LinkedIn Discussion: What’s your opinion on the American Institute of Pharma Sales Academy?

Are you on LinkedIn?  If not, you should be.  Not only is LinkedIn an invaluable component of your professional network, it’s an awesome resource for information about clinical and health care sales.

For example, in the Sales Café group, this is a discussion:

What’s your opinion of the American Institute of Clinical Sales Academy?

The discussion started with a question from a recent college graduate interested in clinical revenue and was wondering if clinical sales training programs were a worthwhile opportunity for someone with the degree, but no experience.

He got several responses from health care industry executives, sales reps, and others, including me (the medical sales recruiter), and generated a few more questions from more experienced jobseekers who do have the sales experience, just not the medical sales experience.  (Just looking at the caliber of the people in the discussion will show you how fine it is to participate in LinkedIn groups.)

The trend of the discussion seems to be that clinical sales training programs are a big investment with questionable value, and that employers focus more on hiring revenue reps with a good attitude, communication skills, and interpersonal skills, along with the technical knowledge. Although it’s acknowledged that medical revenue can be a hard field to break into, and candidates are looking for an edge.

My input was that since I’ve never participated in a training program, I don’t know how wonderful they are.  As a career coach, I see value in training and job preparation, although I don’t know if that’s what would give you the edge in a career opportunity offer.  As a clinical sales recruiter, I’ve never had a client company ask for a candidate with these certifications, and I’ve never had a candidate win the position based on having gone through a course…so I don’t think candidates should expect a hot pursuit if they do.

The advice I always give to people trying to break into clinical revenue is to (1) do position shadowing, which provides you with experience, resume keywords, and sets you apart; (2)  get a career coach who can show you how to present yourself as a major candidate and give the best interview of your life; (THREE) and research–read everything you can on getting into clinical revenue (this blog has hundreds of articles for you), and watch YouTube movies on position hunting and pharma sales (I have a Medical Revenue Recruiter channel, and there are many other great ones with specific information).

Let’s continue the discussion here:  Have you participated in a medical sales training program?  Did you discover that it was helpful to your medical sales career opportunity search?

Article courtesy of  Peggy McKee - Owner / Senior Headhunter at the nationally
recognized clinical laboratory and pharma sales recruiting team of PHC Consulting.
© Copyright 2008 PHC Consulting | All rights reserved

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LinkedIn Discussion: What’s your opinion on the American Institute of Medical Sales Academy?