Industry-Agnostic. Integrity-First. The Traits of an A-Player.

Hot Alabama summers laying bricks with his dad taught James Briley one thing early: he wanted work that didn't depend on the weather. What followed was a career that moved through more industries than most people ever touch, and that flexibility turned out to be the secret to his success. James now leads M&A IT integrations at Thermo Fisher Scientific, and the common thread from bricklaying to life sciences is simpler than it sounds: build skills that travel, lead with integrity, and don't sit on problems you can't fix.

Read the full article below:

What is a top takeaway from your career?

Focus on skills that are industry-agnostic. Project management is a good example. One industry to the next, it's not so different. If you want options and resilience in your career, think about what skills will translate no matter where you land.

How do you foster a team player?

The thing that comes to mind most is autonomy and flexibility. If you have a solid resource and you give them that flexibility and autonomy, they won't just perform well within the team. They'll flex in and out to support adjacent teams, too. That's what makes people genuinely valuable inside an organization.

What are the biggest red flags when it comes to team culture?

Finger pointers. There's no place on my teams for people playing the blame game. Everybody should take responsibility for whatever's in front of them. And on my teams, we go above and beyond that. If there's a problem adjacent to us and we have the ability to help, we try to do that. That's what makes a team valuable.

We also try to take away the stigma of making a mistake. If you have a high degree of autonomy, you're going to make mistakes. That's fine. What I tell my team is: don't sit and own a problem you can't fix. Bad news doesn't get better with time. Escalate it, get the help you need, take the lesson, and move on.

What characteristic has most shaped how you lead?

Integrity. Say what you're going to do, do what you say. If you can just do that consistently, you'll be head and shoulders above 80% of the people around you. A lot of people overpromise and underdeliver. You want to be on the other side of that. 

Tell us about a hire that's been significant to your journey.

There’s a good one and a not-so-good one.

The good one: Early in my career, I had passed over a candidate because he had a felony arrest on his record from about 30 years prior. He'd disclosed it, as he should. My boss at the time looked past it, saw everything the candidate had done since, and pushed to bring him in. He had clearly turned his life around. We hired him, and he was a fantastic resource. That was a lesson I never forgot. Look past the one or two disqualifiers if everything else is strong. Bring them in and have a conversation.

The other one: we hired a gentleman who looked great on paper. Technically capable. But as soon as he came through the door, there was a cultural clash. He could not get along with his colleagues, and even with a lot of coaching, some people aren't going to change their stripes. We eventually had to let him go. I'm a flexible person. I can talk to anyone about almost anything without getting flustered. But not everyone is built that way, and there's nothing wrong with that. He just wasn't a fit for our team.

What's the hardest part of finding the right people?

Especially in a niche area like M&A IT integrations, the candidate pool just isn't deep. There aren't a lot of people with anything more than passing experience in that specific intersection of skills. And when the pool is shallow, you're also dealing with price point challenges and sometimes cultural misalignment on top of that. You really learn: you get what you pay for.

What advice would you give a job seeker?

First, if you keep seeing a certification listed in job postings that you don't hold, don't assume your resume will magically get through the filter. Go get the certification. Get the training, get some experience. And I’ll emphasize here: you don't need a paying job to get experience.

Second, if it's still not working, stop sending resumes from your couch and start going to industry events. You're not there to hand out resumes or ask for a job. You're there to make connections, let people know you're looking, and let word of mouth do its work. I mentored a young man fresh out of college who was stuck. I told him to make business cards and start showing up to events. Within a couple of months, he had an offer from a firm he really wanted.

I'd say 80% of my best candidates came to me through word of mouth. People won't hand you a bad resource. It reflects on them. Think of it like recommending a restaurant. You're not going to send someone somewhere you're not confident about.

Is there anything specific job seekers should know about Thermo Fisher?

If you're coming out of the military and you're not sure you have the right experience for life sciences, Thermo Fisher is a great place to look. We're very active in supporting veterans. In the last year, we piloted a program with the KYO Group, an organization that lets service members try out private industry within their last six months of service, before they even leave. We started it within our division of about 8,000 people, and it worked so well that we rolled it out to the broader organization.

It doesn't matter how much time you have in service or what your service was. We've brought in infantrymen with no technical background and found places for them. We've brought in someone who made it to Inspector General in the Air Force and slotted him into a senior role. Motivated people pay off. If you're in this position, look up the KYO Group and start the conversation.

What skill will matter most going forward?

Learn to use AI. It's not going anywhere, and the worst version of it exists today. Tomorrow it will be better. The fear that it will replace everyone is overblown, but here's the real secret: AI cannot be completely autonomous. There has to be a human in the loop because a machine isn't responsible; it isn't accountable. So the people who will win are the ones who know how to use it well.

Start with the basics. Get a certification if you can. But understand that it's for more than writing quick emails. There are use cases where it's genuinely changing industries. Problems that never made sense to throw manpower at before are suddenly solvable. If you needed to read 30,000 contracts and didn't want to hire 100 paralegals for 10 years, that problem is gone. You still have to check the work. It will hallucinate. But these were once insurmountable problems. Now they're manageable.

Thank you for sharing, James.

If you’re interested in getting to know James, check out his LinkedIn here.

Job seekers: Thermo Fisher Scientific posts actively on LinkedIn. If you're a veteran or job seeker interested in life sciences, their openings are worth a look. Check out their job openings here.