What the Heck Do I Do?

I always find it interesting to read “How To” articles, but often wonder if the theories in the article hold water in the real world. So – keeping with our theme of being mavericks – I’ve decided any “How To” articles will be actual interviews with real people who have achieved the “How To” goals themselves.

Enter Cindy H.

Situation: she was a staffing professional. No medical or pharmaceutical sales background. She landed a job in medical sales. I asked her 6 questions, as follows. Her answers revealed the keys to her success.

Q: What job did you land?

A: Hospice Services – a huge market. This is for people who are at the end of their life. I call on physician’s offices, directors of clinics, Aids/Cancer clinics. The geographic area is in the Twin Cities – MN.

Q: How long did it take you to land the job?

A: About 30 days. I was surprised at that – I had expected to be longer in the job search. I have friends who have been looking for 6-months and only now landing interviews.

Q: How did you find your job?

A: CareerBuilder. I saw an ad. I submitted my resume. There was no response. I then did two things: I had my resume professionally done, resubmitted it; I then followed up to make sure the company received the resume. They did – they called me in for an interview (phone interview first), and made me an offer.

Q: Any suprises in the job search?

A: Yes – the value of Linkedin. I, probably like many other people, was a member of Linkedin, but always put off really using it actively to network. Once I did, it really performed for me – a great (still somewhat unknown) tool.

Q: Any advice for job seekers?

A: Yes. Make sure your resume has the “wow” factor – get it professionally done if you have the money. Follow up with ALL submissions. And, I know this sounds hokey – but – keep a postive outlook. You have to remind yourself daily that YOUR job is out there. But how you find that job is very different than it was in the past – you must be innovative.

Q: Recommended services?

A: I got the resume done at www.HealthcareReps.com; www.Linkedin.com is awesome, and use the advanced search agent at www.CareerBuilder.com

If you are feeling a little distraught about the lack of hiring, you are not alone. The trend is very real. But when will things turn around? No financial wiz can look into a crystal ball and predict the future; however, some common sense prevails here. And there is some good news in that crystal ball. I’ve found 3 reasonably safe indicators for answering the question, “When will they start hiring again?”

There is an old saying from Marketing: “Perception is Realty.” And our perception as employees and employers must be that we feel secure about our financial situation before we will start buying again and employers start hiring again. What do we use to determine our perception of financial security? Answer: the value of our houses, the value of our stocks, and the unemployment rate.

The value of our houses: prices appear to be stabilizing. Pending house sales rose 3.6% in June. Things are still weak. Time to hold our breath.

The value of our stocks: the Standard & Poor 500 index is up 47% since March (the lowest point).

The unemployment rate: on 8/2, Allan Greenspan said “I’m pretty sure we’ve already seen the bottom.”

In the end we still only have our crystal ball. And our common sense and instincts. These later two suggest jobs will come back – not as soon as we’d like. But that the term “job security” will be a misnomer – how we view the employer-employee relationship will change. And we all know that old saying: “The only thing that never changes is change.”

What will the future of being a pharmaceutical or medical sales rep look like? Stay tuned – in future articles we’ll carefully examine what the future landscape may look like – and how you can capitalize on those changes to advance your career. Yes – change is scary. But, hey, think about the first time you rode a bike. Scary? A little. Thrilling? Absolutely.

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.

Do you recall that 70’s show “Mission Impossible”? I loved that show. It always started with an old fashioned tape recorder stating, “Good morning, Mr. Phelps…” Mr. Phelps would get an impossible mission.

I’ve recently interviewed people who succeeded in their own mission impossible: they transitioned from pharmaceutical sales into medical sales. I’ll be posting my interviews with these folks shortly. For now I want to share some interesting themes I’m seeing in how they were successful:

How to transition from pharmaceutical sales into medical sales.

1.)     Concentrate on your specialty call points. One candidate submitted his resume for a medical device role. He got a call within hours from the recruiter because of his respiratory call point experience. Over 300 people submitted their resumes for this job posting. Of these, 50 people got phone interviews. Of these 50 people, 5 got in person interviews.  List your call points: ortho, neuro, cardio, etc. And mention any major hospital accounts you’ve managed.

2.)     Recruiters are great, but in this case you want to go direct to employers. Start here: https://ssl.healthcarereps.com/Resources/Companies/CompanyList.aspx?CompanyTypeID=1 and here: http://biz.yahoo.com/ic/521.html You’ll want to go into the employer sites and look for jobs of appeal and submit your resume.

Your goal is to target about 30 employers. This is like farming: it’s hard work, and you have to be consistent, but it pays off. When you farm you plant seeds and the seeds come up a few weeks later. You don’t know where or when but they do come up. Then…

3.)     Go into Linkedin.com. There are 2 things you want to do next. A.) connect with people who work for that employer. Relationships are critical and Linkedin.com gives you those relationships. B.) Join a group. How to find a group? In “Search Groups” just put in key words, e.g. “Medical Sales” and your groups will come up.

In each group you’ll see these tabs: Overview, Discussions, News, Jobs, Subgroups, More. Make it a point to spend 20 minutes each day in discussions, news, and jobs.

This is a very effective form of “Social Media” and it appears a greater number of employers are using these forums to find talent. Makes sense to me.

Of course all of what I’m telling you is highly confidential. But since only 13 people read this blog, I think we’re OK. How did the opening scene to Mission Impossible end each week? Oh yes: “Should you, or any member of your I.M. force, be caught, or killed, the secretary will disavow all knowledge of your actions. This tape will self-destruct in five seconds.”

Good luck in your mission.

There is an old saying from Mark Twain: if you don’t read the newspaper you are uninformed; if you read the newspaper you are misinformed. Our problem today is we have too much information – and too little time. So where do we get fresh intelligence about the challenges of today’s job market? If you are a pharmaceutical or a medical sales professional you have unique challenges in this regard. Walk into an interview unprepared – or send out your resume without knowing the following – at your own peril.

I wanted to know the latest information candidates (pharmaceutical or medical) need to know to be competitive in their job search, so I went to recruiter and author, Tom Ruff. My question was: what are the 3 things you’d want every candidate to know in today’s job market?

A backdrop on Tom. He’s been in the recruiting business for 20 years. His book is “How to break into pharmaceutical sales. A headhunter’s strategy.”

In Tom’s summary of today’s economy, “I’ve seen the extremes in the job market. In the late 80’s it was the complete opposite of the economy now. We had a low supply of candidates and a high supply of openings. Candidates could be very picky. It was common to have 2-3 job offers without trying. Today there are many candidates and few job opportunities. Candidates are competing against their peers – many are actually over-qualified and find themselves competing against new colleges grads.

What it’s boiling down to: it’s all about profitability with clients (employers); is this person going to help my bottom line profitability? We hear this directly and indirectly from managers. So – personality was great 5-10 years ago but not the #1 criteria today.”

“What are the Top 3 Things candidates should know to be competitive?”

1.)     Results, recent results, and personality. This is the golden “package” employers seek to find. We have some classic issues – someone had a great track record 10 years ago, but not in the last 2-5 years. Managers typically want someone who is still “climbing” in their career and has not hit the apex. Your bragbook should be loaded with numbers.

2.)     The resume. No fluff. It’s all about results, numbers, accomplishments, and achievements. You can not have too many numbers. Quotes are nice (endorsements from employers and customers), but not vital. Sports or military background detail is consistently a reason you are hired. Both convey leadership.

You need to create word visuals of yourself in leadership roles. Leadership is desired, rare and you either have it or you don’t. Granted, there are seminars on improving leadership skills, but most leadership is innate. Show leadership in your resume; show leadership in your interview by being confident and matter of fact – not braggadocios.

3.)     Your ROI. Demonstrate results in the past where you contributed to your company’s bottom line. Someone somewhere is pulling out a calculator, looking at what you produced and how much you cost the employer in salary, benefits, etc. It sounds cold, but this is the new reality. The #1 reason you are being hired is the belief on the part of the employer that you – among all competing candidates – have the greatest potential ROI. Personality and chemistry are nice to have. But perceived ROI will win the day in today’s new job market.

My wife read item #3 and commented, “Honey, that sounds a lot like dating, people sizing each other up.” An interesting insight. I then was silly enough to ask her what her perceived ROI of me was. I’m still waiting on the answer. Looks like I need to work on my brag book.

Hello and welcome to a very innovative blog. We have one mission:  To make life a little easier for medical and pharmaceutical sales representatives.

We will be discussing “real world” ways around the challenges you face in your job search. We’ll be interviewing industry experts. We’ll be interviewing candidates as they move from pharmaceutical sales into medical sales (yes, contrary to popular belief, it can be done). We’ll talk about what employers “really” seek in candidates for medical and pharmaceutical sales roles – the answers may surprise you.

In a nutshell, we have a major challenge in this world: we have too much information and too little time. Which is the reason for this blog: to tell you the information you need to know to advance in your career.

Well, there is a second reason for this blog. To train you to say “This is how I did it” when someone says “You can’t do that!” Which is why we’ll have an ongoing series of candidate interviews called, “Yes you can” where we’ll discuss their strategies and tactics leading to job interviews and job offers. Fresh intelligence – straight from the field.

There is an old saying: “Follow the rules and be invisible. Be innovative and you’ll find success.” So, all you “out-of-the-box” rebels who don’t like to follow the old rules, stay tuned, you’re going to like where we’re going…