Srust

Good networking is an advantageous soft skill for corporate professionals, but for those in the scientific research community, networking is an essential tool to stay abreast of the latest research trends, pursue new research collaboration, and find leads for employment opportunities. This is because the industry has no democratized approach to recruiting scientists and R&D professionals, like dedicated job sites or recruitment agencies, as in the case of other professions.

Kota Nozaki realized the challenge firsthand when he was working as an intern while pursuing his biomedical science degree. He saw a massive gap in the recruitment market for post-doctoral fellows in the R&D industry. Even more shocking was the below industry-standard remuneration of the scientists. In the pursuit of creating a way for Ph.D. scholars to find jobs and income that match their abilities, Nozaki established Srust.

“We believed in the potential of scientists more than the scientists themselves, which helped us in building a favorable ‘market,’ for them, both in terms of their economic and skills upliftment,” states Nozaki, founder and CEO of Srust.

Srust has made this possible through their SaaS-based skill-share matching platform, free ist, tailored to meet the scientific community workforce requirements in the R&D field. The platform is designed as a single source of truth for scientists and R&D companies. While researchers can leverage the platform to find suitable positions that match their skills, R&D companies can use the platform to share their job vacancy listings and find their ideal full- or part-time talent with just a few clicks.

free-ist is especially beneficial for R&D professionals in countries like China that do not have access to western social networking platforms like LinkedIn. free-ist’s business and operation model is not like a conventional social networking site, and can be freely used in regions with stringent government rules on content censorship. Srust recently established a new subsidiary in China, a ‘good start’ for the scientific community in the country.

The services of free-ist can be availed via two simple business models. R&D companies, such as deep-tech startups, can either pay a monthly subscription fee and access the free-ist database to send a direct text message to a registered candidate. Or, they can appoint Srust as their internal HR to recruit suitable candidates, paying a standard agency fee for each hire, based on the candidate’s first-year earnings.

While researchers can leverage the platform to find suitable positions that match their skills, R&D companies can use the platform to share their job vacancy listings and find their ideal full- or part time talent with just a few clicks

The value of the free-ist platform can be found in a recent instance where a biotech company sought its help to recruit full-time life sciences researchers. After onboarding the skill matching platform, the client that once struggled to source talent with very specialized competencies was not only hiring at a fast pace, but it was also building a strong relationship with a network of researchers for further business developments.

The combination of such success stories and the unique capabilities of its portfolio make Srust a go-to recruitment partner for both R&D companies and scientists seeking to enhance their respective HR capabilities and skills. There are already more than 1,000 scientists across 50 countries registered to free-ist. Based on this unique global platform, Srust will expand their business not only in Japan, but in America, Europe, China, and Asia.