Career Advice

[jiacinto]

I was wondering if you all could help me with these questions.

I am interested in becoming a drug rep and was wondering if any of you could give me some advice on how to go about finding positions.

I have a few questions.

1) What are the leading drug/pharmaceutical companies?

2) How does one become a drug rep or how does one get into the field?

3) What are some good websites look at?

4) Do you know anyone who might be able to give me career advice or who may be able to help me further investigate this career?

[La_Serpiente]

1. You want to work for the drug companies?

Maybe you could get us some dirt.

[Chuckup]

2. Education wise..

I would say a background in pharmacy would be a help. I believe most companies require a college/university degree in a related field.

[displacedtexan]

3. careerbuilder.com

select a city or region;
search 'sales'; then 'health care' and contact the companies. you shouldn't have any trouble getting hired. they always need new reps. drug reps take samples to physicians and try to get them to prescribe their brands.

[KG]

4. going to work for big pharm, eh?

an industry that is doing its best to put afforable health care out of the reach of working class america with its huge profit margins on its products?

an industry that spends millions lobbying to stifle competition to protect their obscenely inflated prices? and to prevent affordable drugs from being imported? or resist lowering its obscene prices on AIDS medications to help the dying here and around the world?

big pharm is a text-book example of all that's wrong with corporate america.

[jiacinto]

6. Look

I need to earn money. I can be moral and self-righteous about it when I make ends meet.

[KG]

7. you are moral and self-righteous already, bro..

:)

why do you want to sell out to corporate america?

i've known pharm reps. their major skill is schmoozing. that's not you.

you're not a salesman, you are an academic. your strengths are research and writing. persue those avenues. or not.

[jiacinto]

8. Fair enough

I do have sales experience, though. It's something I am interestedin pursuing.

[Heddi]

13. I thought you only had retail sales experience?

Do you have ANY type of outside-sales related experience? Meaning, do you have experience going up to people who have no idea about your product, no interest in your product, and no need for your product, and GETTING THEM TO BUY YOUR PRODUCT?

Do you have experience doing cold-call selling? Door-to-door?

Retail 'sales' is NOTHING with actual sales-sales.

I worked in newspaper sales. Lotsa cold calling. Lotsa walking into businesses who hate your paper and trying to convince them to advertise in your paper.

I've worked at 2 newspapers selling ads. I am not lying when I say that at least--at LEAST 75% of the salespeople I worked with were ex-pharmaceutical sellers. It's the dirtiest selling there is, after used-cars and insurance (worked with alot of people in those fields too).

In Pharm. Sales, you're pretty much working on straight, 100% commission. That means if you don't sell, you don't get paid. You may get mileage paid---ususally between .07 and .10 per mile---barely covering gas.

Most Pharm Sales will have your 'territory' ALL over the place. One gal I worked with had a 300-mile-a-day trip to make to cover all her territories. It was shit work. Honestly. All sales are.

Sales are high-pressure, high-tension, and generally low-money unless you are one of the 8 people in the universe that are called 'GOOD CLOSERS'---oh anyone can deliver a spheil about this product, and these benefits, but you gotta close the sale---which means NOT ACCEPTING NO---sounds easy, right? WRONG. I worked in sales for 5 years +/- a few months.

Carlos, unless you have gone door to door (not door-to-door residental, but door-to-door commercial business), unless you know the agony of showing up at a company every day for a month trying to make a sale that will only garner you about $80 in commission, unless you ENJOY only making $200 a month, don't go for this. Seriously.

I know you're hard-up for cash---but these jobs you're looking in---they're not money makers---not for first timers. No 100% commisson job is. Even if you get a base salary, it's going to be paltry, less tha min. wage. and you're going to be required to work more than 40 hours a week and get paid shit wages.

Also, Pharm. Sales are like Avon Sales---really--_EVERYONE is a Pharm. Seller. Which means that you're going to be competing with shitloads of people. Which means that when you call a Dr's office to make an appointment, they're going to be shitty with you and not want to see you. Which means you'll STILL Have to go to the Dr's office and sit there for 4 hours while you wait until you can jimmy the Dr between the door and the wall and give them 8 seconds to tell them everything about your product. Which means the Dr is going to be rolling his eyes at you because he's already had 4 other people that week give him the same line about the same medication.

Then you're going to drive 150 miles back home, cry because it's been 4 months and you've not made more than, on average, $5 an hour (including mileage), your boss is on your ass b/c you're not making sales and HEY, why don't you pick up ANOTHER territory 100 miles in the OPPOSITE direction....

don't do it. Work in restaurants. Guaranteed money. Low stress (compared to outside sales). guaranteed money. No heavy travel.

I have extensive sales experience and I would NEVER wish sales upon my worst enemy (heh). It's an awul awful, back-biting, self-hating, depreciating, unrewarding career. Seriously. if you want to know more, feel free to PM me and I'll give you all the horrible details


On Edit---Just in case you don't know, a job that is 100% commission means you only earn money when you sell something, and you USUALLY have to sell at a certain level before you get commission. So if you sit in that Dr's office for 4 hours waiting to jimmy him between the door and the wall, and you don't make the sale, you DO NOT get paid for that 4 hours. Nor do you get paid for travelling to and fro. You ONLY get paid if you make a minimum sale of $X. ANd commission rates generally are not good. Don't expect to get 50% commission or any other crazy number like that.

At the newspapers I worked at, the GREAT GREAT salespeople who'd been with the company for YEARS and had million-dollar contracts got MAYBE 20% commission...MAYBE....I think I knew one at the last paper I worked at that got 35% comm, but because it was a smaller paper, the sales-brackets were higher than the larger paper I worked at...so even 35% comm. isn't good, and it's very very rare.

[jiacinto]

14. I just PMed you

I am just thinking of careers.

[Heddi]

15. I just replied :)

I know it's hard right now job-wise---and I know that sales jobs ALWAYS run ads about unlimited income potential---heh--the last job I worked at (newspaper), I sold newspaper ads. They were looking for a sales-rep in our department, and the ad said something like 'Earn $75-$100k your first year" and everyone in my department is like "GIVE ME SOME OF THAT"---it was funny (funny-sad, not funny-haha) because NO ONE was making anything NEAR $75k a year---much less $100k.....

The 'unlimited income' racket that sales managers pull over on naieve young sales-people is just that--a racket. Hell--when I interviewed for my last job, the manager told me that I should be making in the range of $50k a year IF NOT MORE (emphasis hers). She told me that "many people in the department" made over $50k a year It wasn't until months after I accepted teh job that I found out that the ONLY Person who made more than $50k a year was the manager, and she didn't sell (she got salary)----most people in my department made between $20-$27k a year--ON A GOOD YEAR.

Sales is for suckers---really. Unless you're a good salesperson (and very few people are---I certainly am not), then sales is not for you. And I repeat, that very few people are good sales people.

There were people I worked with who LOVED their job. Did a great job. Sold tons of shit and made alot of money. 90% of the people I worked with were depressed, hated their jobs, would contemplate wether they'd rather jump out the window or make ANOTHER doomed cold-call where they're just going to be told 'no' for the 800th time that day. IT's a very depressing job. That's why I got out of it. I had to. I'd have a heart-attack by age 30 if I kept up working in sales. Either that or I'd kill myself, or a whole bunch of clients who repeatedly refused to sign contracts :)

[jiacinto]

17. Ok

Thanks for telling me that. Check your inbox again.

[cmd]

5. Do some online checking

This link will take you to the pfizer sitemap. Jobs are listed there. There are rep jobs open in the Orlando and Gainsville areas at this time. Check other major companies: Eli Lilly, Merck, Johnson and Johnson

http://www.pfizer.com/mn_sitemap.html

[Wonk]

9. You have a degree, right? Thought about pursuing a job in a related field?

Or did you just do it for the piece of paper and to accumulate debt?

[comsymp]

10. You do NOT want to be a drug rep!!!

I've spent the past 15+ years working with these people (the last several as a medical *lab* sales rep, myself) and there is absolutely no way you want to go into that field.

1) as was already pointed out above, you aren't a salesperson. no offense intended; some are, some aren't (fwiw, i'm not either). what good motivational books have you read recently? what do you know about selling? and no, retail is a TOTALLY different field- absolutely no similarities. time management, territory mgmt, building client relationships? do you get a charge out of the art of the deal?

2) possibly better reason- the job blows, and is continuing to go downhill. time was when drug reps just blew wads of $$ on docs, got their products in the offices and collected their >100k salaries, and that was that. no more. the drug industry is going thru what hit the lab industry in the late '90s. *See Stark Law, Federal Anti-Kickback Statute for starters. I've known many, many drug reps who've bailed over the past few years- including several who moved into the lab industry and actually said that it was easier and paid better!

[jiacinto]

11. Ok

It's just something that I ma looking in to.

[comsymp]

12. Do you have ANY interest in the medical field, any background?

A good pharma (or lab) rep should be able to talk shop w/the md's- if you are seriously interested in healthcare as a possibility, pm me and i'll shoot you a couple suggestions. my former company has a miami site. don't think i still know anybody down there but could suggest a few things.

[Nikia]

16. My husband went to a career fair/open interview for one

There were about fifty people there for two positions and most of these people had a decent amount of sales experience. He was told that these positions usually do make a great deal of money. He didn't get the job though. I guess that it is rather competitive.

[Susang]

18. Don't do it!

Drug reps are lower than low. It may sound like an interesting job, but what you are really paid to do is really immoral. Until a month ago, I was in charge of all the pharm. dinners that were hosted at the restaurant I worked at. These people basically bribe physicians and nurses to recommend their drugs over other, often generic or less expensive, drugs. They will do almost anything to skirt the federal law restricting them to $100 spent per person. The doctors know it and take full advantage of it.

Their medical seminars (which actually give doctors educational credits) are a joke. I've sat in on hundreds of them in the past six years and learned nothing that I couldn't have easily found on the drug's insert packaging and I often heard outright lies spoken by the reps and the doctors they hired. It is a sleazy immoral profession that is causing brand name prescription drugs to stay as overpriced as they are.

The drug reps and their bosses offered me opportunities on numerous occasions. I always said no, sometimes politely, sometimes not so. Seriously, no one is this hard up. I've been dirt poor and lived in my car when I was about your age. You may think you have to take any job you can, but remember, it's your choice. You're educated and intelligent. There's more honor and integrity flipping burgers than being a drug rep.

[Capn Sunshine]

19. I suggest a biotech co

Look around for Amgen, Biogen, or one of those guys; I know they have S Florida locations. There's also a huge Countrywide (one of the largest mortgage banking operations in the country.) complex in Florida, A Chase Operations Center, Merrill Lynch, Then there's the Cruise lines, Princess, Royal Carribbean, those guys are always looking for crew and staff.

Just off the top of my head and what I would tell my kid if she were in Florida looking for a gig. :)

[Name removed]

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[REP]

21. I Come From an Outside Sales Family

My father did it most of his life; my brother is in radio sales and I'm an Avon lady. Unless you really really REALLY like people, making cold calls, kissing ass, and getting screwed on commissions, outside sales probably isn't for you (though I must say Avon doesn't screw on commissions). If putting lots of miles on your car, travel, talking with people who range from interesting to complete bozos, and hard work sound like things you can live with, maybe it's for you.

Are you the kind of person who can go in someplace new and leave with 10 new friends? Are you good at keeping track of who likes what? Can you drive around with a car full of barbeque? (My brother did that one Xmas season; gifts to clients.) In outside sales, it's important to know the client as well as the merchandise and the customer that gets treated as though s/he's more than a customer usually buys more. It's true - what you are selling is you; the product is secondary. Some people love it. Some people are really good at it and like it - and still find it incredibly stressful.

Unless your real personality is completely different from your online one*, you'd probably be miserable in outside sales. Plus you'd probably need a PharmD. I have a friend who went to medical school simply so he could sell surgical supplies.

*Not meant at all as an insult

[sandnsea]

22. Public Administration???

Don't you have a degree in politics or government or something? Why aren't you looking for work in city, county, state governments or some sort of social administration? I know there are lots of cutbacks, but jobs do still come open.

By the way, who has the BEST job in the whole world???