Pack Your Resume With The Right Keywords to Get That Medical Sales Job
If you want your resume to actually be a marketing document for you, and get a recruiter’s or a hiring manager’s attention, you must pack that resume with the keywords that are relevant to the career area you want. Recruiters, hiring managers, and Human Resource departments use computer searches and applicant tracking systems to flag resumes worth looking at, and that means they use keywords to search for the ones they’ll be interested in looking at further.
But what if you’re new to the area and don’t have much experience? Well, then you have to be a little more creative in your mission. That does NOT mean you should lie on your resume. That’s always a bad idea, and you’re sure to be found out eventually. What I mean is that you should highlight what is relevant to the potential employer.
So, for example, if you want a job in medical sales, medical device sales, laboratory sales, biotechnology sales, or other health care sales area, here’s a few ideas for you:
- If you’re in real estate, but you sold to a group of doctors, you might want to list them as one of the accounts you sold to.
- If you sold copiers, maybe you sold to clinics, day surgery offices, etc. Not only does it help with the keyword count in your resume, it lets us know that at least you’ve been in the environment.
- By all means, go ahead and join professional organizations. So for a laboratory sales rep job, you could join AACC (American Association of Clinical Chemistry), CLMA (Clinical Lab Manager’s Association), or various other organizations where you’d find people in that profession. Then you can put them on your resume, and elaborate on your association with them, which gives you more keywords for your resume.
- Carefully read job descriptions and ads to see what keywords they use; then see which ones you could legitimately incorporate into your resume.
- Don’t forget keywords for sales skills.
Need some more resume help? Research resume writing skills using keywords online, or check out the Extreme Sales Resume Makeover Kit available from Career Confidential.
Written by Peggy McKee - the medical sales recruiter
Get top medical sales candidates at PHC Consulting
 How to Get Into Medical Sales Learn how to get into this great field - insider secrets & tips. |
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30/60/90 Day Sales PlansPharma Rep Transitions to Surgical Sales (with the help of a coach)
Crystal G, former pharma rep in Texas, explains how she made the transition into surgical sales.
I asked her to chat with me about the process that she went through….
Was this helpful? Please give me feedback in the comments.
If you are interested in individual personal coaching, read more here…..
Written by Peggy McKee - the medical sales recruiter
Get top medical sales candidates at PHC Consulting
| How to Get Into Medical Sales Learn how to get into this great field - insider secrets & tips. |
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The Medical Sales Recruiter Sets Resume On Fire To Say This: Stop the Faux Job Search
This is not your daddy’s job search….
You can’t just send out resumes anymore and expect to get a call for a medical sales job or health care sales job. Life is different, and the job search is different. Get a career coach, get on LinkedIn, find some resume help. Get serious, and play to win.
Written by Peggy McKee - the medical sales recruiter
Get top medical sales candidates at PHC Consulting
| How to Get Into Medical Sales Learn how to get into this great field - insider secrets & tips. |
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The Medical Sales Recruiter Makes the List of Top 25 Most Influential Online Recruiters
I’ve been named one of the Top 25 Most Influential Online Recruiters by HR Examiner! HR Examiner partnered with Traacker, the Boston-based online reputation discovery tool, to calculate online influence based on content, traffic, and activity.
I am #7 on the list, and I am in some very nice company: from Jason Buss of The Talent Buzz (#1) to Dr. John Sullivan (#25) (who incidentally just recently guest posted for us on the cost of a vacant position). You can see the rest of the list here.
I’m happy to be on the list, and want to thank all my readership for helping me to get there. I continually strive to provide valuable content for jobseekers, and hope that you find it useful. As always, I welcome comments and suggestions for topics that you’d like to see covered here.
See you at the top!
Peggy McKee
Written by Peggy McKee - the medical sales recruiter
Get top medical sales candidates at PHC Consulting
| How to Get Into Medical Sales Learn how to get into this great field - insider secrets & tips. |
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MedSalesRecruiter’s YouTube Channel Gets 100,000 Views!
About two years ago, I started publishing videos on YouTube (about job searching, interviews, resumes, LinkedIn, 30/60/90-day plans, types of medical sales, and more) on the MedSalesRecruiter Channel. To date, there are 54 videos available, and I am happy to report that views of these videos have reached the 100,000 mark!
The top 3 videos are:
Closing for the Job Interview In a Job Offer (over 12,500 views)
30/60/90-Day Plans for Job Interviews–Get Hired! (over 11,900 views)
Discussing Money (Salary Negotiations) in the Job Interview (over 10,300 views)
Here’s what a few jobseekers have to say about them:
Comment on your video: Job Interview Tips – How to use your brag book to get the job.
Thanks for this info! At the end of my interview today, I flipped through my portfolio to explain my color coding, then handed it over. Each one of them flipped through it, and it felt really good to see them looking at my degree, awards, etc.
Comment on your video: Interview Tips for Hiring Top Sales Reps! Medical Sales
It’s been several years since I was a surg rep. I only had a few interviews in my life. I had been recruited for nearly all my sales positions. Now, trying to re-enter the medical arena, I’m finding it harder than it was as an entry level rep. These videos are really helpful and I will bypass the HR department as you suggested in another video.
Comment on your video: Job Shadowing :Tip for howto get a medical sales job!
These videos are fantastic! Thank you very much for taking the time to post them. You’re a great role model. 
I am absolutely thrilled that the videos have been so helpful to so many people in the job search. I know it can be a difficult, stressful time, and I’m glad I’ve been able to make it a little easier.
Thanks for watching.
Peggy McKee
Written by Peggy McKee - the medical sales recruiter
Get top medical sales candidates at PHC Consulting
| How to Get Into Medical Sales Learn how to get into this great field - insider secrets & tips. |
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Written by Peggy McKee - the medical sales recruiter
Get top medical sales candidates at PHC Consulting
| How to Get Into Medical Sales Learn how to get into this great field - insider secrets & tips. |
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Take the Ride: The Benefits of a Medical Sales Preceptorship
For those unfamiliar with the term, “preceptorship” is just another way of talking about job shadowing, which is the process of spending time with a professional as they execute their job in order to better understand what they do. It’s also called a ride-along, which gives you an idea of the day or days spent with your pro, riding along to different sites as they perform their job. If you want to launch your career in medical sales, there’s no better way to get a feel for the daily hustle of the job than participating in a ride-along with a seasoned pro.
If you’re looking at a career in medical sales, it’s likely you’ve gotten a science degree, or at least achieved a minor in science and studied the area more than the minimum amount needed to graduate. Yes, it’s not a legal requirement to have a science degree to go into medical sales, but the more you know about the field, the better you’ll be able to understand the products you’re selling and the way they can benefit doctors and patients. Talk with your professors or academic counselors about getting in touch with a medical sales rep, or do some legwork and call local hospitals to find out the names of reps that call on them.
Getting in touch with rep is the first step in landing a preceptorship. When you’re on your ride-along, ask questions of your mentor but also follow instructions about how and when to interact. It’s likely you’ll need to stay quiet when your rep is actually dealing with clients and trying to make a sale, and that’s fine. The purpose of the day (or days) spent shadowing a professional is to absorb the ins and outs of the job, not act as if you know it already. If you play your cards right, a successful preceptorship can benefit you in several ways:
Firsthand experience: This is vital. Instead of knowing the theory behind medical sales, a ride-along lets you see it in practice and understand what the job really entails. You’ll come away with knowledge of the real job, not the mythological version you may have built up in your head. As such, you’ll be able to start your career knowing exactly what you need to do to get the job done.
Pros and cons: A preceptorship is the perfect way to know exactly how the job will work for you and what upsides and downsides you will face. A Medical sale is a challenging but rewarding career, built on the ever-changing health care industry, and there’s no better way to see what the job really entails than a ride-along.
Contacts: Participating in a preceptorship is a fantastic way to grow your field of professional contacts and develop yourself as a new sales rep. By establishing a good relationship with the sales rep you’re shadowing as well as the clients you meet along the way, you’ll be setting yourself up for more professional opportunities when you’re out on your own. And don’t forget that a ride-along looks great on a resume, demonstrating that you’ve spent time in the real sales world and have a better grasp of the job than someone who’s only studied it from afar.
A preceptorship is an invaluable training tool and a great way to help your career get started. If you haven’t participated in one yet, now’s the time.
This guest post is contributed by Katheryn Rivas, who writes on the topics of accredited online universities . She welcomes your comments at her email Id: katherynrivas87@gmail.com .
Written by Peggy McKee - the medical sales recruiter
Get top medical sales candidates at PHC Consulting
| How to Get Into Medical Sales Learn how to get into this great field - insider secrets & tips. |
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What are the most innovative trends and practices in lab management? Find out at the Executive War College 2010!
It’s time….the biggest lab event of the year is coming up soon: The Executive War College 2010 on Laboratory and Pathology Management, April 27-28 in New Orleans. Hosted by Robert Michel, editor of the Dark Report, the Executive War College is always a top-notch conference to network and learn the latest trends and best practices in lab management, clinical molecular diagnostics, Lean/SixSigma, laboratory automation, POCT (point-of-care testing), lab informatics, pathology management, and more. Sponsors include some of the most important companies in the industry, including Siemens, Ortho Clinical Diagnostics, Atlas Medical, Sunquest, Xifin, and Biomagene.
There’s an outstanding lineup of speakers (including Peggy McKee, your Medical Sales Recruiter). I will be presenting “State of the Market for Medical Technologists: Current Trends in Compensation, Recruitment, and Retention.” I’ll cover key strategies and tried-and-true recruiting methods for hiring and retaining productive, high-quality med techs—and how to make them the happiest and most productive members of your lab team.
This particular industry conference is fantastic, with relevant session topics and some of the best networking in the laboratory industry. This event is a must for laboratory managers (and laboratory sales reps, pathology sales reps, or clinical diagnostics sales reps).
See you in New Orleans!
Written by Peggy McKee - the medical sales recruiter
Get top medical sales candidates at PHC Consulting
| How to Get Into Medical Sales Learn how to get into this great field - insider secrets & tips. |
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CALCULATING THE COST OF A VACANT “COV” POSITION: A LIST OF THE POSSIBLE “COV” FACTORS
by Dr. John Sullivan
If an airline bought a new 747, and then let it sit for two months on the runway because they didn’t have a pilot, what would the cost be to the airline? In other words what is the cost of a vacant position?
Many firms calculate the cost of a hire, and some go so far as to calculate the cost of a bad hire (which have been estimated to be as much as three (3) times the persons annual salary), but few have taken the time to calculate the cost of a vacant position. These costs can be significant: anywhere from $7,000 dollars per day to $50,000 per day for an engineering position. Key leadership positions may cost as much as a million dollars per week. Couple these amounts with the fact that the length of many vacancies often exceeds 100 days, and you are talking about some serious financial impacts ($7,000 X 100 days = $700k).
ASSUMPTIONS ABOUT VACANCIES:
- Delaying product development and time to market in a fast changing industry means:
1. Lower margins, (as much as 10%)
2. A loss of first entry dominance
3. A loss of PR
4. Potential loss of market share (up to 30%) - Great ideas and products come from people, not from equipment, buildings or capital. If you don’t have great people . . . you won’t have great products. And without great products you won’t have a great company.
- If the vacancies are a result of slow recruiting process, it is important to also realize that a failure to fill vacancies rapidly will probably also mean that all of the top candidates will be gone by the time you make a hiring decision. So you will likely re-fill your vacancies with lower quality hires (especially because the best are usually the first to quit)
- Vacancies in a single team can have an impact on many other teams (because of interdependencies), which
can cascade throughout the entire company.
COST OF A VACANCY CHECKLIST: THE BUSINESS IMPACTS OF A VACANCY
When you have a vacant position, one or more of the following things may happen. Guesstimate the dollar costs of each bullet point that fits your situation:
1. PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT AND PRODUCTIVITY
- Time To Market (TTM) is dramatically impacted by the entire production chain. Because departmental
schedules and plans are closely interwoven, any disruption in one department may adversely affect all others. - In industries that are seasonal (i.e. toys) this disruption may be even more costly. Vacancies in key skill
positions may mean that products and projects may need to be dropped altogether.
2. TEAM IMPACTS
- Team product development may be dramatically impacted by the disruption caused by the lost productivity, lost experience, leadership, idea generation and skills of the “vacated” person.
- If a team environment exists, a disruption in team cohesiveness may occur. This can result in a longer TTM (Time To Market) and a loss of focus that can also impact TTM.
- Vacancies may affect the idea generation of others because co-workers are frustrated or overworked.
- Vacancies may cause overworked employees (because they have to fill in) to tire, which may cause increased accidents.
- Vacancies may cause overworked employees to tire, which may adversely affect product quality through increased error rates.
- Excessive vacancies may lead to increase “whining,” grievances and even union activity.
- If the team leader is the “vacancy” then “time to productivity” is likely to be even more negatively impacted.
- A vacancy may make a manager reluctant to terminate poor performing employees. Vacancies coupled with poor performers can cripple the team.
3. INDIVIDUAL EMPLOYEE IMPACTS
- A vacancy means that a current employee must do the work of the vacant position. This can cause a cascade effect causing others to have to fill in for their position, resulting in many “rusty” people doing unfamiliar jobs and decreasing productivity.
- Vacancies may frustrate other employees, causing them to lower their productivity.
- Vacancies may frustrate other employees, causing them to quit at higher rate than they normally would.
- Vacancies may cause the team to miss its goals, thereby reducing the possibility of individual and team incentives, which may further reduce productivity.
- Increased stress on overworked current employees (caused by having to fill in) may cause increased absenteeism and tardiness.
- Vacancies may hold up vacation time for current employees which may lead to increased stress or frustration.
- Understaffed departments will not be able to send current employees to training and conferences, which may lead to increased stress, decreased worker knowledge or frustration.
- If temps or “fill-ins” must be hired, they usually have a higher error rate that the average employee and they are unlikely to generate many new ideas.
- Superstar employees often resent being asked to fill in when lesser employees positions are vacant, which may cause them to quit also.
4. INCREASED MANAGEMENT TIME AND EFFORT
- Teams with vacancies require “high maintenance” and more management attention and worry.
- Managers often have to skip their normal management planning and responsibilities in order to fill in for the vacant employee.
- When managers fill in for “vacant” employees that time can’t be spent on the best employees.
- Vacancies in management and team leader positions have a multiplier effect on productivity and the recruitment of others.
- There are opportunity costs for things a manager and co-workers could have done if they didn’t have to carry the extra load of filling in for a vacancy.
- If the vacancies are caused by top management decisions (hiring or budget freezes) it can cause managers to lose hope. This can impact morale and it may lead to a high management turnover rate.
5. CUSTOMER IMPACTS
- Excessive vacancies may send a message to customers and suppliers that we are getting weak or we don’t care about them. It may cause a period of confusion for suppliers and customers regarding whom they can contact and the stability of the relationship. Errors caused by “vacant” employees may lose sales volume and occasionally customers.
- Any “fill in” as a sales/account rep may provide them an opportunity or excuse to look for other suppliers.
6. COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE
- Excessive vacancies may cause management to panic and to “quickly” hire some poor performers. Once the team is saddled with a large number of poor performers, you may never be able to hire any new top performers.
- Vacancies at the CEO, CFO, CTO, and other top manager positions can adversely impact our financing and the willingness of others to partner/merge with us.
- Vacancies in key positions may send a message to analysts and the stock market that you are getting weak.
- Vacancies may send a message to competitors that you are vulnerable, which can lead to increased competitive pressures.
- A large number of vacancies means we are losing employees, which means weakening our culture. New employees with new values may change or dilute our values and “corrupt” current employees.
7. IMAGE AND RECRUITING
- Excessive vacancies sends a message to your competitors you are getting weak. This might encourage them and improve their own confidence so that they become bolder in the product and employee poaching market.
- Vacancies may impact new recruiting because vacancies send a message to future recruits that we are not easily able to recruit replacements.
- Large numbers of vacancies may also send a message to our current employees we are headed down hill.
- High vacancy rates may over-stress our recruiters and recruitment process.
- Vacancies may send a message to outside recruiters that we are vulnerable, which can lead to increased “headhunter” activity.
8. OUT OF POCKET COSTS
- Having to hire high-cost consultants as “fill in help” could mean higher costs. If hourly employees are involved it probably means additional overtime costs.
- Vacancies can mean the underutilization of plant and equipment.
OTHER MISCELLANEOUS CONCERNS (AND COSTS) THAT MAY ARISE
- The new hire may be a lower quality (low performance) candidate.
- New hires are unlikely to be immediately productive, thus resulting in increased costs.
- Some “vacating employees” take others with them soon after they leave. A “break in the dike” of one leaving may cause the whole intact team to leave.
- Many new hires don’t work out and must be replaced within 6 months, essentially stretching the length of the vacancy.
- In a tight labor market vacancies in hard to hire jobs may not be replaceable, at any cost.
- In start-ups and small departments, where there is little cross training, the cost may be more dramatic. If you only have ten employees and you lose two, you have a 20% vacancy rate (big deal!).
- Spending the time to avoid vacancies may have a huge ROI especially if your former employees go to a competitor with “your” ideas, causing their revenues to increase as yours go down.
DR. JOHN SULLIVAN (JohnS@sfsu.edu) is a well-known international speaker, author, and advisor to Fortune 500 and Silicon Valley firms. He was called the “Michael Jordan of Hiring” by Fast Company Magazine. Dr. Sullivan is also head of the Human Resources Management Program at San Francisco State University. We thank Dr. Sullivan for allowing us to share it with our readers.
Written by Peggy McKee - the medical sales recruiter
Get top medical sales candidates at PHC Consulting
| How to Get Into Medical Sales Learn how to get into this great field - insider secrets & tips. |
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LinkedIn Discussion: What’s your opinion on the American Institute of Medical Sales Academy?
Are you on LinkedIn? If not, you should be. Not only is LinkedIn an invaluable component of your professional network, it’s an amazing resource for information about medical and health care sales.
For example, in the Sales Café group, this is a discussion:
What’s your opinion of the American Institute of Medical Sales Academy?
The discussion started with a question from a recent college graduate interested in medical sales and was wondering if medical sales training programs were a worthwhile opportunity for someone with the degree, but no experience.
He got several responses from health care industry executives, sales reps, and others, including me (the medical sales recruiter), and generated a few more questions from more experienced jobseekers who do have the sales experience, just not the medical sales experience. (Just looking at the caliber of the people in the discussion will show you how valuable it is to participate in LinkedIn groups.)
The trend of the discussion seems to be that medical sales training programs are a big investment with questionable value, and that employers focus more on hiring sales reps with a good attitude, communication skills, and interpersonal skills, along with the technical knowledge. Although it’s acknowledged that medical sales can be a hard field to break into, and candidates are looking for an edge.
My input was that since I’ve never participated in a training program, I don’t know how valuable they are. As a career coach, I see value in training and job preparation, although I don’t know if that’s what would give you the edge in a job offer. As a medical sales recruiter, I’ve never had a client company ask for a candidate with those certifications, and I’ve never had a candidate win the job based on having gone through a course…so I don’t think candidates should expect a hot pursuit if they do.
The advice I always give to people trying to break into medical sales is to (1) do job shadowing, which provides you with experience, resume keywords, and sets you apart; (2) get a career coach who can show you how to present yourself as a top candidate and give the best interview of your life; (3) and research–read everything you can on getting into medical sales (this blog has hundreds of articles for you), and watch YouTube videos on job hunting and medical sales (I have a Medical Sales Recruiter channel, and there are many other great ones with specific information).
Let’s continue the discussion here: Have you participated in a medical sales training program? Did you find that it was helpful to your medical sales job search?
Written by Peggy McKee - the medical sales recruiter
Get top medical sales candidates at PHC Consulting
| How to Get Into Medical Sales Learn how to get into this great field - insider secrets & tips. |
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