Managing Principal and Practice Lead in BioPharma Commercial Sales Executive Search at Smith Hanley Associates, Nancy Victoria Ragonese has 17+ years of experience helping sales professionals find great jobs. She works NATIONWIDE within the life sciences industry helping find game-changers at the individual contributor, management and C-suite levels. Nancy has successfully placed executives in the therapeutic areas of oncology, hematology, rare disease, orphan disease, specialty and medical. Here are Nancy’s most recent pharma sales resume tips and interview advice.
Pharma Sales RESUME TIPs – Location
Always include your location at the top of your resume. You do not need to put your physical street address but city, state and zip code are a MUST. Why you may ask? Because hiring managers and HR always prioritize local talent first, especially for field sales roles. If your resume does not have your location, you are automatically “ruled out” of being contacted by someone quickly.
Pharma Sales RESUME TIPs – Executive Summary
Include an Executive Summary at the top of your resume to highlight all of your experience and achievements. An example for Pharma Sales people could look something like this:
“A strategic and results focused professional with over 20 years in pharmaceutical sales in multiple therapeutic areas including hematology, oncology, immunology and cardiology, with experience in hospital and buy and bill. A seasoned professional in new product launches and a tactician in sustaining sales growth of mature brands by developing creative marketing and sales techniques that have led to achieving and exceeding sales quotas consistently over entire career. A broad base of experience and knowledge to provide creative business solutions to complex problems in a diverse business field is a great strength.”
Pharma Sales RESUME TIPs – PDF Resume
When sending a resume to a hiring manager, HR person, recruiter or just applying to a job ad directly, ALWAYS send a PDF version of your resume. Word documents can get distorted especially if someone is reading it from their phone or tablet. You always want your first impression to be the best one!
Pharma Sales INTERVIEW TIPs – Research
Be prepared! Look up each person you will be interviewing with on LinkedIn prior to your meetings. You don’t necessarily have to “connect” with them- just having a flavor for their background, seeing if there are any mutual connections, or work history, or school in common. Understanding their background should put you at ease and make the interview more conversational. You would want the interviewer to look at your background prior – so the same goes for you!
