Healthcare & Pharmaceuticals Of course you’ll scour the employ-
er’s Web site for information, but you will likely want to go beyond that by looking for news items about the com- pany and learn what products might be in its pipeline. Look for annuals re- ports, news releases, and stock-market reports. Find out about competing products and companies. Some good sources for pharmaceutical-industry news include: n Bioview industry news n Bioview industry research n CafePharma n
CuttingEdgeInfo.com n Drug Topics n BioSpace n FDA’s Center for Drug Evalua- tion and Research n Lexi Comp New Information and
Products n Quintessential Careers Guide to
Researching Companies, Industries, and Countries Here’s an example of using informa-
tion in the news to your advantage in a pharmaceutical interview: Interviewer: What do you think are
the important elements of presenting one of our products to a physician? Interviewee: Well, I recently read in
the Canadian Journal of Clinical Phar- macology that physicians want detailed safety data, comparative data between new and old drugs, and the prices of products. I’d like to explore how [name of company]’s sales philosophy fits in with providing physicians with what they say they want from pharmaceuti- cal reps. While there is no such thing as a
“typical” pharmaceutical sales job inter- view, candidates will often find common threads running through these inter- views. Some questions will probe your understanding of what it’s really like to be a pharmaceutical sales rep. A good article by Pat Riley describing many of these types of questions and how to an- swer them can be found in this article. Some will be behavioral questions de- signed to predict your future perfor- mance based on how you’ve behaved on the job in the past. You may be asked, for example, questions about how you have typically dealt with difficult supervisors
and clients. See our article, Behavioral Interviewing Strategies. You will probably be asked why
you seek a job in pharmaceutical sales. You should be able to demonstrate your passion and enthusiasm for the field. Your response might focus on the pride of offering a quality product that makes a difference in people’s lives, as well as on the comprehensive training program the company likely offers, and its exceptional opportunities for success. It’s also helpful to be able to talk
about your own familiarity with hav- ing used one of the company’s prod- ucts, or a family member’s product use. Any stories you know about someone’s life being saved or quality of life being improved through one of the company’s products also will make a big impression. Demonstrate your ability to close a
sale by asking for the job at the end of the interview. One of the best ways to prepare for
specific questions often asked in phar- maceutical-sales interviews is to get your hands on one of the many books available about breaking into the field. Two that we like include Teena Rose’s Cracking the Code to Pharmaceutical Sales and Insight into a Career in Pharmaceuti- cal Sales, by Anne Clayton, which also comes highly recommended by Corey Nahman, whose site itself offers lots of helpful information for breaking in. Al- though the Pharmaceutical Sales Inter- viewing Tools site is largely a teaser for selling Pat Riley’s books about getting into pharmaceutical sales, a sampler of interview questions is provided. The site also offers an excellent no-cost, downloadable report, An Interview with a Pharmaceutical Sales Recruiter. These books and sites typically offer frequently asked pharma-sales inter- view questions, along with the ratio- nale for why they’re being asked, and suggestions for responding. As the interview process winds
down, and you become one of the top candidates, you may be required to take a pharmacology test involving
90 HISPANIC NETWORK MAGAZINE Celebrating 18 Years of Diversity
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