Stand Out In Your Medical Sales Job Interview

What does it take to set yourself apart from the competition in the job interview process? Is it a killer resume, a brag book, a 30/60/90-day plan, a great LinkedIn profile, smooth interview skills, or how well you prepare for the interview? Yes, it’s all those things. AND, it’s more. It’s how you position yourself in relation to your competition. Who is the hiring manager comparing you with? How do you stack up? What do you have to offer?

Think about your competition and analyze them. What is their experience? What is their education? What is their product knowledge/industry knowledge/client knowledge? And then you need to ask those questions about yourself. What do you know about the products? What do you know about the clients? What’s your background or education or experience? What do you have to offer? How do you compare?

Once you pinpoint that kind of information, it becomes much easier to gear your interview answers toward positioning yourself as a stand-out candidate.
It’s fair to ask your recruiter what the other candidates look like who are interviewing for the position, and you can even ask the interviewer. When I interviewed, I would ask the hiring managers about my competition. I would ask “what have you liked?” or “what have you not liked?” By asking the questions, I could tell what the hiring manager was looking for and then adjust/tailor my answers, which always resulted in a great interview.

If you come out of the interview and you’ve allowed it to be a ping-pong session where they ask questions and you answer them, and you haven’t controlled it to highlight the things about you that are special and make you unique, then you probably won’t get the job offer.