The Interview by Frank Melfa
Be on Time!
The first thing I’ll say about interviewing for a pharmaceutical sales job, or for any job, is to be on time. As far as I’m concerned, there is no excuse for being late. About thirty to forty percent of candidates are either late for interviews or don’t show up at all. I would never offer a job to anyone who is late for an interview. I find people’s behavior during the interview process to be consistent with what they do during the job. If a candidate is late for an interview, then they will usually be late to meetings and field rides with their managers. Also, once you have confirmed the interview location, do not ask your potential manager or interviewer for directions! Once again this is a sign of resourcefulness. Either call the hotel or look up the location and directions yourself.

Arrive an hour early. Sit in your car, drink coffee, review your notes, and practice what you want to say during the interview. This time cushion also allows room for possible traffic delays, a flat tire, or even getting lost, all excuses that I have heard and never accept.

To avoid getting lost and being late, plan ahead by driving or taking public transportation to the interview location a day or two before the interview. This shows foresight and good planning skills. Many interviewers break the ice by asking about the drive to the interview locations. In this case, an icebreaker question can turn out to be an interview question that benefits you, because you get to show your potential manager that you are smart enough to plan ahead. What most of you don’t realize is the interview starts as soon as you walk through the door.

Most interviews take place in hotels. After sipping coffee and reviewing your notes in your car, plan to walk through the lobby doors about fifteen minutes before the interview. If you want to make a good impression, showing the interviewer that you had the foresight to arrive an hour early, you can always mention it during the interview, regardless of whether the interviewer asks or not. You would already be selling yourself.

Find Me
Once you enter the hotel doors (I hope on time), start looking for your interviewer. Don’t just sit down. Walk around and approach anyone who may be the interviewer. Stand in the middle of the lobby and make eye contact with every-one until someone reciprocates.

Sometimes I sit near the hotel entrance, working on my laptop, just to see if the interviewee will make an effort to approach me. Some candidates make no effort at all. They sit and wait to be approached. Timid people usually don’t make it in sales. I need people who are not afraid to walk into a doctor’s office and talk to everyone—to be the mayor!

Be Nice to Everyone
One of my former managers would direct candidates to check in at the front desk of the hotel. He would provide the front-desk people with a spreadsheet that included the candidates’ names. They would rate each candidate’s friendliness on a scale of one through five. This proved to be a valuable part of the interview process. A candidate who was rude to hotel personnel already had one strike against them. We want to hire people who are friendly to everyone. So be nice to everyone and not just to the people you think are important.

Be Prepared

Don’t rely on your good looks and personality to get hired. Don’t laugh—I had at least two people tell me that I should hire them because doctors liked seeing pretty reps. One candidate even pointed to her face while saying it. There’s much more to it than that—for instance, being prepared. I can’t believe how many people show up to interviews unprepared. There are a few that don’t even wear a business suit, but the ones that especially dumbfound me are those my salespeople refer to me. These people have great advantages over other candidates. Besides a guaranteed interview, they have access to product literature, insights about the job, and information about me. I always tell my salespeople not to tip them off unless they specifically ask for help. I want to know if they have the foresight to act on this major advantage to get product literature and information from my salespeople.

What About the Products?
“I really want to work for your company.” Many tell me this, yet most of them can’t tell me a thing about my products. Sure, they might be able to tell me all about the history of the company, but I don’t care about the history—tell me about the products! Show me sales literature, a sample box, an ad, and then sell me! Most people have no clue what the job entails, yet they claim to be certain that it’s what they want to do.

I was interviewing a young man who initially struck me as being confident and aggressive. This was his first interview with me, but his second interview with my company, so I expected him to be fully prepared to discuss our products.

He told me that his mother was a gynecologist, so I asked him what he knew about one of our flagship gynecological products, which then was the number-one written branded drug in the United States. I was amazed that he couldn’t tell me a thing. All he would have had to do was ask his mother. I’m sure she had prescribed it every day that week. He hadn’t had the foresight to talk with his mother about a company he might had worked for and hadn’t even thought to inquire during his first interview about what products he would be selling. He was no more prepared for this interview than he had been for the first.

My next question was, “Do you have any questions for me?” (I usually ask that question to end the interview. If I ask it within the first ten to fifteen minutes, it is not a good sign.)

The more you know about the products, the better. But it also depends on the situation. If you are attending a job fair with many pharmaceutical companies, then you could get away with a brief review of the each company’s biggest-selling products. During job fairs, the interviews will often be short. When you land that second interview, then you’d better be fully prepared. Forget the history lesson and be ready not only to discuss the company’s products, but also the competing products.

Here is an example of how to be fully prepared to discuss a pharmaceutical product during an interview:

• Drug A is an ACE inhibitor that was originally FDA-approved to treat hypertension, but is now the only ACE that is proven and indicated to prevent the risk of cardiovascular events.
• ACE inhibitors work by preventing angiotensin I from converting to angiotensin II which increases vasodiolation which helps decrease blood pressure.
• Drug A is the only ACE inhibitor with a landmark trial that showed that adding it to other agents further reduced the risk of cardiovascular events.
• The trial was published in the New England Journal Medicine in January of 2002. It evaluated over 9000 high-risk patients. (If you come prepared with the actual trial, as opposed to a summary of it from the Internet, and use a few bullets, you would impress the hell out of me.)

Get Off the Internet and Do Something the Job Entails!

Visit a Doctor

The Internet is a good starting point to research a company and its products, but it shouldn’t end there. The meat of your research should be focused on talking with doctors and pharmacists. These are things the job itself entails. So when a hiring manager asks you what you did to prepare for the interview, you will have plenty to say.

If you want to guarantee yourself a second interview or even the job, visit doctors in their offices. Ask the receptionist if you may speak with the doctor. Be prepared with questions. The doctors will provide you with information about how they use the products to treat their patients. The receptionist could provide you with sample boxes of the drugs you would be selling— great props to use during the interview.

Contact a Salesperson
Office managers can also provide you with business cards of pharmaceutical reps. Contacting a pharmaceutical rep could land you an interview with that company, as well as insights into the job and the company’s products.

If you already have an interview set up with a company, the receptionist could provide you with business cards of that company’s pharmaceutical reps. Those salespeople can provide you with valuable information about the company, its products, and the hiring manager. If you impress a salesperson, you could also earn a recommendation from that person. Managers value the opinions of their salespeople. Most of our hires come from internal referrals. A salesperson earns about $2000 for every person they refer who gets hired.

Visit Your Local Pharmacist
Visit a local pharmacy and discuss products with a pharmacist. Once again, the pharmacist could provide valuable information about the products and company. More importantly, a pharmacist could provide you with the prescribing habits of local doctors. You can then visit doctors who use the drugs that you would be selling. Those doctors would have more positive things to say about the products you are interviewing to sell.

Show and Sell!
Bring something to the interview to sell besides yourself and your résumé. I notice many people bring a leather carrying case to interviews. I usually ask people what they have inside, just in case they had prepared something and feel timid about showing it to me. Some people have notes and other information they had gathered, while most have nothing except the fancy leather carrying case.

I’m impressed when candidates whip out their notes and other props, move close to me, and start selling, using a pen to point. This shows that you have done your homework and that you can sell. If we don’t ask you to show us anything during the interview, be aggressive and show us anyway! A doctor isn’t going to ask you to show them anything!

Brag Books
If you have been successful in your current or previous job, then bring your brag book, especially if you were in sales. If you don’t have a brag book, then make one, unless of course you have nothing to brag about. Not only will you get the opportunity to show off your sales numbers, but you also get to show good organizational skills and an opportunity to sell.

Good candidates bring an organized binder with sales reports, letters of recommendation, award letters, and other documents. They take me through it page-by-page. Quality candidates pull a pen out of their pocket and start pointing to their accomplishments while maintaining eye contact.

I always ask candidates with prior sales experience to show me a brag book, especially if they include their accomplishments on their résumés. Some candidates tell me that they left it at home, that they will bring it next time. Little do they know that there won’t be a next-time.

Follow Up!
“What people do during the interview process is usually consistent with what they will or won’t do in the job.”

After your interview, follow up with your interview. Send a thank-you letter immediately, the same day. Then follow up with a phone call. What people do during the interview process is usually consistent with what they will or won’t do in the job. If they make don’t follow up during the interview process, then they will likely not follow up during the job.

This job requires constant follow-up. After I spend a day in the field with one of my reps, I assign homework with specific completion dates. I don’t accept excuses for incomplete tasks that are crucial for driving business, such as setting up educational programs, confirming a doctor’s attendance at a program, inviting doctors to programs, making reservations at a restaurant, ordering a screen and projector for a presentation, following up on a doctor’s request for product literature and samples, and completing expense reports on time. Those who do not follow up on their plans do not work for me long.

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