Are you hiring sales reps for medical sales, laboratory sales, clinical diagnostics, imaging sales, medical device sales, biotech sales, pathology sales, surgical supplies sales, hospital equipment sales, pharmaceutical sales, or other healthcare sales?  Your first step should be to review your current team:  What works in your sales reps and what doesn’t?  Then you can make a hiring decision that’s based on past results of what works in your company and be more confident in your choice.

Let’s be honest:  Most sales managers are so busy that they hire on auto pilot.  (Not that it doesn’t sometimes work for you.)  But if you’re the kind of manager who makes decisions based on what has yielded the best results (and in this case, that means hiring candidates who are similar to your best-performing salespeople), then you need to review your team.  You can do this as an overview, or you can use formal assessments.  What do you look for?   Experience, tenure, degree, personality profile, sales productivity, or other qualities important to the success of your team. 

For example, one of my clients recently asked me to provide candidates for an open position.  My question for him was:  “Based on your experience, what would you say your ‘best fit’ best performer background is?”

After some thought, he gave me this information:

All four profiles have performed at or above plan for the client.

When I pressed the manager for further insights, he said “You know, in the past we haven’t been able to get much sales experience in a range of 50-60K base plus 30 comp.  And the technical person (#4) who wanted to make a transition did do very well, but the ones with sales experience ramped up faster by at least 3 months.” 

I have found similar patterns in other managers who ask for candidates like #4, but who always move forward with candidates who have sales experience.  (With new clients, I start out sending both.)  When I discover this pattern, I point it out to the manager and then stop sending those candidates–in this case, the technical sales rep wannabes who aren’t making the cut. 

See?  My recruiting was based on past results.  Once you’ve narrowed your search criteria, the whole process becomes faster, more efficient, and more productive.

Just some food for thought…

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The medical sales field is one of the more lucrative and rewarding for new graduates in the UK. Medical sales jobs involve going to consumers, medical professionals, and facilities to sell them on new products to help them deal with medical issues. Wheel chairs, dialysis machines, and patient beds are only a few of the products offered by medical supply companies. Graduates may overlook medical sales jobs but those who enter the field find a nice mixture of financial and intrinsic reward. Medical sales professionals earn a solid wage and commission while knowing that the products they sell will help out hundreds and thousands of people. Read more...

Anyone who has been seeking for work over the last few years can attest to the fact that positions in the medical career field have continued to be in demand and may have actually grown over the years. Nurses, medical technicians, physicians assistants and other qualified healthcare positions are posted all over job search sites, classified ads, and recruited heavily from within. When looking at the span of positions available and what jobs will continue to be recession proof medical careers are easily spotted as a smart, safe, and financially sound career move. However, little information is given to careers in other parts of the healthcare industry such as the medical sales sector. Given the information we know about the economy and medical careers this is also an industry that could be considered recession proof.

For instant, during hard economic times we see an influx of people actually using hospitals, clinics, and doctor’s offices more frequently. Whether this is due to the fact that people do not have the extra cash to eat better, splurge gym memberships, or the overall stress that a recession adds on, causes increased medical problems, we don’t know. However, past recessions show us that healthcare industries tend to thrive during an economic downturn. This means hospitals and clinics are more likely to spend money on equipment and new technology to compensate for the increase in demand on their staff and supplies. The more people they service the higher the demand for medical supplies is.

Hospitals and clinics are not the only companies who tend to spend money during an economic recession. Businesses also tend to market themselves more due to increased competition for consumer’s business. This is another way that medical sales vacancies tend to be recession proof. Sales positions are one way that businesses can save and make money during a recession. Since most sales positions are a combination of salaried and commission positions, businesses can lower salary but give higher commissions. This allows them to pay great sales people top dollar without taking a substancial risk. Since during recessions businesses tend to spend more money on marketing, and also tend to offer competitive prices to beat out other businesses in the industry, sales jobs tend to be more recession proof than other positions. Also, because the company is spending money to promote itself, sales positions tend to have better capture rate because you have corporate marketing as well as individual sales helping to promote your product.

Recession proof jobs are hard to find, but medical sales could prove to be a lucrative career during a period of economic downturn. Sales people with experience and a proven track record may have their pick of positions since businesses tend to expand their sales teams during economic recessions. These jobs may have slightly lower salaries but usually come with bigger commissions and often even sign on bonuses. As hospitals are spending more money on supplies due to increase in demand, taking higher commissions may even work out in the favor of the medical sales professional.

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One of the hardest fields to advance within in the United Kingdom is medical sales. Medical sales professionals face a number of competing stresses that create barriers to advancement to management or executive positions. The influx of university graduates on an annual basis means there is a lot of pressure from entry level workers for a small number of advancement opportunities. As well, competition among colleagues makes it difficult for medical sales professionals to be successful in their job while trying to impress their managers. Finally, the competition among medical supply and pharmaceutical companies has increased. This means high pressure and expectations from the executive office. Read more...

The medical supply sales field in the UK is one of the most consistent fields of entry for new graduates. Graduates of UK universities are often recruited directly by these companies at job fairs and open houses. Medical supply sales companies work hard to recruit talented, enthusiastic, and committed graduates to fill their ranks as field representatives and graduate trainees. Many graduates buy into these positions wholeheartedly, either as a real commitment to the field or a stepping stone to other sales or medical field positions. However, the discerning graduate should not commit so fully medical sales recruiters; rather, they should understand how to use medical sales recruitment to fulfill their professional needs. Read more...