Frequently Asked Questions.

- About Us

  • Bakar Smith is a specialist talent firm for the Pharma, Biotech and MedTech industries in Australia and across APAC. We offer two core solutions: Executive & Specialist Search for high-impact individual hires, and Tailored Talent Solutions for organisations that need flexible, embedded, or advisory-based talent support. Our founders have each spent 15-20 years leading talent functions in-house, in RPO, and in agency — so we understand your world from the inside.

  • Most recruitment agencies are generalists who recruit across multiple industries. We only work in Pharma, Biotech and MedTech. That means we already know your market, your roles, your competitors, and the talent landscape. We're also a senior-led firm — every engagement is run by a founding director, not a junior recruiter. And beyond search, we offer embedded partnerships and talent advisory that most traditional agencies don't touch.

  • Bakar Smith was founded by Sharmia Bakar and Rob Smith. Sharmia brings more than 15 years of experience in talent acquisition and specialist sourcing across commercial, medical affairs, regulatory and market access functions in Pharma, Biotech and MedTech. Rob brings 15+ years leading talent acquisition and development functions at organisations including AstraZeneca, Philips, Cochlear and Stryker. Together they've supported thousands of hires across Australia and the region.

  • We work exclusively within Pharma, Biotech and MedTech. This includes pharmaceutical companies, biotechnology firms, medical device and diagnostics organisations, CROs, and specialist healthcare consultancies. We do not recruit across other industries — life sciences is all we do.

  • We are based in Sydney, Australia. We recruit primarily across Australia and New Zealand, with APAC regional experience across markets including Singapore, Japan, and Southeast Asia.

- For employers

  • We recruit across a broad range of commercial, medical, scientific and operational roles. This includes General Managers, Country Managers, Medical Directors, Market Access Directors, Commercial Directors, Heads of Sales and Marketing, Medical Science Liaisons, Regulatory Affairs Managers, Clinical Trial Managers, Scientific Directors and more. We do not recruit GP or junior sales roles. Our focus is senior, specialist and leadership-level positions.

  • Yes — and this is one of our specialties. We understand that no two organisations are the same. Whether you need a single critical hire, an embedded recruiter who becomes part of your team, or strategic talent advice on your hiring model, we design an engagement around your specific needs. Start with a discovery call and we'll work out the right approach together.

  • Bakar Smith specialises in exactly this. We have deep experience working with early-stage and scaling biotechs — from founding commercial hires to building out full functions. We understand the specific challenges of commercialising in Australia, including market access, regulatory pathways, and the competitive talent landscape. Many of our biotech clients don't have internal HR teams, so we operate as their outsourced talent function.

  • Yes. We have experience recruiting senior leadership and executive roles for ASX-listed life sciences companies, including confidential searches where discretion is critical. We can also support market mapping and succession planning for board and C-suite roles.

  • Yes. Our specialist search covers commercial, medical, regulatory, and scientific functions. This includes Regulatory Affairs Managers and Directors, Scientific Affairs leads, Business Development Managers, Medical Science Liaisons, Market Access specialists, and related roles across Pharma, Biotech and MedTech.

  • Bakar Smith is one of a small number of firms in Australia that focuses exclusively on Pharma, Biotech and MedTech. Our specialisation spans both commercial leadership (General Managers, Sales Directors, Marketing Directors, Country Managers) and medical and scientific leadership (Medical Directors, Medical Affairs Managers, Regulatory Affairs Directors). Our founders have each spent 15-20 years inside these industries, which gives us a depth of market knowledge that generalist search firms can't replicate.

  • Bakar Smith provides market mapping and talent intelligence as part of our executive search and talent advisory services. We map the external leadership landscape across commercial and scientific functions in Pharma, Biotech and MedTech — including competitor benchmarking, candidate profiling, and succession intelligence. This work can be delivered as a standalone advisory project or as part of a search engagement.

  • Bakar Smith offers both executive search and tailored talent advisory for biotechs preparing to commercialise in Australia. This can include identifying and placing founding commercial leaders, advising on team structure and hiring sequencing, developing employer brand, and mapping the external talent landscape for critical roles. We understand the pressures of commercialisation timelines and design our engagement model accordingly.

  • Bakar Smith recruits across all three of these disciplines in Australia and New Zealand. Market access, medical affairs and regulatory affairs are core areas of our specialist search practice. Our team has direct experience placing these roles at global pharmaceutical companies, specialty pharma organisations, and ASX-listed biotechs across ANZ.

  • We use a combination of proprietary market mapping, active network intelligence, LinkedIn Recruiter, and our Leadership Capability Framework — developed through research with more than 50 senior leaders across Australian Pharma and Biotech. This framework assesses candidates across six leadership capabilities that our research identified as critical for the next era of pharma leadership. For succession planning and talent advisory engagements, we provide structured candidate scorecards and market intelligence reports.

- Tailored Talent Solutions

  • An embedded talent partner operates as part of your internal team rather than as an external agency. In practice, this means working in your systems, under your brand, alongside your managers — managing recruitment as if we were a member of your staff. The difference from a traditional recruiter is the depth of integration: we understand your culture, your hiring managers, your EVP, and your pipeline. For organisations without an internal TA function, it's the most cost-effective way to access senior recruitment expertise.

  • Fractional Talent Acquisition means accessing dedicated recruitment expertise at a fraction of a full-time equivalent — for example, 0.2, 0.4, or 0.6 FTE. Rather than hiring a full-time internal recruiter you may not need every day, you engage a senior recruitment resource for the specific number of days your pipeline requires. We structure the engagement around your actual needs and scale it up or down as your hiring activity changes.

  • On-Demand is a per-role model — you engage us for each individual hire as needed. It covers end-to-end recruitment coordination including job briefing, advertising, CV review, interview scheduling, and offer management. Retained Partnership is a monthly engagement where we become your dedicated embedded talent resource. It includes everything in the On-Demand model plus active headhunting, talent pool management, market mapping, and employer brand support. Most clients start on-demand and move to retained as the relationship grows.

  • Yes — and this is one of our most common scenarios. Many of our clients have HR teams that handle generalist people functions but don't have dedicated recruitment or sourcing capability. We complement your existing team by providing the proactive talent acquisition expertise they don't have bandwidth for. We operate as an extension of your team, not a replacement for it.

  • For early-stage biotechs, talent advisory typically focuses on helping founders and leadership teams make smart hiring decisions as they commercialise. This might include advising on the right sequence of hires, designing the employer brand and candidate proposition, reviewing the hiring process, or mapping the external talent landscape before making a critical appointment. We've worked with biotechs from seed stage through to ASX listing and understand the unique talent challenges at each stage of growth.

  • Yes. Our succession planning service provides external market intelligence to help organisations understand the leadership landscape before a critical role becomes vacant. We map potential successors externally, assess them against your capability framework, and deliver a structured succession intelligence report. This can be delivered as a one-off project or maintained as an ongoing pipeline. We also offer internal succession context review where relevant.

  • At Bakar Smith, talent benchmarking is built into both our executive search and succession planning work. We use active market mapping to identify relevant leaders across competitor and adjacent organisations, our proprietary Leadership Capability Framework to assess candidates against six critical leadership dimensions, and structured scorecards to give clients a clear picture of the external talent landscape relative to their internal bench. This intelligence is included as standard in our succession planning engagements.

- Candidates

  • The best starting point is a conversation. Many of the roles we recruit for are never advertised — they come through our network and client relationships before they reach a job board. You can book a call with Sharmia or Rob directly, or browse our current advertised roles via our job portal. Either way, getting on our radar early is the most valuable thing you can do.

  • We work with mid-to-senior level professionals across Pharma, Biotech and MedTech. This includes commercial, medical affairs, regulatory, market access, marketing, scientific, and operational functions. We focus on experienced professionals — typically those with a minimum of five years in the industry — rather than graduate or entry-level roles.

  • We recruit nationally across Australia, with the majority of roles based in Sydney, Melbourne, and Brisbane. We also recruit for ANZ-regional roles based in New Zealand, and APAC regional positions that may require candidates with willingness to travel or relocate.

  • We take a hands-on approach with candidates we represent. This includes thorough preparation before each interview, regular communication throughout the process, honest feedback whether successful or not, and support through offer negotiation and onboarding. We represent both you and the client — which means we'll tell you the things that help you make the right decision, not just the things that close the deal.

  • Yes — and this describes the majority of the people we place. The best opportunities often go to people who weren't actively looking. Getting on our radar early means you hear about roles before they're advertised, often with context about the organisation and team that you wouldn't get from a job board. A confidential, no-obligation conversation is always the right first step.