The Tool I Used to Break Into Medical Sales

Hello! My name is Cathy Henry. I have been a medical sales professional for 18+ years. I worked for large global manufacturers such as 3M and Becton Dickinson (BD), and for startup companies, introducing new technology to the market. I broke into medical sales after a 6-year career in public relations.

I will share my strategies for success to help you break into a rewarding industry with a lot of upside and opportunity to make an impact. If you have already started to contact recruiters or hiring managers in the medical industry, you may have already run into the brick wall of every job posting requiring “3 to 5 years’ experience.” “How am I supposed to get experience if no one will give me experience?” The ultimate conundrum. I am going to share with you what I did to prove to a medical industry hiring manager that I had many of the same skills and experience they were looking for – just in a different industry/ position.

I graduated from Texas Tech University with a Mass Communications degree in Public Relations. I was fortunate to get a job in my field working for a small PR and advertising agency in Fort Worth. I then transitioned to a large PR agency in Dallas to get experience with national brands/clients. After 6 years spent at agencies, I realized that I am a very independent worker, and I was looking for more autonomy on a day-to-day basis. Also, I have always had an entrepreneurial spirit, even as a child. After a conversation with friends at dinner one night, I learned that a career in medical sales could provide many of those dynamics. I was also attracted to the concept of earning sales commissions – getting paid more based on performance. I have always been a hard worker, so why not boost my income accordingly!

Shortly thereafter, I enthusiastically set off on my medical sales job search only to be met with the following disclaimer on every job posting: “Do not apply without 3-5 years’ experience.” I knew I was qualified and that I was a fast learner, but how could I convey that to a hiring manager if they were going to toss my resume directly into the recycling bin as soon as they saw “no experience” in medical sales? Also, I wasn’t sure if I wanted to pursue a pharmaceutical sales job or medical sales job based on the job descriptions I was seeing. What is the difference? (I will walk you through this in a minute.) Also, did I need a degree in biology? Agh!

After several months of frustration, I became convinced that the only way to break into medical sales was knowing someone in the industry, having a degree in biology, or somehow gaining direct sales experience. (Of course, any of one of those things help, but they are not barriers to entry.)

I applied for both pharmaceutical and medical sales positions and was not having any luck, not even getting one interview. One day in frustration, I told a friend, “I know I could get a job in this industry – I just need someone to “SEE” that I’ve already been doing a lot of the skills required for these positions.” And where I remain inexperienced, I need to “SHOW” them that I am a quick learner based on my previous experience in the workforce.

Thus the handy “Skills Comparison Checklist” was born. (See image below.) After months of not progressing to an interview stage, I finally got a call back. It was not from a large global manufacturer in either pharmaceutical or medical sales, but from a startup company who owned sleep labs in the DFW area. The company needed a sales rep to convince doctors to refer their patients to their sleep labs (as opposed to competing sleep labs). I was more than excited to get a call back and even though it wasn’t one of the big recognizable companies, this position could give me the sales experience in the industry I desperately needed.

As you will see on the left-hand side, I list the goals/objectives/strategies/skills that I had been successfully doing in my PR role, and then on the right-hand side, I took exact wordings from medical sales job descriptions I wanted to apply for (this example is geared towards the sleep lab company mentioned above). For the most part, the column on the left-hand side remained the same. I would then customize the right column to the position I was applying for. I included this document in addition to my resume and cover letter when applying for positions. And when I did get an interview, you better believe I had a hard copy of this document printed on resume paper.

Again, I tailored this document for my career at the time, PR, and the job I was interviewing for, a position with a Sleep Lab company. You can tailor this same document based on your current position, whether you are in sales in another industry or not in sales at all – maybe a teacher or a nurse. During the interview the hiring manager said, “We are actually far along in the process with another candidate who has a history calling on these doctors. Why would we hire you when you don’t have experience calling on doctors?” I took out my skills comparison sheet, and I walked him through it, line by line. I could tell he was impressed. Going through the document took the majority of the interview. And as any good salesperson must do at the end of the interview, I “asked for the business.” I said, “Based on this list of skills and experience, can you see now that I am in fact qualified to do this job?” He called me the next day to say I got the job. And, he referenced my skills experience document which demonstrated to him that I understand the basic crux of sales, which is to effectively convince a customer your product is what they need over the competition.

I threw myself into my new role and learned as much about sleep medicine as I could so that I would be a credible resource to the doctors I was calling on. I ended up growing the business so rapidly that I worked the sleep lab into a 6-week back log. I stayed in this position for 2.5 years gaining a ton of experience. At that point I felt ready to step up to the big leagues and apply for sales positions with major manufacturers (selling a product versus a service).

It's an easy and effective tool for navigating a career transition.  If you need help with yours, let me know!  You can book a sales coaching session with me on my website.