Is Pharmaceutical Sales a Good Career?

In the previous installment, we've explored the answer to some excellent jobs to have before applying for a pharmaceutical sales job. We've concluded that any task is excellent. Pharma company usually provide training to the new recruit, and that will compensate for what's lacking.

For today's article, we're going to explore whether pharmaceutical sales is a good or bad career ...

Asking whether pharmaceutical sales a good career or not reminds me of the time when my daughter throws her tantrum in the shopping mall when my wife refuses to buy her a set of toys:

"Mummy is not good. Daddy good!" and she went on and on, mumbling about how bad her mummy was, and how good (ahem!) daddy was.

But is this really the way it is?

I mean, is my wife really not good?

I believe the answer is 'YES!', from my daughter point of view.

The point of the matter is not her reaction. It's the motive behind not allowing her to own the toys.
The same goes for jobs as pharma sales. The point to consider is not what they do once in a while, but what they do that causes them to join the industry.

Define Good Career

How do you define a career as good or no good?

Perhaps, people define a career as good when they got what they aim for.

For example, if they study medicine, a good career would be to become a doctor, or if they research nursing, they expect to be a nurse. Maybe that's how people define a good job.

What else?

Others may define it based on remuneration, the rewards they get from taking up the careers.

For example, if you study accounting, but you end up becoming the champion for, say, the Voice, and end up recording songs with Silo Green, and get to live the Hollywood lifestyle, you consider that as good!

And yeah, you're probably right ...

So the place to begin is to consider your own definition of good.

Then we can move on to consider other factors.

Here's My Proposal:

There's a tool to help people thinks clearly since the number one enemy for clear thinking is...

... Ambiguity.

Kudos if you got that right!

I'm proposing this simple tool to help you decide whether a pharmaceutical sales rep is a good career or not so good. The device is called:

'Weighted Ranking' thinking tool.

How does it work?

First, you got to decide what values you want for a career, for you to consider it excellent.

Maybe you can list things like:

• Education
• Basic salary
• Perks
• Working environment
• Continuous improvement
• Location
• Nature of job
• Etc

Decide as many values as you want or just stick to what's important to you.

Next, you compare a single value against each other, then, you rank all the benefits according to their priority.

For example, you compare 'education' to 'salary,' and you choose the salary. Then, you go down the list until all values are compared to and ranked.

Let us say you end up with something like this:

• Location
• Basic Salary
• Perks
• Environment
• Continuous improvement
• Education

Now, you assign a figure next to each value. In this case, since you have 6 benefits, let us assume 'location' carries six points, and the next one five points, and down it goes.

Imagine This is Your Weighted Ranking:

This is your list. This is your set of criteria and values you want.

Put pharma sales rep to the test!

How does it score with the first one? Full mark? Half? None?

How about the second one?

And down the list you'll go, until you have, sort of, a bright feeling to the total score of your little test.

But that's not the final point...

What's Your Gut Feeling Tells You?

I can't present you with all the 'hard data' experts have when it comes to gut feeling and decision making. Let us just say it is just overwhelming.

Why?

If you follow an expert, who did change the landscape of intelligence, Daniel Goleman, and his research into Emotional Quotation, you probably understand why feeling plays an essential part in our action (or inaction).

Then, there's a term, Lizard's Brain, used by Seth Godin, to define part of the brain that always skeptical about change or action, in general.

How about a definition that we, human beings, are spiritual beings having a human experience?

And Edward De Bono with his motion to use emotion to think, and not to think emotionally?

These are hard evidence about why the final point for your test is determined by the gut response, your feeling after you've done the analysis.

Now, my question to you:

• Have you created your value list?
• Have you ranked them?
• Have you put pharmaceutical sales to the test?
• How's the final outcome?

At the spur of the moment, and due to my daughter's ability to reason, perhaps Weighted Ranking is not a suitable tool for her. There are more effective tools, like me staring down at her :)

But yours is different ...

You can take the time when nobody sees you, when you're alone with your favorite music playing on the background, to take out pen and papers, or just your spreadsheet program, to take up my proposal.

In the end, you got to decide whether pharma sales is or is not for you ...

One final note: good or bad, is not in the career.

If you got chicken manure, turn it into fertilizer. If there's tons of good in you, no matter what squeeze you, only good will come out.

No oak will grow to be Durian.

Seriously ...