Entry-Level Pharmaceutical Sales Jobs – Do You Have the Right Stuff?
ningcontentPharmaceutical sales is a lucrative profession, so it’s only natural that a lot of people would be interested in giving it a go. Because it is so popular, I thought it might be a good idea to find out what personality traits and skills are best suited to a career in pharmaceutical sales. For this, I went to pharmaceutical sales recruiter, Tom Ruff of the Tom Ruff Company.
1. What personality traits are common among successful pharmaceutical sales people?
In researching my book, How to Break into Pharmaceutical Sales, A Headhunter’s Strategy, we conducted a proprietary survey of 150 pharmaceutical sales representatives and 20 district managers. One of the first questions we posed was “What are the attributes you look for when interviewing a candidate for a pharmaceutical sales postion?”
The results were the following:
62.5% Experience
56.3% Personality
56.3% Communication skills
25% Clinical/science background
6.3% Sense of humor
6.3% Professional image
People of all ages and backgrounds qualify to become sales representatives. Although it can be difficult, some enter the profession right out of college and/or without any prior outside sales experience. Pharmaceutical companies also realize that different doctors may respond as well or even more readily to someone who is mature and seasoned. Recently, there has been a trend to hire more nurses into the field.
2. What are the education requirements and training for a pharmaceutical sales rep.?
Many prospective job candidates worry that they don’t have the medical or technical background to secure a position. While such preparation is a plus, it is by no means an absolute requirement. A person with the intelligence and will to master the complex, multi-syllabic language of the pharmaceutical world, combined with a winning sales-oriented personality, will be highly prized — even if his or her degree is in English or Religious Studies.
Preferred background:
- Four-year Bachelor’s Degree with an emphasis on science
- 3.0 Cumulative GPA or higher
- Ideally, 2+ years of Fortune 500 outside sales experience
- Clean driving record, good credit and no bankruptcies
Acceptable background:
- Four-year Bachelor’s Degree
- 2.5 GPA or higher
- No more than two traffic tickets in the last six years is a general rule of thumb
Knockout Factors:
- No 4-year degree
- A DWI or a DUI
- Bankruptcy within last three to five years
- More than three traffic tickets in last five years
- Criminal Record
- Bad credit
- Failed drug test
3. What are the best internships? In pharmacies? In pharmaceutical manufacturing companies like Abbott and Eli Lilly? In hospitals?
Believe it or not, the best internships are not with pharmaceutical companies or hospitals, they are with Fortune 500 business to business sales organizations such as Xerox, Pitney Bowes, Canon, ADP. We recommend candidates pursue a sales internship with one of these companies or go work for them for 2-3 years right out of college to get the corporate sales training that so many of these pharmaceutical and medical device companies look for. If you can successfully sell copiers for 2-3 years, you can sell just about anything and managers recognize and admire this.
4. Sales is a tough industry in general, is there anything about pharmaceutical sales that sets it apart from others?
Pharmaceutical sales representatives play a dynamic role in helping people better navigate both illness and the inevitable onset of infirmity. A sobering fact of life is that disease and old age are unavoidable. No matter what the state of the economy, people will always need medicines to cure them and appropriate drugs to maintain their health. Make no mistake, the goal of every effective pharmaceutical sales representative is to sell their companies’ new and pre-existing drug therapies. Pharmaceutical companies pay them well for this service, giving the profession cachet and appeal; many starting representatives make an average of $100,000 a year in salary and benefits.
Along the way, however, they are educating doctors, dentists and pharmacists about the pros and cons of new medicines, the method of prescription, the ideal patient population and many other associated matters. That is especially important to members of the Boomer population, now entering retirement age, who are not ones to fade off passively into the sunset. They are aggressively seeking treatments and cures for everything that ails them. As this population continues to mature, the demand for constantly improving remedies will continue to grow. The size of this aging demographic continues to drive growth in the industry.
While the rate of growth in global pharmaceutical sales is slowing somewhat, IMS Health still projects an increase of 5% to 6% to more than $735 billion in 2008. If numbers alone aren’t sufficiently persuasive, consider a recent Hay Group survey published in Pharmaceutical Representative magazine. The survey found that pharmaceutical company employees report higher levels of job satisfaction than their counterparts in other industries. Nearly nine out of ten interviewed expressed pride in their company and 95% had favorable attitudes toward their companies’ products and services. And finally, few outsiders realize that pharmaceutical companies invest more than almost any other industry in training their sales representative — close to $100,000 a person.
BONUS MATERIAL:
According to Salary.com, the median salary, including benefits, for a pharmaceutical sales representative nationwide is $95,660. In Chicago, that number is $103,688, in Los Angeles $108,227 and in New York $113,114.You’ll also have the chance to work out of your home office and, in some cases, to work flexible hours.
Here are some other key basics:
Base Compensation:
- 0-2 years of industry experience: $42,000 – $50,000
- 2-5 years of non-industry outside sales experience: $50,000 – $58,000
- 2-5 years of industry experience: $58,000 – $65,000
- 5+ years of industry experience: $65,000 – $75,000
Bonus:
- Average Bonus: $15,000 – $20,000
- Experienced Bonus: $18,000 – $30,000
- (Anyone with more than two to three years of outside sales experience)
- A Partial List of Benefits:
- An average of three weeks of vacation in the first year
- Company car, including all gas, comprehensive insurance, all maintenance, from oil changes to tire replacements, and a per diem for personal gas use, valued at $7,000 to $8,000 a year
- Health insurance: full coverage for primary healthcare, dental, vision, spouse, pregnancy and birth, and children
- Equipment, including laptop and cell phone or cell phone reimbursement
- Most home office expenses
No doubt about it, this is a comptetive industry, especially now that pharmaceutical companies are reducing their sales forces. Some, like Pfizer and Merck, are actually laying employees off. A career in pharmaceutical sales has the potential to be extremely rewarding. If you have the right stuff, it’s worth all the hard work necessary to land an entry-level pharmaceutical sales job.
