Building Careers and Community: Key Insights from OUTbio Seattle x Women in Bio Career Expo 2025

Recently, Head of Commercial Client Development and Strategy; Imogen Simpkin, had the privilege of participating in the OUTbio Seattle x Women in Bio Seattle Careers Event, an event to celebrate the Seattle community and the career opportunities there.

Imogen was lucky to be joined by SciPro and LHi Representatives; Laura Caswell, Cat Cappell-Schultze, Bianca Ramirez and Shaina Alizadeh.

The event was nothing short of remarkable, with a crowd of Seattle locals who were interested in networking and finding out more in terms of how they can boost they job searches, team build outs and to meet like minded individuals.

Both Imogen and Laura, were lucky enough to be able to present to the crowd, sharing valuable insights that set the stage for key discussions:

 

Key Takeaway 1: How Recruitment Partners Make Job Searches Easier 

For Imogen, this covered how to use a Recruitment Partner to your advantage, from how to be spotted, how they can assist you on your job search but also help you build your team. The main takeaways being that on all angles it should make your search less time consuming, less stressful and more enjoyable.  Furthermore, you have to find a recruitment partner your trust, think of it as finding your “person”.

 

Key Takeaway 2: Benefits and Misconceptions of Contract/Interim/Consulting

For Laura, this was tailored to Interim Solutions and how utilizing alternative solutions can also be advantageous to both clients and candidate. She was able to share common misconceptions and potentially the mistakes individuals make when engaging with, or entering into, the Contract space. 

 

What Others Thought of the Event

"SciPro genuinely seems to care deeply not just about achieving the business goals of their company and their clients, but in raising up and supporting the community of biotech workers who are currently struggling to find their next opportunity." - Michelle Briscoe, COO and CFO, Talus Bio

“Our January 15th Career Expo showed just how powerful it is when companies like SciPro step up to support our community. Imogen, Cat, Bianca, Laura, and Shaina went above and beyond, taking time to connect with each person who came their way and offering real, thoughtful career guidance. The feedback we've received has been amazing - attendees told us they felt energized and ready to tackle the job search with renewed confidence. That's exactly the kind of impact we hoped for when we envisioned this partnership, and this is what is possible when organizations step up and truly support diverse professional communities.

On behalf of OUTbio Seattle's leadership team, thank you, SciPro, for believing in our community and helping make this happen. We're excited to keep building on this partnership and creating more opportunities for our community to grow and thrive.”
Naomi Schwartz, Co-Founder and President, OUTbio.

 

Overall Takeaways

It was amazing to connect with the Seattle market and to be able to speak with so many amazing people from the OUTbio and Women In Bio community.

For us, we love to be able to support different communities nationally in relation to building diverse workforces across the Life Sciences Industry.   

If you are able to attend any of the OUTbio or Women in Bio events (Seattle or not), I would highly recommend. It is such a great way to network with likeminded local people. Furthermore, when you are looking to decide on who your recruitment partner should be, whether you are searching for a new role and/or building a team, make sure you find someone who makes sense for you and that is going to be proactive on your behalf.

There is so much great talent in the Seattle area and it was great to connect with them.

We look forward to partnering with OUTbio and Women in Bio again in future!