Sales Interviews Are About Sales! Quantify Your Experience.

A sales rep's job is to make the sale. So if you're looking for a new sales position in laboratory sales, medical device sales, or any other health care sales arena, the best way to get a medical sales job is to make it your mission is to demonstrate that you can ring that cash register, and do it well.

Start with your resume. Your resume is your marketing document....your "brochure" that's going to draw them into calling you for an interview. And a sales resume is all about the numbers. That's what hiring managers (and medical sales recruiters) are looking for. What kind of numbers can you pull down? What's your sales ranking? Did it increase? What does your customer/units sold/profit growth look like? What was your budget? What kind of revenue have you generated? (Either in actual dollar amounts, or percentage increases.)

Be prepared for the interview. There's a good chance that you'll find yourself in a behavioral based interview (also called BEIs, or Behavioral Event Interviews). The reason hiring managers like these so much is that they get a better picture of what you're like in everyday situations, as well as in difficult situations like the ones you'll surely be in on the new job. They want to know exactly how you'll represent the company in every circumstance. The best way for them to get an idea of that is to see what you've done before, because past behavior is the best predictor of future behavior. And, any sales rep worth his or her salt can talk a good game, but only a few can back it up. SO: When you're thinking about possible behavioral interview questions in a sales interview and coming up with outstanding examples of your fine selling and customer skills, quantify them as much as possible.