Medical Sales Job Interviews: What Hiring Managers Really Think About What You Wear
Listen to this conversation between two former medical sales managers Chris Norris (formerly with GE, CCS, Bayer) and Kraig McKee (formerly with Ventana Medical, Transgenomic, Bayer/Chiron) chat about what to wear to the interview and how to think about it–for both men and women:
Hear about how to buy a suit, all the details about what’s appropriate in terms of attire, jewelry, hair, and more. And get the inside scoop about what all those details tell the hiring manager about you in your job interview.
For additional information, check out this survey of what hiring managers expect you to wear in the job interview.
If you have a topic that you would like a manager’s perspective on, let us know in the comments below.
Top 3 Social Media Tips for the Medical Sales Job Search
A social media presence is a big part of your online personal brand, and a necessary part of any job search–especially a medical sales one.
But if I boil it down to the 3 essential things you need to know, it would be these:
- Be there. You must utilize social media. The safest thing would be to say the more sites the merrier, but for those in a time crunch or just wanting the most bang for their buck, concentrate on the big 3: LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter (although Google+ is coming on strong). Not only does it help you actively search, it also helps you shape what potential hiring managers will see when they Google you. You have tremendous power here to control their perception of you as a candidate. Use it.
- Post a professional photo–preferably, the same photo for all your profiles. Many job seekers shy away from this one, but it will hurt you if you don’t have a photo. If you want more details than that, check out this post on LinkedIn photos.
- Use your social media resources to skip HR and contact hiring managers. Take advantage of the networking you’ve got here. Going straight to hiring managers will get you way more interviews than going through HR applications ever will.
Want more in depth info on this subject? Click to go to this video post on The Secret to Standing Out in Your Medical Sales Job Search.
Ask a Medical Sales Manager: How will my boss measure my success after my first 90 days as a medical sales rep?
Are you trying to break into medical sales? We talk a lot about preparing for your medical sales interview with a 30/60/90-Day Sales Plan. A well-done plan is your blueprint for the first 3 months on the job–but what about after that? How will your performance be assessed once you’re “on your own”? Well, the stakes get a little higher. “On your own” means the performance meter is running and your evaluation and scrutiny will increase.
Life after the first 90 days as a medical sales rep
Welcome to the big leagues! By now, you better be very familiar with your company’s CRM program (e.g. Salesforce.com) and used to the constant conference calls and/or Facetime calls. If you own or have a company-issued Iphone or Ipad, your regional manager is likely to use that as a tool to update the region’s forecast. What does that mean to you? Don’t be sitting in your jammies at the time the call is scheduled and always have your information and your office area organized.
You’ll probably have very little in-person time with your manager (maybe once a quarter field travel plus national meeting time), so the time you do have with him or her counts. Your manager probably didn’t get to be the manager of your team by not being observant and judgmental, so when you are around your manager, the recorder is running: evaluating your words, actions, and presence. When he/she gets good data and feedback, your life and how your manager deals with you will get better.
Perceptions are reality, so make sure your manager’s perceptions of you create the reality you want. A painting is composed of many brushstrokes, and every interaction is a brushstroke to your manager. Always remember to use the same skills internally as you do externally.
Your hiring manager’s perceptions of you have a big impact on your reality–your life on the job. Some of the rules he has to implement are dictated to him by the company, but on a lot of other stuff, he has discretion on enforcing. For instance, in my experience as a sales manager/director, the rule was that everyone starts out even and everyone does everything for the first 90 days. If you were at or above plan at the end of the 90 days, you got some reprieve based on your performance and compliance. That meant that you had longer to turn in your forecast, your pick of check-in times, your choice of projects to lead, etc.
Will you be a top medical sales rep?
Influence your hiring manager’s positive view of you
Your attitude and interactions have a big impact on your manager’s perceptions of you, too. (Brushstrokes, remember?) In my 20 years of managing sales reps, I noticed that players always like to have attention and contact. Top reps enjoy chatting with the manager and gaining his or her perspective. Because they’re good, they most often have thought through their situations and have already formed a plan of action, but they believe “two heads are better than one” and are interested in the manager’s input. Reps that are scarcity-based don’t like working in a team environment and rebel at authority. They will have a very difficult life in the corporate world. It doesn’t mean they’re bad, it just means that maybe they’re an entrepreneur and don’t know it yet.
How will your boss measure your success?
My rule was always “Constant Improvement,” and that’s likely to be your manager’s rule, too. As a new rep, that means you should constantly be making strides toward meeting or exceeding your sales goals. So this month is better than last month, and the month after will be better than this one. If you are doing the right things, the right things will happen to get you to that goal.
There are always exceptions and it’s true that if you took over a territory at 65% of plan and after two quarters in the field you’re at 70%, your manager is not likely to be pleased. An improvement of only 5% in 6 months just isn’t fast enough. At that rate, it would take almost 3 years to turn around a poor-performing territory–and if it takes that long, your manager will not likely survive.
10 critical checkpoints to help you stay on track:
1. Have you made face-to-face calls for all of your Best Few prospects in your sales funnel?
a. Have you documented the status of these accounts in your CRM records?
b. Is the sale on track to close? By definition, a Best Few prospect is a 90/90 prospect, meaning 90% is will happen and 90% it will happen in the specified time frame.
c. If it’s off track, have you developed a plan for correction and gained your boss’s input?
2. Have you met all the thought leaders in your territory?
3. Are there any special events/shows planned in your territory? If not, what do you need to do to get one?
4. Have you called Marketing and asked for one of the product managers to field travel with you?
5. Have you corrected any customer satisfaction issues? If it’s a longer-range issue, do you have a plan in place with the buy-in of your boss and the service/technical organization?
6. Have you identified who you can develop as a positive reference/demo site in your territory?
7. Have you met your service engineers and taken them to lunch/breakfast?
8. Are you using a “blown up day” to use as your office day to set appointments? (You haven’t set a particular day like Monday or Friday as your office day every week, have you? You shouldn’t.)
9. You are focusing on accomplishment instead of activity, aren’t you?
10. Are you being a seeker? (Seeking those with information you need.)
Keep a great attitude
Don’t associate/commiserate/communicate with team members that are always negative and complaining.
90% of selling is mental and the rest is in your head.
–Kraig McKee, Senior Recruiter, PHC Consulting
PS – Got questions that only a medical sales manager can answer? Put them in the comments section below.
How To Answer 5 Medical Sales Job Interview Questions
Here’s a quick guide to answering 5 common (but tricky) job interview questions within medical and health care sales. Click the link for the answer.
Don't make a mistake in your medical sales job interview!
2. “What’s your greatest weakness?”
5. “Can you sell me this pen?”
Perfecting your answers to these typical questions will go a long way toward helping you with what you have to prove in the interview to get the medical sales job you want.
Get an inside track with my free training webinar: How to Land a Medical Sales Job
Top 3 Tips for Your Medical Sales Job Search in 2012
Happy New Year 2012! 
If you’re in a medical sales job search, you’ve got your work cut out for you…but I’ve got 3 ideas that will get you rolling in the right direction:
- Take advantage of free training. Register for this free webinar: How to Land a Job in Medical Sales. Whether you’re an experienced sales rep or a brand-new rookie, you will benefit from the tips you’ll learn in this discussion.
- Learn how to find medical sales hiring managers. Going straight to the source is the most likely way you’ll find a spot before everyone else hears about it. Hiring managers appreciate an aggressive go-getter. Here are some ideas for how to find hiring managers.
- Learn to write a 30/60/90-Day Plan. Not everyone does this, because they’re a lot of work…but I would never go into a medical sales interview without one of these babies if I really wanted the job. It’s the key to what you have to prove in the interview.
Bonus Tip: Don’t forget to sharpen up your resume and submit it to PHC Consulting!
Best of luck!
What NOT To Say to Your Medical Sales Recruiter
Just for fun…
I hope you enjoyed that. Now click here for real help with your medical sales interview questions and answers.
3 Most Popular Medical Sales Recruiter Posts of 2011
What were medical sales reps reading in 2011?
Top medical sales posts of 2011
(1) Medical device reps wanted to know the best companies to work for:
Top Medical Device Companies of 2011
(2) Medical sales reps of all stripes wanted to be more competitive in job interviews:
Business Plans for Medical Sales
(3) And job seekers looking for medical sales jobs liked this one:
Breaking Into Medical Sales With NO Medical Background
Want to do a holiday favor for someone in a medical sales job search? Pass this article along to them.
* If you want a business plan that’s proven to get people into medical sales jobs, check out 30/0/90-day Sales Plans.
Job Search Tips: How to Take Advantage of Holiday Networking
Holiday networking is a gift to yourself
The holidays are possibly THE perfect time to build your network–which is important for your entire medical sales career, but vital during a job search. There are so many opportunities for you to reach out to others, and it will pay off for you throughout the new year.
Take advantage of the season
The most important thing you’ve got to remember about networking during the holidays: just do it. You can be confident that just about any contact you make this time of year will be received positively. People expect it, so take advantage of it. Reach out by sending out cards and emails to EVERYONE.
Reconnect with people you haven’t talked to in years
Think about all possible contacts: people you used to work with, former bosses, old high school or college buddies, former neighbors, your kid’s Little League coach from 10 years ago, everyone. Send a card or an email. You have a reason–it’s the holidays. Just say, “Hey, how are you? I was thinking about you and wanted to say Hi. What have you been up to? Merry Christmas! Happy New Year!” (Or Happy Holidays, or whatever holiday you celebrate right about now.) You don’t have to tell them you’re looking for a job. And you shouldn’t, yet. There will be time to gracefully fit that into the conversation later.
If they respond and they’re geographically close to you, invite them to grab lunch or coffee or drinks with you to catch up. If they’re too far away for that, they might ask how you’re doing and then you can talk briefly about your job search goal in a positive, upbeat way. (If that seems difficult, watch my video Be Positive When Explaining Your Unemployment.)
Thank your boss
If you’re employed, now is a great time to give your boss a gift or just say “Thank You” without looking like a suck-up. Bosses like appreciation, too.
Attend holiday parties and events
If you’ve got a holiday party on your calendar, check out these networking event tips. Set a goal of a certain number of people to meet, and follow up with them after the party with a nice “It was good to meet you” note.
Offer help and information to others
Keep in mind the spirit of the season. If you can think of a way to help someone else out–do it, even if it’s as simple as giving them a link to information they might want. Be a resource for people. I firmly believe that if you put good things out there, good things will come back to you.
Holiday Gift Ideas for Your Medical Sales Team
Need some quick, easy and great gift ideas for the medical sales rep on your team?
- You almost can’t beat a gift card…to a restaurant, a spa, or even their favorite store (bonus points for you if you know what it is).
- If you don’t want to give something a little more personalized than a gift card, try a themed gift basket built around just about anything: coffee, movies, fruit, candy, gourmet food, or chocolate.
- Get them a Kindle. What’s better for a busy person on the go than a quick and easy way to keep up with their reading?
- If they already have a Kindle, get them e-books to go on it. Read anything great lately?
- Get them a magazine subscription (print or digital). I like Selling Power.
- I think the ultimate gift for a sales rep is more sales training. After all, what’s better than learning new ways to build your skills and make more money? If there’s a good training program that the reps would normally be required to pay for themselves, foot the bill for them. You’ll both benefit from this one in the long run…
A really nice finishing touch to any gift: write your team member a note expressing your appreciation for them, and/or noting something especially great they did in the past year that really impressed you.
Ideas for Attracting the Attention of a Medical Sales Manager
If you’re in a job search, one of your biggest concerns is: how do you get the attention of a medical sales manager? I’ve got some ideas for you:
- Proof. Your LinkedIn profile and your resume should feature numbers that prove what a great sales rep you are. Sales rankings, dollars, or percentages that provide evidence of your success are music to a sales manager’s ears. (Or whatever the equivalent is visually–eye candy? Maybe not…the point is: they like it.) If you can point out an outstanding statistic or two in your cover letter, that’s even better.
- Persistence. Say you made contact but you didn’t get a response. Do you give up? Of course not. Try again. And again. Not like a stalker, but in a measured, polite, consistent way…until you either have a job, or they tell you to stop. (And if they tell you to stop, they’re not going to hire you anyway, so you haven’t lost anything.) You’re just keeping the lines of communication open. If sending your resume didn’t work, try sending a congratulatory email you got on what a great job you did on X sale. Send your resume again but tell him you made a revision. See what I mean? If one way doesn’t work, try something else. Or very possibly, you just have to catch them at the right moment.
- Creative, but not crazy. This ties in a little with my second point. The copy of the email that compliments you on a job well done with a note that says, “I’d love to talk about how I could contribute like this to your company” is creative, as is sending a copy of your 30/60/90-day plan. Once, a woman got my attention by sending me a photo of herself in camouflage with a note about how she was ready for the sales wars. That’s not bad. I was significantly less interested in the woman who sent confetti tucked into her resume. It made a mess on my desk. Think in terms of ways you can show your potential for success without looking weird or making a job search mistake. You want to show you’re a solution, not a problem.
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