If you are a sales professional or want to become one, or if you are looking for a new sales job, you will face one of the toughest interview processes of any job seeker.
Are you on LinkedIn? If not, you should be. Not only is LinkedIn an invaluable component of your professional network, it’s an fantastic resource for information about pharmaceutical and health care revenue.
For example, in the Sales Café group, this is a discussion:
What’s your opinion of the American Institute of Pharma Sales Academy?
The discussion started with a question from a recent college graduate interested in clinical sales and was wondering if pharmaceutical revenue training programs were a valuable territory for someone with the degree, but no experience.
He got several responses from health care industry executives, revenue reps, and others, including me (the medical laboratory revenue recruiter), and generated a few more questions from more experienced jobseekers who do have the sales experience, just not the clinical revenue experience. (Just looking at the caliber of the people in the discussion will show you how fine it’s to participate in LinkedIn groups.)
The trend of the discussion seems to be that medical revenue training programs are a big investment with questionable value, and that employers focus more on hiring sales reps with a nice attitude, communication skills, and interpersonal skills, along with the technical knowledge. Although it’s acknowledged that medical revenue can be a hard field to break into, and candidates are looking for an edge.
My input was that since I’ve never participated in a training program, I don’t know how fine they are. As a career coach, I see value in training and job preparation, although I don’t know if that’s what would give you the edge in a job offer. As a medical sales recruiter, I’ve never had a client company ask for a candidate with these certifications, and I’ve never had a candidate win the career opportunity based on having gone through a course…so I don’t think candidates should expect a hot pursuit if they do.
The advice I always give to people trying to break into pharmaceutical sales is to (1) do job shadowing, which provides you with experience, RESUME keywords, and sets you apart; (2) get a career coach who can show you how to present yourself as a top candidate and give the best interview of your life; (3) and research–read everything you can on getting into pharma sales (this blog has hundreds of articles for you), and watch YouTube episodes on career opportunity hunting and clinical revenue (I have a Pharma Sales Recruiter channel, and there are many other great ones with specific information).
Let’s continue the discussion here: Have you participated in a medical sales training program? Did you discover that it was helpful to your medical sales job search?
Article courtesy of Peggy McKee - Owner / Senior Recruiter at the nationally
recognized clinical and clinical sales recruiting team of PHC Consulting.
© Copyright 2008 PHC Consulting | All rights reserved
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