Re: entring the Pharmaceutical industry
Tomodinhio. I'll give it to you straight. I'm going to assume you are talking about sales. Why am I assuming that? Because the world and his mother are trying to get into Medical Sales of some sort at the moment.
Current jobs on the market mostly require 2-3 years (min) experience. Pharma is the more likely option to get into as a rookie. Sales managers will look for a medical or a Sales background (preferably both). There is a lot of competition out there. Even within sales backgrounds there are some that would not be looked at quickly eg. car sales. For people with a medical background it can be equally difficult to get in. It costs about 70k to put you on the road. Companies can ill afford to hire somebody that changes their mind about the job 6 months in.
You need to be able to prove that you eat, sleep and drink pharmaceutical sales. Any sign of it being a whim and you have blown it. How do you prove it? Here are some pointers.
1. Join the as a student member.
2. Get some specific training under your belt. In your case you would need both sales and medical training. (try googleing medical sales training)
3. Shadow some reps. Get out there on the road with a Medical Rep or two and write reports on the day. That will give you a feel for the job. It is not all that easy to get to do either so it impresses people.
4. Have the right personality. You either have it or you don't. This is too large a topic to go into in detail. Different areas require slightly different personality types. A lot of companies use psychometric testing as part of their hiring process. In a nutshell, shy retiring, non-assertive people need not apply. Likewise over-assertive, aggressive and domineering people are equally unlikely to get far. It may seem like a cliche but confident good listeners who are naturally charming and put people at ease but are also driven to succeed, dynamic and motivated with a ready smile make good candidates. That is over simplifying it, but you get the gist. Don't think you can fake it either... you will be found out.
The internet is a great place to do some research. A simple search for "medical sales" should set you off in the right direction. Look out for forums too like
cafepharma.com. A lot of Irish reps use it. Subscribing to their twitter feed should give you a good insight too.
The hard truth of it is that even if you do all of that your chances are still not all that great. It only takes one other candidate with the right some relevant experience to knock you out of the running. I said chances are not all that great... but it's not impossible!
Hope that's helpful to you.