Should you hire an interview coach?
There’s tremendous amounts of advice you can find in books and online for how to answer job interview questions, and some of it says to practice your interview answers with a friend, or video yourself so that you can play it back to see your weak spots. It’s good advice. It’s always harder to critique ourselves constructively, and you need both practice and feedback to improve your game. The flaws in these particular plans are (1) a friend might just tell you what you want to hear, and (2) if you’re critiquing a video of yourself, the problem becomes “you don’t know what you don’t know”.
Here’s a thought: If you really want to improve your skills in something, you take lessons from an expert…in other words, get a coach.
Think about it. Even pro athletes, with amazing natural abilities and countless hours of practice, have coaches and trainers to give them that one last boost over the top to excellence.
Role-playing interviews with an objective, experienced industry expert can give you so much of a boost in your interview skills that you not only do well in the interview, you crush it….just blow the hiring manager out of the water with your confidence, competence and style. An interview coach can not only help you shape your answers to interview questions, she can help you spin difficult situations into positives (or at least neutrals), and can help you pinpoint and develop those intangible qualities that are ultimately job-winners.
I do provide interview help for candidates in sales and medical sales, and maybe I’d be a good fit for you–and maybe not. Either way, it’s still a good idea for you to get some outside help in this competitive job market, and I believe that it’s even more critical for entry-level candidates, who have the “lack of experience” issue working against them.
Find someone who is an expert in your field that you are comfortable working with. Hiring an interview coach is a small investment in yourself that will pay off big for you when you land the job of your dreams.
What Do Guitar Lessons Have To Do With Career Coaching?
I bought my husband Kraig a new electric guitar for his birthday in July. He’d wanted one for a while, and has tooled around with it pretty consistently, about 20 minutes a day–and he’s not bad. But, as he told me, he’s “plateaued”. He’s gone as far as his skills will take him, and he’s just not going to get a whole lot better under his own power. So, for Christmas I bought him guitar lessons. My expectation is that access to a specialist (an expert–someone who does this every day and will teach him how to think about it, what to practice, what to do with his fingers on the strings, and so on) will increase his skills exponentially, making him a better guitar player.
You see where I’m going with this….if we are willing to invest in swim lessons for our kids and guitar lessons for our husbands (and we do these kinds of things all the time), then we should be willing to invest in ourselves and our careers with career coaching. Find out how career coaching can exponentially increase your career skills and help you get the job, the raise, or the promotion you want.
What to Keep In Mind When Choosing a Career Mentor
How to Choose a Mentor for Your Medical Sales Career
There’s an article on EmploymentDigest.net that you should see. It’s about how finding a mentor can help you advance your career, but it also has several important points about how to choose a career mentor, keeping in mind that your manager, recruiter, or your friend might not be the best choices for you. A manager, for instance, might present a conflict of interest in certain situations, and they probably won’t have the time to help you. A recruiter just won’t do it–a recruiter’s primary concern is to please their clients (the hiring company) and he or she won’t have time, either. A friend might be unable to give you any constructive criticism out of a desire to remain your friend!
Even though it can seem difficult to find a mentor, I can’t emphasize enough how valuable a mentor can be to your career. A mentor in your field has been there, done that, and can help you advance while also keep you from making mistakes. A mentor can see the big picture of your career, but still knows how to coach you through the details. Example: I recently coached someone through the interview process. We worked on his presentation, his answers to interview questions, documents like his 30/60/90-day sales plan and brag book, and his negotiation skills–and he got the job, with a $22,000 base pay increase!
I’m not saying you have to hire me–I primarily help people involved in medical sales, laboratory sales, medical device sales, biotechnology sales, imaging sales, pathology sales, pharmaceutical sales, and other health care sales. As a career coach, I help them move from sales to management, and from other sales areas into health care sales. You should find someone who’s an expert in your field that you’re comfortable working with. Finding a mentor (or hiring one) is an investment in yourself and your career that has the potential for huge dividends. It’s worth it!
Find a Mentor for Your Medical Sales Career
I found a great article on Employmentdigest.net that points out how helpful a mentor can be to your career, and gives you some ideas about what to look for in a mentor as well as how to find one–like at your company, in a professional organization, or a friend who’s farther along in their career path than you are. A mentor can be a tremendous asset to you in your career. Someone who’s been where you are, who knows the obstacles you face and can help steer you around them, can make your climb up the corporate ladder smoother and faster.
A mentor can coach you to success in your medical sales career!
You can think of a mentor as a coach–someone who can help you stand back and see the bigger picture, and function as a source of objective, constructive criticism about how you play the game, what your strengths and weaknesses are, and what issues you might face (and what to do about them). This sort of relationship happens all the time when someone is trying to improve his or her skills in any given arena–people use athletic coaches, voice coaches, personal trainers…you get the drift. For instance, my nephew hired a swim coach to help him shave a few seconds off his time and went from 15th in the nation to 8th. That’s a big deal. That’s the difference that will mean not just trophies and personal success, but scholarships. In your career, that could be the difference in coming in second or third place for a job offer or promotion, or being far and away the first choice candidate who gets the job.
So what I’m saying is, finding a mentor can make all the difference in the success of your career—but you need to find someone with some skills. If you can’t find someone to serve as a mentor for you, it’s worth it to hire someone, like a career coach. I do offer career coaching services to those involved in medical sales (and other types of sales), and I might be the right fit for you, but then again, I might not. The most important thing is to find someone with experience in your field that you also feel very comfortable working with. It’s a small investment, but provides a potentially huge payoff for you and your career.
Medical Device Sales Rep Uses Career Coaching to Wordsmith…
Here’s Melissa’s story:
I went through a very difficult career transition in which my job ended in such a way that was very hard to explain to people. When I met Peggy, I was pretty down and out about it. She came to the rescue and helped me rephrase this difficult situation and put a positive spin on it. After coaching and role-playing with her multiple times, my confidence increased dramatically. I was finally able to tell my story with confidence and landed a job that was perfect for me. Peggy was a great support system and I appreciate her genuine interest in helping me achieve my career goals and objectives. She is a class act. I would definitely utilize her services again.
Melissa R., Sales Representative, Medical Devices
Candidates who are on the job market due to a negative incident are super-sensitive. And since they are so close to the issue, they don’t realize others might not see it as the “bad” thing that they perceive it to be. I can help you think about your situation in a different light.
As a candidate you may have only worked for 3 or 4 companies and you might not have been at a management level so you just don’t have the breadth of experience and understanding that I do. I speak with 7 to 8 managers a day (and have for 10 years now) and I have seen how companies view things (I have over 100 clients). You can see it from my perspective: click here.
“Umm, Uh… Could you, like, NOT hire me?”: How to Underwhelm Your Job Interviewer
Job interviews generally make people nervous, and understandably so: you’re being judged. And when people get nervous, they often start peppering their speech with ”ums,” ”uhs,” “like,” “you know,” and other space fillers that detract from their message.
What’s the message you want to send? That you are absolutely the candidate who can take this job and run with it. That you will make your new boss look like a superstar for hiring you, and that you have no doubts about your ability to be successful. To convey this message, you need to speak clearly, concisely, and confidently. No “ums” or “uhs” allowed.
If you need help with this, consider joining Toastmasters or a similar group so that you can practice speaking publicly. Check out this link on public speaking tips. Also, a good career coach can help you spot those tendencies in your conversation, and give you the kind of constructive feedback that will eliminate any uncertainty you may have about your interviewing skills.
Chris Norris (GE/Bayer/Abbott) discusses the Behavioral Event Interview
I asked Chris Norris to discuss with me the BEI, you have to listen to this!
It will really help you as you encounter these types of interviews (which are growing in popularity)
Chris is a commercial leader who has documented performance excellence in various capacities including Vice President of Sales, National Sales Director and General Manager. He brings a diversity of experience in a multitude of Commercial roles having served with Abbott, Bayer and GE Healthcare.
Listen here to learn more about the Behavioral Event Interview (BEI):
If you find this audio valuable, will you tell me in the comments? (and forward it to others who might need to hear Chris’ special perspective).
Peggy
Click here to view the transcript of the discussion.
How a Career Coach Helped Jennifer Get a Great Sales Position!
Jennifer had little experience in sales and was having trouble getting a job offer. She was doing what everyone thinks of as “all the right things”: networking, had her resume professionally done, and applied to more than 50 positions online, with no success. With a 1-2 hour coaching session, we tailored her resume, taught her how to use social media, and more….within weeks, she received many offers and landed her dream job. See her story for yourself here:
Career Coach does CPR on Job Seeker’s Search! Listen to the job seeker here:
Jennifer M. tells all about how a career coach (that would be me) made her dream job come true (even in this economy)!
I worked with Jennifer mid July. We fixed her resume, worked on her social media skills, helped her target hiring managers (and gave her the secret of what to ask for when she contacted them), and smoothed out her rough interviewing edges (don’t say “I hope”, “I believe” or “Hopefully”, or other negative statements). And within 6 weeks, she called me to say that she had landed the job of her dreams.
Here is her version of the story:
If you want someone in your corner that really has the inside scoop, go check out my custom career coaching page.
Life is short and you will only get one run through it (as far as I know), so why would you wait to grab your dream job?
Get a proven 30/60/90-Day Sales Plan here.
How a Legal Software Salesperson Transitioned Into Medical Sales
Is it even possible for a legal software sales rep to transition into medical sales?
The short answer is: yes.
But you know there’s more to the story:
Recently, I got a call from a legal services/software rep who wanted to transition into medical sales, but was having no luck. He applied online for over 50 positions, with no response. His next step? Contact a medical sales recruiter (me) for a little help. It took only one hour of custom coaching to fix his resume (using appropriate keywords) and teach him how to get in front of an actual hiring manager. In a matter of weeks, he had multiple job offers–in medical device sales and medical software sales.
Success.
I hope this video helps you get on the right track, too. If you are interested in custom consulting to help you get where you want to go, click here.
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