1.  Research the company.  There is no substitute for doing your homework.  Know what the company does, what its current issues are, and what the future plans include.  Your job is to find out what you can do for them.  Your research gives you material to talk about during the interview and a way to custom-fit your answers to their specific questions. 

2.  Build a brag book.  Click the link for the video and more explanation, but basically it’s a collection of awards, sales rankings, successful projects, letters from happy customers or managers, and so on.  When you present it during the interview, it showcases your presentation skills as well as your accomplishments.  Here’s a link to a podcast if you need it.

3.  Create a 30/60/90-day plan.  This kind of plan is a written demonstration of what you will do for the company in your first 3 months on the job–how you will get your training, how you will transition into being a contributing member of the sales team, and so on.  Here’s a link to a video and a blog post that explains them in more detail, but if you need more help, you can download samples and a template with audio coaching from the Sales Recruiter.  This kind of plan will definitely get the attention of the hiring manager.

4.  Read my Tips on How to Ace Your Medical Sales Interview.   The same principles are true for all kinds of sales jobs.  Also, here’s an article on Sales Interview Questions for you.  Think of your interview as a sales call, and act accordingly. 

5.  Consider custom coaching.  Most people need no more than an hour.  Ask the questions you need in a private, one-on-one conversation to improve your personal situation.  I’ve been a medical sales recruiter for over 10 years now, and I was in the medical sales area before that as a sales rep, regional manager, and national accounts manager.  The sales process, skills, and hiring issues are the same across the board.  I can go over your resume with you, critique your answers to interview questions and prepare you for the interview, give you insider tips, teach you how to negotiate and recognize a fair offer, build your personal brand, or even decide between job offers.  Career coaching works.

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To help you, here’s a link to a video that I made about how to handle behavioral interviews.  Some of the main things to keep in mind are to have lots of stories ready that highlight how skilled you are, and it’s important that you are able to quantify your examples whenever possible.  (What happened when you had an unhappy customer?  How did you increase sales and by how much?  How did you save the company X amount of dollars?)  I’ve also provided a link to How to Survive a Behavioral Interview for more tips, and a lengthy list of possible behavioral interview questions for you to think about. 

Important tip:  make sure you have a brag book and a 30/60/90-day plan ready to go.  A brag book will demonstrate how you handled particular situations, since you’ll hopefully include letters or e-mails from satisfied customers or happy managers, successfully completed projects, and lists/charts of how much money you’ve saved or made for the company.  A brag book covers what you’ve done in the past…a 30/60/90-day plan covers what you’ll do in the (immediate) future.  It’s a list, segmented in 30-day time spans, of what you’ll do to get trained and up-to-speed in your new company so that you can be a successful hire for them as fast as possible.  For more information, click here.  For a template of exactly how to do one, click here.

Good luck.

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You’ve already researched the specific company training, product training, or sales training that you need, so start setting that up.  Get to know your co-workers, support staff, and customers.  Learn the company culture and corporate systems. 

The most important thing you can do is to get feedback from your manager.  No later than one month into the job, meet with your manager to assess how you’re doing.  Having been on the job for that long, you will be able to rework the 60-day and the 90-day part of your plan if necessary, and you can take that re-written plan to your meeting for input on how to adjust it further. 

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Follow up phone calls can only get you so far.  What you need are the right keywords on your resume.

The right keywords on your resume will flag you in a search.  So, if you are looking for a management position in a diagnostics sales force (and you aren’t currently in that position or your company has some wacky title system), you need to consider putting a list of keywords across the bottom of your resume that would show up when a recruiter runs a keyword search on their ATS (Applicant Tracking System).  For example:  “regional sales manager,” “clinical diagnostics”, “sales”, “management”, etc. would be a good place to start.

If you’re interested in going into Surgical Sales (and aren’t there now), you may want to add “OR”, “operating room”, “surgical”, “surgeon”, “physician”, and so on.  Get the idea?  You might ask how a recruiter would view this addition to your resume…I can tell you that I appreciate innovative ways that candidates separate themselves from the pack!

For more extensive resume help, as well as an experienced recruiter’s advice on cover letters, references, brag books, technology sheets, and 30/60/90-day sales plans, click here.

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Aaron Stahl e-mailed me recently to bring my attention to his website (www.e-shadow.com) that prints interviews with people who work in particular fields.  He’s got one with a medical device sales rep and one with a pharmaceutical sales rep.  There’s some very candid, what’s-a-typical-day-like information, as well as advice on what steps you can take to enter this field…like taking a few classes in anatomy and physiology or medical terminology if your background is not in science.  They also point out how hard it is to get your foot in the door…the pharmaceutical sales rep says that it took him over a year to get hired because of the heavy competition.  All the more reason to have The Medical Sales Recruiter on your side!  (if I could do Superman music here, I would)

Want more help from the Medical Sales Recruiter?  Try audio coaching–this product covers every aspect of your bid to get a great job in medical sales, from how to build your resume with the proper keywords, to which documents to bring to the interview (like a brag book, a technology sheet, and a 30/60/90-day sales plan).

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(Want to find out more about how to successfully transfer to medical sales?  See How to Get Into Medical Sales – Volume I:  The Documents.  Audio coaching from Peggy McKee will help you understand why medical sales is a great place to be, and how to use the samples and templates provided for resumes and cover letters, technology sheets, brag books, and 30/60/90-day plans.  These are the things that will help you “wow” interviewers.)

And why do I think that almost any area of medical sales (imaging sales, pathology sales, clinical diagnostics sales, research lab sales, medical device sales) is better than pharma sales?  The one area of medical sales that does tend to be tied to the economy is pharmaceutical sales.  Fortune magazine had an article recently on layoffs in pharma sales.  Also, there are perception issues with pharma reps that don’t affect, say, research or clinical sales reps (which I also discuss in the podcast).  Medical schools even have a few issues with pharma reps.

Gabcast! Peggy McKee – the medical sales recruiter… #2 – Why Healthcare, medical or laboratory sales? Why not pharma?

Hear more on these issues in today’s podcast and other nuggets of medical sales wisdom in podcasts with Peggy! 

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Want another advantage?

Create a 30/60/90-day plan for the job you want.

What is a 30-60-90 day plan?  And how do you use it to get a job in sales?  Why does it help?

A 30-60-90-day plan is an outline for what you will do when you start the job.  Essentially, you spell out for your future employer, in as little or as much detail as necessary, how you will spend your time.  To do that, you have to do some research on the company so that you know what you’re talking about…a search on Google, LinkedIn, or the company’s own website can provide you with the information you need.  (It’s always impressive to a hiring manager if you can show that you’ve done your homework before the interview, remember?)

The basics:

The first 30 days of your plan is usually focused on training–learning the company systems, products, and customers.  So, most of the items in your 30-day plan should be along the lines of attending training, mastering product knowledge, learning specific corporate systems, traveling to learn your territory (if you’re in sales), meeting other members of the team, or reviewing accounts.

The next 30 days (the 60-day part) are focused on more field time, less training, more customer introductions, reviews of customer satisfaction, and getting feedback from your manager.

The last 30 days (the 90-day part) are the “getting settled” part.  You’ve had the training, you’ve met the customers, and now you can focus on sales!  It should include things that take more initiative on your part: landing your own accounts, scheduling programs, or coming up with new ways to get prospects’ attention (again, if you’re in sales), as well as continuing to get performance feedback and fine-tuning your schedule.

The more specific you can be in the details, the better off you are—by that I mean specifying the name of the training you’ll need, rather than just indicating that you’ll “get training,” for instance.  That’s why you research the company, not just the position! 

This kind of analysis of the position not only sets you apart from other job seekers… it also makes you a better performer on the job.  It means you’ve put some thought into what it takes to be successful, and once you’ve written down your goals, they become much easier to attain.

Using a 30-60-90-day plan to show that you’ve done your homework, analyzed the position, and thoughtfully considered how you can best serve this particular company in this particular capacity is very impressive to a hiring manager.  This kind of effort is the advantage you need that will set you apart from other candidates and get you hired.

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when to introduce your 30/60/90-day sales plan in your job interview

Creating a  30/60/90-day plan for your sales job interview is one of the most effective things you can do to impress a hiring manager and win a job offer.  It shows knowledge of the position, initiative, energy, enthusiasm, the ability to focus, written communication skills—all of which you definitely want to demonstrate to your interviewer and potential new boss.  But when do you bring it up?

The interview model that most people envision is that of a job seeker passively answering the questions put to him, focusing on delivering the “right” answers to interview questions.  Not a bad model, but you want to do a little better than that—you want to stand out.  You want to be exceptional.  And the chances of your interviewer asking about your 30/60/90-day plan so that you can answer are pretty slim.  This is “above and beyond” stuff…not expected, and so not asked about. 

So what do you do?

·         The ideal time to introduce your 30/60/90-day plan is when your interviewer asks something like, “How do you see yourself in this job?”  With a softball like that, you’re set.

·         If you don’t get an obvious lead-in, you can segue from talking about your relevant job experience to how that’s enabled you to create your 30/60/90-day plan for this one.  You know what you’re talking about, and you know how you’ll transition into this position with efficiency and effectiveness.

·         If your experience is a little light, and your skills are what got you the interview, focus on finding an appropriate time to point out that you researched this position extensively, and your 30/60/90-day plan is how you see yourself spending your time in the first 90 days of employment to bring yourself up to speed.  This is an especially good way to alleviate any doubts a hiring manager might have—you’ve already answered the question of how you’ll transfer your skills into this job, and shown how you’ll take ownership.

 If no opportunity falls in your lap, be assertive and make one.  At least bring up your 30/60/90-day plan before you go.  Your job search is too important for you to be so passive that you miss a chance to show such a great document.  Taking some (polite) control over your interview conversation is another sign to the hiring manager for how you’ll interact with customers and clients.  They want to see someone who knows how to lead.

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Behavioral interviews focus on past job behavior and performance (what did you do in a given situation) with the idea that this information will predict your future behavior and performance.  Behavioral interviews are really much more informative for employers than a “what do you know how to do?” interview, and more and more hiring managers are using some version of it.  (Here’s a previous post on STAR Interviews.)

What do you need to know? 

1)  Have stories or examples ready that explain your skills/performance in many different situations.  What happened when you had an unhappy customer?  How have you increased sales?  How did you deal with _____________?  Here’s a link to sample behavioral interview questions. 

2)  Quantify your examples whenever possible.  You increased sales by how much?  You were responsible for bringing in _______ dollars in revenue.  You saved the company _______ dollars by doing/changing/introducing _________________.   Salespeople (in all areas of medical sales, pharmaceutical sales, laboratory sales, clinical diagnostics sales, DNA products sales, biotechnology sales, imaging sales, pathology sales, or medical supplies and equipment sales) are good at having these numbers at hand, but people in marketing, tech support or service areas in healthcare will need to work harder.

Behavioral interviews are excellent opportunities for those job seekers with a brag book.  Brag books are collections of examples that illustrate your stories:  letters from happy customers or managers, awards, sales training certificates, projects you’ve completed, etc.  How to Get Into Medical Sales – Volume I:  The Documents explains brag books in more detail, and also teaches you about other critical aspects of your job search and interview process (like resumes and cover letters, technology sheets, and 30/60/90-day sales plans) so that all your work results in the job offer you want.

This video will explain all of this in more detail.  I hope it helps you have a successful job interview.

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It not always necessary to have some background in the sciences to get a job in medical sales, laboratory sales, medical supplies sales, hospital equipment sales, clinical diagnostics sales, pharmaceutical sales, imaging sales, pathology sales, cellular and molecular sales, and biotechnology sales.  But if you’ve got it, it helps.

For more information about technology sheets and other secrets to success in getting a medical sales job, see How to Get Into Medical Sales – Volume I:  The Documents.  It’s full of samples and templates of resumes, cover letters, technology sheets, brag books, 30/60/90-day sales plans, thank you notes, and more–it also includes over an hour of audio coaching from the Sales Recruiter to show you how to use these documents to your greatest advantage in your job search and interviews!

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