LinkedIn Discussion: What’s your opinion on the American Institute of Clinical 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 outstanding resource for information about pharma and health care revenue.

For example, in the Revenue 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 sales and was wondering if clinical revenue training programs were a fine 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 pharma 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 precious it’s to participate in LinkedIn groups.)

The trend of the discussion seems to be that pharma sales training programs are a leading investment with questionable value, and that employers focus more on hiring revenue reps with a worthwhile attitude, communication skills, and interpersonal skills, along with the technical knowledge. Although it’s acknowledged that clinical sales 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 worthy they are.  As a career coach, I see value in training and career opportunity preparation, although I don’t know if that’s what would give you the edge in a job offer.  As a medical 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 job 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 medical sales is to (1) do job 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 big candidate and give the best interview of your life; (3) and research–read everything you can on getting into medical revenue (this blog has hundreds of articles for you), and watch YouTube videos on position hunting and clinical sales (I have a Medical Revenue Headhunter channel, and there are many other great ones with specific information).

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

Article courtesy of  Peggy McKee - Owner / Senior Recruiter at the nationally
recognized pharmaceutical and clinical laboratory 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?