Did you ever hear that you should never quit your current job until you have landed a new one?  Well, this old adage is true, and here is why.

Medical sales recruiters understand that most of their hiring managers prefer to hire a great sales rep away from another company.  So, when they are evaluating potential candidates to interview for a sales opening, they tend to favor those candidates who are currently employed.  Therefore, if a recruiter has been given only three interviewing slots by the hiring company, an unemployed candidate may be left out of the process in favor of one who is employed.

This phenomenon has been somewhat diminished in importance by the large number of high quality sales individuals who have been down-sized because of the economy.  However, make no mistake about it, most hiring managers are psychologically tuned to hiring a sales rep away from another company, rather than one who is currently unemployed.

The lesson here is that you should start your job search for a new sales position while you are still employed, if at all possible.  Never leave an unhappy situation to seek greener pastures without understanding that you may be reducing your opportunities for gaining a better position by being unemployed.

NEXT:    Try to use a Recruiter who has an Exclusive Job Order from a Company

In this tough job market, job seekers are pulling out all of the stops in their attempts to secure a job.  The medical sales industry, once thought to be immune from an economic downturn, is seeing the loss of thousands of health care sales jobs, causing unemployed sales reps to seek-out new methods to compete for those few available positions.

One method being hyped is “email blasting”.  Job seekers pay a fee to have their resume sent via email to hundreds, or even thousands of recruiters and potential employers.  Sounds like a winner, right?  To the contrary, this method is actually a waste of time and money.

Why?  First, recruiters and companies receive literally hundreds (or even thousands) of new candidate resumes daily.  They have become so inundated with emailed resumes filling their in-boxes each morning that most merely delete those emails without ever reading them.  Email blasting is a veritable “black hole”!

Secondly, recruiters spend their time attempting to find a perfect match candidate for a specific job profile, in a specific location.  They do not have the time to browse through hundreds of unsolicited resumes with the slim chance that one of them may be a match.  Instead, they post their job specifications on reputable job boards, and wait for qualified candidates to respond to that posting with their resume.

So, save your money spent on email blasting, and spend it registering for one of the “pay-to-play” medical sales job boards, like www.gorillamed.com.  You will be investing wisely in your job search efforts.

NEXT:    “The best medical sales candidates are already employed”

Contingency medical sales recruiting (that is, where the recruiter does not get paid unless he fills a job) is an extremely competitive industry, in which 90% of the individuals who enter this field fail within the first year.  This business compares very closely with being a realtor, in that the 90% failure rate for recruiters and realtors is very similar.  New recruiters have to work for many weeks, or even months, before they may actually place a candidate, and generate income.  Therefore the fall-out rate for new recruiters is extremely high.

Furthermore, as in real estate sales, the old 80/20 rule certainly applies to medical sales recruiting.  That is, 80% of the medical sales positions are filled by 20% of the recruiters.  Why?  It is because the medical sales recruiters who are successful, stay in the business for many years, and slowly build their credibility and professional relationships with industry personnel over time.  It is very difficult for a new recruiter to get job orders from sales managers who have developed a long-term relationship with an established recruiter, and may be reluctant to compromise that relationship.

This fact is very important to the job seeker, since choosing who will represent you in your job search may be the difference in finding a new job or not. One quick barometer of evaluating a recruiter with whom you might consider engaging is to ask that recruiter how long he/she has been in business.  You may also want to secure a sample list of client companies which that recruiter has represented in the past.

In summary, when choosing a recruiter for your quest to find a job in medical sales, do your homework.  Ask colleagues and seasoned sales managers to recommend several high-quality recruiters with whom they have utilized in the past.  Choose two or three of these recruiters, and start developing a relationship with them.  Even if you are currently not seeking a new job, it always pays to have a close working relationship with a few quality recruiters.  Make this a priority as part of your overall career-building strategy.

NEXT TOPIC:   “Why Email Blasting Your Resume is a Waste of Time”

Many experienced and entry level job seekers will engage with a medical sales recruiter in their search for a job in medical sales.  This process can be frustrating, with the candidate feeling he/she has no real control of the proceedings.

In my latest series, I will discuss many aspects of the medical sales recruiting business, gained during my many years in that industry.  It is rather obvious that most medical sales representatives do not understand the recruiting business.  My hope is that this series will enlighten these individuals, so that they may better interact with medical sales recruiters in the future.

TOPIC #1 -    THERE ARE TWO TYPES OF RECRUITERS

There are two main categories of medical recruiters.  The first category, retained recruiting, refers to recruiters who are retained by a medical company to find a key employee for a high profile position within that company.  These recruiters are paid a substantial professional retainer, plus all expenses including travel, to identify, screen, and interview individuals throughout the nation for a critical position.  In general, retained searches are limited to filling senior executive positions such as CEO or CFO.  In some cases, VP positions are also filled through retained searches.  The recruiter agrees to work to fill these positions as long as it takes until the right candidate is found and hired.  In a retained search, the recruiter is compensated by the company whether they hire a candidate or not.

The second category of recruiting, which applies to almost all medical sales and sales management positions, is contingency recruiting.    In this type of recruiting, companies engage the services of one or more recruiters to identify and screen potential hires.  These recruiters are paid nothing by the companies to conduct these searches.  The recruiters carefully evaluate and screen potential candidates, and select a small group of them to be interviewed by the hiring company.  If the company actually hires a candidate provided by a contingency recruiter, they agree to pay a pre-negotiated placement fee to that recruiter.  In other words, contingency recruiters make nothing until one of their candidates is hired.

NEXT:     “NINETY PERCENT OF RECRUITERS LEAVE THE INDUSTRY IN THE FIRST YEAR”