Meet Grace Rowley, Head of Talent Acquisition.

At Owlstone Medical, the problems we are trying to solve are enormously difficult, but our people are our greatest asset. To enable our progress in working towards our company goal, to save 100,000 lives and $1.5 billion in healthcare costs, we have developed a dynamic working environment that allows our talented and dedicated team to flourish.

In this interview, we spoke to Grace Rowley, our Head of Talent Acquisition. Grace has worked at Owlstone Medical for just over 5 years, and her role in our company helps us recruit the best people to support our company goals.

Can you tell us a bit about yourself?

My early career started in events and marketing where I found a passion for supporting people into their dream roles and seeing how their careers developed in the companies I worked for. This naturally led me to talent acquisition, and I have worked in this area for 13 years. Recently I have been navigating my career and baby life as a mum to an active toddler. I am a country girl at heart, and I love nothing more than escaping to the countryside after a day in the office, where you can normally find me on the back of a horse, walking our labrador with a chicken and toddler in tow!

You have been at Owlstone for 5 years! What is your favourite thing about working with us?

I have many favourite things so picking one will be hard! For me, it’s the incredible people I work with who come from all over the world. Every day I have interesting and inspiring conversations where I learn something new. At Owlstone there is a great sense of comradery as we are all working hard to achieve the same outcome – to save 100,000 lives. I have also experienced the impact of late disease diagnosis in my family, so I am proud to work for a company that is pushing for early disease diagnosis; every day we get closer is a day we can make a difference to lives across the globe.

Could you give us a brief description of what being Head of Talent Acquisition entails?

I work with leaders across the business to identify and understand the needs of the business as well as skills gaps in individual teams. From there I can focus on how to recruit the best people who will not only help the company now but also support our company's growth in the future. In my role I work with different organizations to talk about our employer brand, what makes us unique as a business, and find ways to share that with people who are interested in joining Owlstone.

What do you love most about working in Talent Acquisition?

I love seeing the impact and development of the people I support bringing to Owlstone. We hire people from all over the world to help solve difficult problems. Seeing everyone work together and get closer to solving these problems is hugely rewarding, even more so when I get to see people's careers develop and progress over time. I can look at individuals who we hired as associate scientists who have developed and are now leading their teams, watching that progression is super exciting and I love it!

Could you tell us about some of the current vacancies at Owlstone?

We have some amazing opportunities as scientists, in our analytical research and development group, who work across both customer studies and our hepatology programme. Our quality team is also growing to support progressing us through some exciting developments that will allow us to progress with our medical research and development of medical devices. There are some vacancies in our commercial team to help us continue commercializing elements of Owlstone Medical. You can view all of our current vacancies here.

What advice do you have for someone looking to work at Owlstone Medical?

Make sure you are clear in your application on how your experience and skills match the roles that you are applying for. Ensure you are well-researched in who we are as a business and use this to strengthen your application and highlight the impact you could make should you be successful; this will help your application stand out. We are a small talent team and we review every application that Owlstone receives, so you have the benefit of a human reading your application rather than AI! But in today's economy, we are in a situation where there are a larger-than-normal amount of applicants for vacancies, and it isn’t uncommon to see over 1000 applications for one role within a couple of weeks, where there may only be one open opportunity. If you can differentiate yourself with your skillset and relevancy to the role you are applying to, it will really help!

Cambridge has a great amount of local networking groups and opportunities to learn from your peers, I would suggest getting involved in those and keeping your LinkedIn experience up to date if you are out of work. Most importantly, don’t get disheartened, it can be challenging when navigating unemployment and finding a role, but you will get there and find the right role and company for you, Owlstone is mine!

If you would like to join Grace and the rest of our talented team to help us save 100,000 lives and $1.5 billion in healthcare costs, then head over to our website to see our current vacancies. Come and join a company that truly makes a difference.