I has been a rocky road for the past ten years. I have loved being a representative for so many reasons. I have had physician’s talk to me about the beautiful young reps. Most of my experiences with physician’s are mixed in their opinions. They say they love to look at the young beauties, but they have to be able to have intelligence to back up the beauty.

I still have top sales performance and have had my entire career. So my lack of youth has not hurt me. Where it does hurt me is when I am forced to look for another job due to constant reorganizations (3 major companies in 10 years). The sales track record is there, but many managers prefer the younger women. I currently have a 34 year old male manager and he is truly wonderful. He hired me because of my ability, intelligence and personality. AMAZING!

When I was in my early twenties, I was hired into the oil industry during the days of the TV show “DALLAS.” I was smart, talented and easy on the eyes. I moved up to the executive offices quickly. The older women in the company resented me and I didn’t understand. I was so incredibly nice to them they had to like me, plus I constantly ignored attention from the male executives. I didn’t understand it at the time, now I do. These young reps are where I was then. I felt sorry for the older women for not having the youth, the beauty, the perfect figure and trendy fashion sense. What I didn’t know was they had grown beyond the need to have the superficial appearance and had grown beautiful in their depth and experience.

I think that there is room for all of us in this industry. The pharma managers have to recognize that the customer’s sometimes like reps at lunch that remember the big hair 80′s. There are more female physicians than ever. They have commented they want a mix of ages in their reps. Having only young and beautiful reps is insulting to them as females.

I am the oldest in my sales force and get along great with all of my coworkers. At company meetings, rooming with someone is another issue. My manager has to find someone to agree to room with me. I used to be the rep that always agreed to room with the 50-60 year old reps. We snore, have hot flashes and don’t always sleep well. I know that sounds so unattractive. We all get there whether, no matter how young our attitude.

I love being a rep. My company is facing a reorg now. I am not certain that I can get a new position without a nip or a tuck here or there. If I decide to move back into an adm position, how much value will the institutions place on my past ten years. I was a senior specialty rep and had a huge geography. I sold to the brightest and the biggest egos. Doesn’t that mean something?

You have to be bright to be a rep whether you are young and beautiful or not. Passing the rigorous training and constant assessments is not for the bimbo’s of the world. There is so much to this job that people don’t see. The hard work, long hours and constantly being “ON.” The creativity it takes to have a busy physician justify spending time with you.

There is room for all of us. I just hope that the pharmaceutical companies will keep a proportionate number of sucessful older female reps out there.

That may be true but, where are the stats on the percentage of reps that were COLLEGE cheerleaders? That might be a more revealing figure.

The truth is that being good looking helps in any profession, and more prominently so in the pharma profession given how the candidates have been increasingly selected on appearance over the past few years. This goes for either gender.

That said, looks may get you in the door, but value lets you back. (at least from an uncynical view)

Jane Chin

I was an attractive enough young person (20s to mid 30s) and am well groomed and look nice, but I look my age now (47 yrs old) am not the same as when I was 25 or even 35 yrs old.

Realistically, it would be very hard now for me re-hire on at age 47(2007) as I am not young and cute anymore. YOu would think it would be easier due to a great resume and great sales figures over the decades.

I have a 20 plus year good record of pharma detailing experience. I also have a nursing and business undergrad and and Ms Ed.

The only reason I hired on at my last company was because I knew 3 people in that region–the pharma business used to be small and we knew each other more collegially across companies.

I knew 3 people who could recommend me for my last job and my potential DM was in his early 50s at the time. My last Big Pharma hire was in 1997 and I got in because I had 3 “ins” and one of those “ins” was crucial.

If I had not had that ‘in” via being known by reps in their company a re-entry at my age into Big Pharma would have been extremely rare. It was difficult when I came back from grad school to get back into the business—and I was in my mid 30s only.

I initially got back into the business through contract sales. Something you would think a beginner would do but not a long term, successful career rep.

I was realistically resigned to spending the balance of my pharma career in contract sales until a friend helped me get on at my last Big Pharma company.

Contract sales staff are often the real pros out there in this day and age.–Contract forces are comprised largely of “aged out” employees who have decades of experience as have their contract DMs, RMs, etc.

Contract sales is where experienced, often senior reps go once they are perceived as older, more expensive to hire and pay. They (and their managers) get tossed out of Big Pharma and into the world of term-hire independent of good performance.

I have to point out that I have never seen an ugly female pharmaceutical rep in my career and I have worked in 3 geographic areas. If the female rep was older(and by older I mean in their mid 30s to mid 40s!) they still had to be very attractive and have a “young” look. You just don’t see them that often and it is much more rare now. A few older reps make it into specialty sales, but even there they seem to be in their low to mid 30s and definitely not plain in terms of attractiveness.

Also, since I worked for 4 different companies, I was trained four different times. Each time, the initial training was progressively easier material-wise and more and more marketing focused. Lots less real science with each passing year.

But many reps especially now do not have a biological, chem, or even a biomedical background so they know less about the underlying mechanisms of anatomy,physiology and pathophysiology and do not know much beyond a “survey” knowledge of the disease entity their products fit into.

If many “get off the page” in their detail spiels and have to answer a question that may be more involved they can’t go there. They just aren’t trained and/or do not have the training from university to help.So physicians see reps as less integral to their knowledge base than say 20 years ago.

I really think these younger reps are very sincere, but often do not realize that they are not as well trained as they think they are. Most do not understand that in most cases they are selling “Me-toos”—parity among products is the norm, and that what they are talking with the doctor about has much more to do with marketing than real science.

I often term them “bright but clueless” and doctors do not take reps seriously anymore. Some who get it are just cynical about the process—and things that used to be a reward or a special occasion to than an office have become a have to activity such as buying lunch for 20 staffers to see a doctor.

Couple that with the pounding repetiton from 5 reps who do the same detailing of a minimal message (then the doc signs for the samples)and you find that pharmaceutical sale profession is at a historic low point in terms of professionalism.

I wish it were not and I wish Big Pharma valued the people it trained and trained them well. Reps deserve that as they often work very hard.

A rep is just becoming truly valuable to a company when they enter their late 30s and 40s. Not the other way around. What the older rep has to offer just is not valued by the company any longer and that speaks tons about what the industry values and promotes as a whole.

Big Pharma sales used to be a very good job that allowed a person of good, but modest education a chance to use their mind to make a good living and a well trained rep could take his skill and use it in almost any pharma setting. (ask yourself about reps’ days—how many reps take “library time” anymore?—maybe not even reading about their disease or product, but more about medicine in general–not many these days as tehy have to do so much during the day that returns them little professional or personally.)

I thought that technology would elevate the profession. It has not. And the human problems. Ageism and racism and sexism are still very much there.