So You Want to Get Into Pharmaceutical Sales

Pharmaceutical sales is a popular career choice for job-seekers because it offers excellent potential — in career growth, income, and benefits.

As a resume writer, I get a lot of clients who are looking to switch careers into pharmaceutical sales, as well as new college grads who would like to enter the field upon graduation. Do job-seekers with no experience in pharmaceutical sales — or even no experience in sales — stand a chance of breaking into this popular but competitive field? The answer is a resounding “maybe.”

This article will give you some guidelines on increasing your odds.

The pharmaceutical-sales field, which is often called “recession-proof,” is popular because it offers excellent salary potential, great benefits, flexibility, opportunity for growth, and frequently, the use of a company car. An aging population of baby boomers, the shift away from clinical treatment of illnesses in hospitals, and the fact that people seek a good quality of life as life expectancies continue to increase are among the factors spurring the growth of the pharmaceutical sector.

“The pharmaceutical industry is among the largest, most stable, and fastest growing businesses in the entire world,” writes Anne Clayton in her book, Insight into a Career in Pharmaceutical Sales. The industry has grown 300 percent in the last decade, according to the Hay Group, a global organizational and human-resources consulting firm.

The job is also seen as somewhat prestigious.

“A pharmaceutical sales representative sells a technologically advanced product to highly intelligent physicians in a very professional environment,” writes pharmaceutical sales recruiter Pat Riley, summing up the field’s appeal. Riley is author of several e-books on how to break into pharmaceutical sales.

What a Candidate Needs

What kind of people are pharmaceutical firms looking for in sales jobs? For starters, the gender split among reps is just about even. While some employers look at a fairly narrow range of applicants, others are open to many types of candidates.

Take Pfizer, for example, which states on its sales careers page that the company seeks “college graduates, experienced salespeople, junior military officers and anyone else with the intellect, experience and stamina to take on the challenges of a fast-track career.”

The company further seeks those with “the technical knowledge and business competencies we’re looking for,” as well as those who are creative self-starters with an interest in medicine or science, and strong interpersonal skills.

While some pharmaceutical firms will hire inexperienced college students (Riley notes that only larger firms such as Pfizer and Merck hire new grads), it’s rare to find a job in pharmaceutical sales if you have no college degree. Those hoping to break into the field without a degree will almost certainly need to have successful sales records to be considered.

Of those with no sales experience, candidates with a healthcare or clinical background may have an edge. A strong record of accomplishments is also important.

Additional Candidate Traits

Other traits mentioned by experts as helpful in landing a job in this field are being organized, goal-driven, creative, polished, persuasive, motivated, energetic, trustworthy, willing to learn, aggressive, smart, ethical, confident, ambitious, positive, self-starting, patient, persistent, a problem-solver, a team player who also performs well independently, a good time-manager and prioritizer, and a personable great communicator.

Additional desirable traits include good listening skills, integrity, negotiation skills, and presentation skills. It’s generally OK to be money-motivated. You should have good physical stamina for the long hours and all the driving you will likely do, as well as carrying hefty sample cases. You may be required to travel and relocate.

Enthusiasm for science is important. “If you don’t have an aptitude for science, or don’t like science, this job will not be fun,” writes 18-year pharmaceutical-sales vet Corey Nahman.

A press release on MedZilla quotes Roz Usheroff, a coach and communications specialist who works with pharmaceutical sales reps. Usheroff has a pharmaceutical firm client that uses an acronym, PRSAMGH, to describe key characteristics it looks for in an interview.

The acronym, Usheroff says, stands for “proactivity, receptivity, stability, ability, motivation, goal orientation, and honesty.” Riley adds that pharmaceutical firms hire the “best and the brightest” because they “invest more in research and development than any other industry” and “spend millions of dollars to develop and market new products.”

You’ll likely need a clean driving record, a good credit report, and the ability to pass a background check and a drug screening.

The best way to really get a feel for what the pharmaceutical firms are looking for is to study lots of job postings and ads placed by these employers and observe what qualifications they list.

Your Resume

It’s not unusual for a drug company to get hundreds of resumes for every opening, so yours needs to stand out and be strategically targeted not only to pharmaceutical sales, but to the company and opening you’re after. Yes, that means you will need to tweak your resume for every pharmaceutical sales job you apply for.

The appearance of job-hopping and gaps in employment can be seen as negatives by pharmaceutical employers, and of course, the best way to avoid those on your resume is to have a steady employment record. If you don’t, you may want to enlist the assistance of a professional resume writer (or resume builder) to help you de-emphasize the negatives. In fact, several experts on breaking into the field cite professional resume writers as an essential investment no matter what your job record is like.

All resumes should be accomplishments-driven, but one for pharma sales should especially be so. Noting that he is “continually amazed at how many candidates understate vital aspects of their career on their resume because they are too close to their career or they do not know how to say it with power,” Riley recommends a great-looking resume loaded with “accomplishments, accomplishments, accomplishments.”

An effective pharmaceutical-sales resume also must have the right keywords. See our articles, Tapping the Power of Keywords to Enhance Your Resume’s Effectiveness and especially, Researching Keywords in Employment Ads, which features pharmaceutical sales.

Networking

Networking is a huge advantage in getting into pharmaceutical sales because most firms advertise vacancies only when they are unable to fill them by word of mouth. Tell everyone you know you’re interested in getting into the field. Talk to doctors and pharmacists and ask them for names of reps.

Riley singles out talking with pharmaceutical sales reps and district managers as the absolute best way to break into the business, noting that a referral from a rep to his or her manager is “golden,” carrying “more weight than a resume from any other source.”

Once You’re Hired . . .

Expect an intense training period and a constant need to stay abreast of products and disease states. You’ll likely be tested on material not only during the training but as an ongoing part of your job.

You may attend trade shows and conferences and read industry publications. You may need to learn about medical terminology, as well as insurance-company reimbursement policies and codes. It’s not unusual for reps to pursue extra training and self-study in chemistry and other areas.

Also expect to compete with numerous other reps to get face time in private offices and hospitals with medical professionals, some of whom will give you only a minute or two. After all, there are some 90,000 pharmaceutical sales reps in the mix, according to a survey by Noesis Healthcare Interactions.

Writing for Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News, Aissatou Sidime learned from working reps that getting access to physicians is the toughest part of the job and that most sales reps have five or six competitors for each drug they represent. You’ll get to know the “80-20” rule in which reps often find that 20 percent of physicians write 80 percent of the prescriptions, so you’ll learn to focus your priorities on high-prescribing doctors.