What the Heck Do I Do?

As you may have noticed, this blog is dedicated to experienced pharmaceutical and medical sales professionals. By “experienced” I mean you’ve been in either of these fields awhile. So, doing the math, you may be a bit older than some of your colleagues. And you may be sensing a potential age-bias in your job search – or at least an additional challenge due to age in your job search.

The numbers bear this out: if you are older, it will take you longer to land your next position; we’ll dedicate an article to this shortly – and how you can speed up your job search. For now, let’s talk about avoiding the circular file because of your age.

According to the U.S. Dept of Health & Human Services, there were 77 million babies born between 1946 – 1964. These are the “baby boomers”. I am one of these folks. Guess what – nearly 3 in 10 Americans is a Baby Boomer.

This constitutes the largest population group in U.S. history. Is there strength in numbers? Well, yes – but we need to work on a uniform message in order for us to prosper. So, I did some research and found 4 new ways to overcome age-bias in our job searches. This is specific to us pharmaceutical sales and medial sales types. God help us.

1.)  Don’t put any pre-1980 dates on your resume. Seriously, due to EEOC regs, no HR person will tell you this, but it’s a reality. You put pre-1980 dates on your resume and there is a calculator coming out to determine how much it will cost to cover you for insurance. Remember, we in pharma and medical sales have to play the return-on-investment (ROI) card – and if we end up costing an employer more in medical insurance due to our age, our ROI better compensate for that.

2.)  Show rising numbers in your most recent 5-10 years of sales experience. If we show you reaching a peak in sales 5 years ago, and you are doing OK now, it’s a bit like a professional ball player who batted .300 5 years ago and now produces a nice .285 average. Ok – but nothing to write home about. Employers prefer the fellow batting .285 now, and clearly on their way to batting .300. Yes, I’m a baseball fan. If you don’t like the baseball analogies, sue me.

3.)  Show a mentoring or training role. You know the drill – someone in corporate realizes you are good with people and asks if you’d like to train others. You either make that face like the in-laws are coming over, or you initiate improvements to training and development. This is big: it shows you are not only staying up on new business technologies and concepts, but want to help develop tomorrow’s sales leaders: music to the ears of any company. It also shows more initiative than your peers who just taking ongoing training courses.

Go way out of your way – now – to ask if you can get involved with the training folks on any kind of new technology based products or services – and get that info on your resume. You especially want to mention any technology catering to the current “hottest 3” call points: neurology, cardiology, or orthopedics.

4.)  When asked if you know the names of all four of the Beatles, pause and ask, “The who?” And when they say, “You know, that group that had Paul McCartney in it”, squint your eyes and ask, “Oh…Wings?” Practice before a mirror so you look and sound sincere.

I remember as a child someone asked me how old I was. I proudly replied, “Five and a half!” Now, when someone asks me how old I am, I have to stop and calculate. Sometimes Ignorance really is bliss.

We’re starting a new series here. It is all about doing the impossible. By impossible I mean transitioning from pharmaceutical sales into medical sales. It’s nice to write a book about such things, or have theories. But, in the end, nothing beats talking to someone who has recently done exactly that. The problem is I don’t know what to call this series: Yes you Can? Sounds like a weight loss theme. Let me know your thoughts. I was envisioning a prune-faced naysayer – an older fellow – saying “You can’t do that.” The sort of fellow who shouts at you to get off his lawn.

Enter: David G. Situation: lives in Bakersfield. For those of you unfamiliar, Bakersfield is in the middle of nowhere – only one decent sized town north of there and then God apparently stopped working. The only place more forsaken is east of El Paso, TX. David’s situation: he was in pharmaceutical sales and wanted to go into medical sales. Did he do it? Yes. And we have more lessons to learn here regarding this impossible journey.

Dave landed a job with a smaller contract company, along the lines of Innovex, Inventive Health, and PDI. It would appear that major OEM’s who are not hiring now are in fact “kicking the tires” with reps via contract companies. Perhaps it’s wiser to rent than buy in this economy.

So how do you go from selling Lipitor and Celebrex to selling medical devices? Dave’s advice: “It probably just comes down to being persistent with kocking on doors. Go direct to employers. Try to find as many ways to meet employers as possible – anything to connect via phone or in person. You must be able to sell yourself on the phone and to follow up. Linkedin discussion groups are great. Talk to people in medical sales – timing is everything and most jobs go unadvertised.”

How is life working for a contract company? David describes it as “The perfect go-between.” It builds his experience in developing specialty call points, it enhances his professional network, and it shows him as employed – unemployed folks fair poorly in this economy. Is a contract company for you? Give us your stories – I’ll post them as we continue to explore contract employment and other innovative solutions.

And the next time someone tells you, “You can’t do that” let me know what your response was – please keep it PG; we’ll still need to figure out what to call this new series, e.g. Kiss my petunias? I like the idea that the candidate that pulls this off is innovative – and very much a rebel. Let me know your thoughts.