How to Get Into Medical Sales: A Step-by-Step Guide

How do you break into medical sales?

First, you need to go in with the expectation that this will be a challenge. Many, many people want to break into medical device sales. Oftentimes, there are over 300 applicants for one position, and only one person gets the job. If you want to be that person, you need to attack this with a different level of tenacity. You have to be exceptional.

So where do you begin?

Step 1: Apply for roles that make sense for you

Make sure you’re applying for entry-level roles or roles directly tied to your experience level. If you’re right out of college, there’s no reason to apply for territory manager or sales rep positions that typically require several years of medical sales experience.

If you’re a surgical tech or nurse, a clinical specialist role could make sense for you. You can also go after entry-level roles.

Your willingness to relocate is another factor. Naturally, you’ll have more opportunities if you’re willing to relocate than someone who wants to stay in a small town.

Step 2: Get interviews

There are two barriers to breaking into medical device sales. The first is getting interviews. Three factors affect your ability to get them.

Your experience. The most ideal candidate is someone who already has medical sales experience. Next are people with B2B sales experience. They’re already in sales, they’ve worked through longer sales cycles, and they understand objection handling and building business plans. Those skills transfer well to medical device sales.

After that are people with healthcare experience. Although they may lack sales experience, they have a clinical background, which goes a long way.

Now, let me be very clear: B2B sales experience can make the transition easier, but breaking in is still difficult. You do not need B2B sales, healthcare, or medical sales experience to break in. Those backgrounds can lower the barrier to getting interviews, but your experience is only one of three factors.

Your resume. You could be qualified on paper, but if your resume isn’t structured appropriately, you won’t be getting interviews. Make sure it’s one page, concise, hard-hitting, and quantifiable.

A common mistake I see is people trying to appear super qualified by putting down everything they’ve ever done. Their resume ends up as a blocky, intimidating wall of text. Your resume is a 30-second advertisement about you. It needs to be concise and hard-hitting.

Applying and networking. This is the most important factor. You want to target and network with the decision makers directly involved with open roles. It does you no good to network with somebody across the country at a random company when there’s no role open.

If you just send out mass applications online, your resume often gets lost in the pile. I tell my clients it’s far more effective to apply to three positions and do everything possible to make sure the decision maker knows who you are and gets on the phone with you than to apply to 200 positions and do no networking. It’s just what works.

Step 3: Win the interview

The second barrier is winning the interview. If you’re getting interviews but not getting offers, you’re not providing enough value during the interview process.

Oftentimes, you’ll hear, “We’re going with a candidate with more experience.” But think about it: if your experience were truly the objection, they wouldn’t have sat down with you to have a conversation.

What you have to understand is that the interview is an assessment. How you navigate the interview is likely how you’re going to navigate the job. You need to prepare to extreme levels.

Do market research. Understand the anatomy, the pathology, and the patients. What disease state or problem are you trying to treat? Who are the competitors in the space? What common objections will you face? And that’s just the beginning. (Here’s more on preparing before your first role.)

I also recommend creating a highly specific, tailored business plan. I’m not talking about a generic 30-60-90 day sales plan that you may see people encouraging you to make online. Everybody knows to do that now, and it’s just not good enough. There’s a specific business plan I encourage all of my clients to create.

How long does it take to break into medical sales?

People who have been in this industry for a while may tell you that you need two years of B2B sales experience before you can break into medical device sales, and that it’s the only way. That advice is outdated and simply not true.

With a strategic plan in place and expert guidance in your corner, like you’d have in my program, you can reasonably target landing a job in 8 to 12 weeks. I’ve even had candidates break in as early as five weeks.

Be ready for the challenge

If you want to be the one person out of 300 who gets the job and goes on to have an exceptional career, you need exceptional preparation. My program helps you overcome the two barriers to breaking in: getting the interview and winning the offer.

Barrier 1: Getting the interview

There are three factors that matter here:

Your experience. I give you medical sales experience. I teach you anatomy and pathology, how to sell to a doctor, how to walk a physician through a case, how to navigate the reimbursement landscape, and how to build a business plan. I make you the most dangerous candidate on paper. This is something you can put on your resume.

Your resume. I reconstruct it for you. We’ll add the MedSalesCoach program and make it compelling. Hiring managers will be curious and ask you about it. You can tell them that you’re familiar with the industry and can contribute from day one.

How you connect with decision makers. Rather than going on LinkedIn and trying to hunt down the hiring manager, which is what the other 200 or 300 applicants are doing, you’ll have access to my database. You can reach the hiring manager directly and connect with the people making the decision.

Barrier 2: Winning the interview and getting the offer

Your experience matters here for a different reason. If two candidates interview equally well, the candidate who seems like the safer bet will often get the job. That’s usually someone with medical sales experience. I don’t want you to be at that disadvantage.

The second factor is preparation. You need to rehearse your answers, know what questions to expect, ask high-level questions, and know how to close interviews. I walk you through the interview process as if I were going through it myself.

The third factor is providing value. I help you create a comprehensive, highly detailed business plan. This is not a generic 30-60-90-day sales plan you can find online. Everyone else is making one of those. It’s not good enough anymore.

If you want a proven path and assistance getting there, I’m a resource for you.

Related articles

• Do You Need Sales Experience to Get Into Medical Sales?
• How Long Does It Take to Break Into Medical Sales?
• Medical Device Sales Resume Examples That Get Interviews
• How to Network Your Way Into Medical Sales on LinkedIn
• Medical Device Sales Interview Questions (and How to Answer Them)
• Is Medical Device Sales a Good Career?