Pharmaceutical sales certification programs: helpful or not?

Pharmaceutical sales rep certification programs appeal to aspiring pharma sales reps that do not have industry experience. Some programs are accredited while other are not. MedZilla looks into the options and whether these certifications actually help job seekers land pharma sales jobs.

MARYSVILLE, WA August 13, 2004 -- If you want to get a job selling pharmaceuticals, youre not alone.

Jeff Bair, senior recruiter with the Dallas-based Lucas Group, calls pharmaceutical sales the Holy Grail of jobs. Bair, who has been placing pharma reps with employers for years, says he gets calls all the time from people trying to break into the field.

There is a large number of people out there who dont have pharma sales experience but want to land jobs as reps with the major pharmaceutical companies, says Frank Heasley, PhD, president and CEO of MedZilla.com, a leading Internet recruitment and professional community that serves biotechnology, pharmaceuticals, healthcare and science. So, in an attempt to offer these people training, a rather large crop of certification programs has popped up. Some are accredited and university affiliated. Others seem like fly-by-night operations.

Education is a source of knowledge and power, and any edge you can get in this competitive industry could be a good idea, says Marty Martinez, president, Diversity Personnel, a healthcare recruiting firm that specializes in pharmaceutical, biotech and hospital supply sales.

According to Martinez, pharmaceutical sales certification programs are a good idea, conceptually; but he agrees with Dr. Heasley that you should limit your consideration to accredited programs that are recognized by official pharmaceutical industry guidelines, such as the FDA, universities or individual pharmaceutical companies.

Once you find the credible programs, realize that what you learn might give you more confidence about your knowledge of the industry; however, the certifications themselves do not tend to make a difference in whether or not youll get the job.

Certification programs are designed to give [job candidates] some exposure to what a pharmaceutical rep does, but if a candidate doesnt have any industry training or work experience and shows up with a pharmaceutical certification certificate, it really doesnt mean anything to a potential pharmaceutical employer, Martinez says.

Many options out there
Certificate programs are not the same as university-affiliated degree programs, such as the pharmaceutical MBA offered through Rutgers Business School.

Mahmud Hassan, PhD, professor of finance and economics and director of the Pharmaceutical MBA program at Rutgers Business School, in New Jersey, says the MBA helps prepare professionals who have bachelors or masters degrees and three years or more experience in any kind of industry for management careers in the pharmaceutical industry.

It is a traditional MBA program, with a pharmaceutical twist, Hassan explains. Our students are better trained in the industry because they have been exposed to industry-specific case studies, programs, marketing research, research and development, he says. We are the only school [offering a pharmaceutical MBA] that has partnership programs. There are eight companies supporting this program, including Pfizer, Bristol Myers Squibb, Johnson & Johnson, Merck, and Novartis.

But the MBA is obviously not for everyone. If you are interested in a sales job, you might think you need only a primersomething to acquaint you with the industry and its terminology, so that you dont flop in the interview.

Enter the certificate programs
Certified Medical Representatives Institute (CMR) is a nonprofit educational institute that provides a continuing education curriculum for pharmaceutical sales.

According to Sharon Lustig, senior director corporate and educational services at CMR, most of the programs 10,000-some active students are taking the institutes programs while employed in the pharmaceutical industry.

However, there is a small percentage of folks who want to take the leap from a non-pharma-related sales career to one in pharma sales. Lustig says those people take a couple of the institutes courses to get their feet wet and feel like they have something pharma-related on their resumes.

Whether having the completed classes on your resume makes a difference when you apply for a job is not clear, Lustig says. Rather, you might feel your resume, if it lacks pharma experience, is tighter.

The CMR certification program is backed by the American Council of Education and the institutes courses are baccalaureate recommended. Twenty-two of the institutes courses offer graduate credit and are transferable to the masters level, according to Lustig.

Lustig says that if she were counseling her brother about which pharma sales program to look toward for industry education, she would recommend that he look carefully at the credentials of the institute or educational facility. Is it for profit, nonprofit or educationally based? Who is writing the courses? And is a pharma company going to pay attention to it?

More on the need to be certified
Dr. Heasley suggests that job seekers are better off focusing on getting sales experience than getting certified in pharma sales. Taking bogus courses or having an unrecognized certification might even hinder would-be pharma representatives, he says.

Bair agrees, and says in the three years he has been focusing on recruiting for the pharma industry, no clients have ever asked or indicated that theyd be interested in a certified sales rep.

They typically want people who are in the business and are experienced, Bair says.

Bair has heard from unhappy job seekers who thought that taking one of these certificate programs would improve their chances of getting a job. The candidates that I know who have the certification dont seem to get anymore attention paid to them by the pharmaceutical companies than those who dont.

According to Bair, many of the big pharmaceutical companies are recruiting straight out of college. They go to the college fairs and hand pick the people they like, based on educational backgrounds, including their course work in the life sciences (chemistry, biology, microbiology).

They select those people who have the right degrees and the right personalities. They look for high energy, bubbly, outgoing college graduates and then they bring them into the training program, he says.

Bair is concerned that job seekers, who are often emotionally vulnerable, especially when they are considering an industry change, might spend a lot of money on useless certifications.

After numerous rejections, candidates become very insecure in their employability and are willing to try just about anything to get into the industry. It's my opinion that many of these certification programs prey on those insecurities and lead job seekers to believe that a certification means a guaranteed job, which I believe is very untrue, Bair says.

One solution, Dr. Heasley says, is to buy or borrow a book or two on pharma sales. If youre good at sales, you shouldn't worry too much about your lack of knowledge. There are quite a few books about pharmaceutical sales available at reasonable prices from your local bookstore and the mainstream online sources. Once youre hired, your new employer will make sure that you are trained the way they want you to be.

Martinez confirms that the best certification and credibility you can bring forward is actual work experience and a solid idea of how the industry works. Pharmaceutical companies train their employees the way they want and according to industry protocol; therefore, they want a candidate to come in fresh without any preconceived ideas on how things work, he says. What matters most in industry is to come in with work experience and accomplishments--even if that is from a different industry. [Thats what employers look for], versus someone who spent the year getting certified in four or five different programs. Its an individual thing, and you need to take a look at whether it would be a valuable tool for you. Its more of a confidence builder than it is a sure ticket.

About MedZilla.com
Established in mid 1994, MedZilla is the original web site to serve career and hiring needs for professionals and employers in biotechnology, pharmaceuticals, medicine, science and healthcare. MedZilla databases contain about 10,000 open positions, 13,000 resumes from candidates actively seeking new positions and 71,000 archived resumes.

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