sounds quite marketing and sales, and I'm conscious that a lot of people in my network, a lot of the people that follow me, are not marketing and salespeople and didn't want to be a Disney princess when they were growing up, right? So, actually, there's this concept of quite authority, and actually, I'm building something that's gonna, you know, help people in that space, but it's like… if you're introverted, there's still a space for you, right? And I got an invite from LinkedIn to Davos to join the LinkedIn Lounge, where I had literally an interview with the chief editor of LinkedIn about what works in the feed, and they are prioritizing deep.

specialist knowledge on technical topics. It's, like, the best place for you guys to be, in terms of sharing your knowledge and expertise. The feeds will be picking it up if you're consistent, and it will prioritize it. And Martin and Sean are great examples of people that are doing it right now, and that are seeing the results. And something that really changed for me when I really understood the power of it is this concept that you see often in marketing, so Sean, this would be really obvious for you, but it's this concept of one-to-one versus one-to-many. And it's this thing of, like. Traditionally, you would grow your business by having one-to-one conversations. You go to an event, you meet someone, you have a coffee. You jump on a one-to-one video call, you have a coffee, you pitch for business one-to-one. And so, your time is on a one-to-one basis. However, the power of LinkedIn, if you get it right, or any kind of social media, is you can speak to many people. So, with every post, I speak to, you know.

30,000 people, right? And so, immediately, the reach is significantly broader. And I can't speak to 30,000 people in a day. Even if I go to an event, even, you know, unless it's an event with 30,000 people in the audience, it's very difficult. LinkedIn gives you the platform to be able to do that. And so, if you start to share your knowledge and expertise, not in a boastful way, but you start to see, if you're a consultant and you work across multiple clients, you're going to start to see trends. because you're going to start to see clients saying the same things over and over again. All you gotta do is share that, right? Share that as a trend and an insight, and how you're dealing with it for one client. And then what will happen is someone in the feed will see that and feel that, oh, I'm having that same problem, and that person's… Martin's doing that for three other companies, and actually Martin's going to help me, and so I'm going to reach out to Martin. And so, Patricia, who's an amazing consultant, but has been keeping her head down because that's the noble

thing to do, won't be approached by the potential client. Martin will receive the client, because he's positioned himself as a person of authority in that space. And that's where I think the big opportunity is for people that are in consulting right now. And then the other thing is that if you build obviously this authority around your name, it doesn't matter about AI, it doesn't matter about… any of that, because you… there is only one you, right? And so, it builds a moat around… around you, your business, and your experience that is very difficult to, for somebody to come and take away. So, that's my two cents on it.

I, you know, first of all, agree 100% with what you're saying. You know, MLV was started to find the MedTech leading voices, to find the people that were sharing value. openly and generously on LinkedIn, and is a LinkedIn-centric platform, which is built entirely around that, and the way that it's… that it's morphed over time, has been to expand outward into other areas and into this idea of community. And the community is the moat. for MLV. It is the… these interactive calls, it is the weekly, you know, we had 3 calls this week. You know, and just to be providing value

over and over and over again, to the community. Now, we have 9 minutes left. I want to make sure that we give Jose a chance to show what we've been building, because I think that it's pretty interesting. It's called MLVX.ai. It is an AI-powered platform, but it is an AI-powered empowered community. And… here we have collected the MLV100 for 2026. These are people that are worth following on LinkedIn. It's not to say, if you're not on the list, that you're not worth following on LinkedIn. But I'd really love it if everybody who was on this call take a moment and log in with… you can log in with, LinkedIn, or you can log in with Google.

Email.

Yeah, and I know some of you were on the call last week where we introduced this, so the idea is not to go over the whole thing and rehash it, but we're improving it week by week, and we're doing it with the feedback from you guys, from this community, so I thought today I would just show you the stuff that's changed in the last week, based on feedback from you guys. So, like, one thing, and if you weren't here last week, I'll give you the quick crash course. So there's an AI search element, and there's an expert search element, and this is a great segue from what Elena was just saying about really,

the only way that you're going to be known in the community is if you're posting good content, right? If you're showing your expertise by writing pieces and by showing that off. So, we've added a new feature now where you know, not only do you have the experts directory, where you can search people by categories, for example, like, I don't know, digital health, you'll see a variety of people, or, you know, marketing and sales, you'll see Sean up there. But now we've also… we're pulling in LinkedIn posts from the experts. And so, if you're posting, like, Martin posts very regularly, so of course, you might expect to see him. Gunter posts quite a bit, and so you can kind of scroll through here, and the nice thing is that you're getting posts from the experts. You can click on an expert, like, if you have the card expert, and see their particular post in one place.

And then you can see all experts. So that's kind of a cool new feature, we're still improving it. It's not pulling, like, everything that gets posted yet, we're trying to improve that. But if you have a particular post that you want to show off, you would just come into the left, navigation panel and just click Share Post. And then you drop in your own post on here, and say share posts, and it'll show up. You can only share your post, you can't share somebody else's post right now. But yeah, so that's kind of a cool new feature that we've just added. And then the other one, So this one was born from a conversation with Carrie, who,

So she was in a chat, and, you know, like, we've only got… okay, so the idea here is what differentiates the chat from ChatGPT here. is that we've got a database of, like, guidance documents from FDA, from the EU, etc, but more importantly, we've got a database of content from you, from the experts. So, blog posts, transcripts from webinars. Pretty much anything that you as an expert want to upload, it'll go to a review, to a content review, and then, you know, so long as it's relevant, we would approve it, and then it gets ingested into the database, so when you ask a question, it's going to provide a response

That cites the experts, and it's pulling information from their content, as well as relevant guidance documents. But what happens… so what happened to Carrie is that she was having a conversation with the chatbot, and she saw that the guidance document it was citing was, outdated. So there was… there was one that was released just this year, and so she's like, oh, no, there's a new one, and she dropped in the URL for that. And it's like, okay, cool, but it didn't have a mechanism to ingest that. into the knowledge base. So now, if you're having a conversation with the chatbot, and let's say, you know, I just…

I just put one in here, but, I'll do it again, because I rejected it. So if you drop it in here, and you're like, hey, can you add this to the database? Like, here's a guidance document that I don't think you have in there, and I think you should add it. You would, you know, you just drop in the URL, or you can also use this attach, and just drop in a PDF as an example. put that in there, and it's gonna recognize that you're trying to upload content to the database, and it's gonna show a pop-up that says, hey, we successfully extracted content from the URL, do you want to submit it for admin review?

and potential inclusion into the knowledge base. So, it's a check, because if you, you know, if you happen to upload something that is proprietary you don't want in the knowledge base, then… you know, you wouldn't click agree here. So we want to give it a chance. We don't, you know, we don't read your chats, we don't read anything you upload, unless you click this agree button and say, I want this in the knowledge base. And so you would click this agree. And then on the admin side, we would get a notification that says, hey, somebody uploaded this for ingestion, and then we would do it. You know, and it's telling us here, no, this reference is not currently in the knowledge base, but I can see the content. So, in the conversation, you can ask it questions about that particular content piece, or guidance document, or whatever that you just uploaded.

But in addition to that, in this case, it was sent to administrative review so that we could insert it into the, into the knowledge base. And, you know, benefit the whole community. And, you know, what's cool about this is, like, if I kind of look at… I've done lots and lots of chats. Let me see if there's a good one I can pull up. Maybe not that. Yeah, so if you ask a question, and it's able to match it to content from an expert, it shows you the content, and then it shows you also the experts. So you can then, like, you know, if you imagine a startup who's, like, trying to learn about DIS 18969,

and they see this, and then they see that Danielle had, like, some… something intelligent to say about this, and then they click on her profile, and they go here, and they're like, okay, this is somebody whose specialization is clinical, and she has a slide, and all of that. So, it's a really great way for the community to see who the experts in the field are. So, that's it.

Yeah, as an expert, it's a great way to catalog your best work, and to have it not go away the way it does on LinkedIn. But as a user, as a seeker of information, as somebody who, You know, wants to just ask questions and get answers, and know where the answers are coming from, and understand, that… I mean, one of my big problems with ChatGPT is, like, you know, it will just give you the answer, but it won't say who said it, or where it came from, or anything meaningful about it, and you're like, well, how do I even know this is true? You know? You know, my dog was having a problem with her eye, and I'm asking questions, and I'm like, according to whom?

You know, and that is the fundamental basis of journalism, is, you know, according to, you know, employment expert Elena Curia, you know, and then it's followed by, you know, a statement, but it's not an unsupported opinion. You know, that is… that is… well, how do… how do I know? How do I know I can trust this person? How do I know I can trust this opinion? You know? So…

Just… and one last minor note here, the reason these features are being added, it's because of you guys, right? As you're asking, so if you look, you know, as you register, and then look over here where it says send feedback, if you log in a bug, or a feature request, or everything else, we're looking at these on a daily basis, and the features that we're adding are primarily driven by that. Other features that we have coming but aren't implemented, but you'll see it here, is, like, courses. So, you know, we're looking to build that out over the next few weeks. And so, right now, if you've already got ideas, you know, submit them. But again, if you have ideas for other features that you think would be valuable to you guys, please let us know.

If you register, and you already have… if there's already an expert page, and you register, then look… look up your… your expert page here. I don't know, Elena, if you… do you have one? Maybe. Yeah, look.

Oh, yeah.

There you are, right? So, Elena, like, when you register and you come on here, what you'll see is, like, under this banner, there's gonna be a little thing that says, is this your profile? It's not showing it to me because I'm already linked to an expert profile, but if… if you… register, and you look yourself up, and you have an expert profile, look for that little link and click on it, and it'll send us a request to link your account to the profile page, and then at that point, you'll be able to come on here and, edit your profile and look at your dashboard, like, there's… there's a dashboard here. Actually, that's only if you're…

Well, no, if you're an expert, you'll be able to see it here. And then there's other features that are… I mean, this is… there are upgrade options where you can upgrade, to, like, a full expert account, so… that would give you more things that you can do, but you can always… everybody can, if you have an expert account, you can update your profile. That's a thing that everyone can do. All right.

The last thing that I'm going to say about this is that, in order to get this thing off the ground, we need a lot of users. So I want everybody on this call to take a moment and go to MLVX.ai and just log in. Those of you who would like to claim an expert account, please write expert in the chat, and we will make arrangements for this to happen. Third of all, Ask me for the promo code, to… if you help us promote this thing, if you're willing to promote this thing on your, LinkedIn, or what have you, to your network, we will give you 3 months free, right? Is that correct? Am I lying?

Nope, that's true.

Right. So, you know, you look at the pricing on this thing, and then you say, I want 3 months free access. So, while we're building the thing, while the thing is getting better, but what I'm saying is get in early, get in often, start playing with the thing, start using the thing, because, You know, we're just incredibly excited about… about this, and… We're here for you, you know, at the end of the day. I mean, my goal was… most people can't afford my services. How do I promote… how do I promote the individual consultant? How do I promote the individual expert who does not have time to hire a marketing department, or a marketing agency, or spend all their time doing marketing? How does that person get new clients? That was the challenge that I set out to solve.

You know? And so this… and with Jose's help, this is what we built, and I just love it. It's afternoon, so I appreciate everyone, especially Elena, for joining us today. Elena, I'd like to give you a minute or two to say goodbye to everyone and ask them How… how you can help them. You know, tell them how you can help them.

Yes, so, if you're, if you're hiring, obviously, please get in touch. We, we have both, permanent and consultant service offerings for, for organisations. If you're looking for a job, of course, get in touch. If you're interested, as well in learning how to, build quiet authority, please follow me, I'm talking more about that. I also, for a select few, I do it kind of, once a month, I do LinkedIn profile, personalized LinkedIn profile reviews that I pre-record and send, so if you want, actually, my expert advice on your LinkedIn profile, please send me a DM on LinkedIn, and I will, I'll share with you, the way to

To, to sign up for that. But yeah, I think that's everything, and I've got a podcast where I interview executive leaders. I've got the CEO of MedTech Europe on the next one, that's going to be released late March, so if you want to hear stories from people that are, you know, in their career and have career advice and get mentoring from them, you can listen to the podcast, it's called Career Diaries by Eleamed. And, thank you again, Sean, for the opportunity to come on and share some insights.

Thank you so much, and I want to thank, all the people who gave up their time today and joined us. We'll be back next week, speaker to be announced, but, yeah, I'm excited for March. I can't believe it's March already. And, thank you, Jose. Thank you, Stephanie, thank you, Martin. Thank you, Melanie, and everyone else who contributed to today's call. You know, don't be shy. I want you guys to understand that this is your community, and to contribute to it, and to write to me on LinkedIn, and say, hey, Sean. you know, I want more of this. I want, you know… and tell me what you want. Don't… You know, I don't bite. That's it for me. Thanks, everyone, and

Have a very enjoyable weekend.

Thank you, everyone. Bye-bye.

Bye.