Knowing how to hire a healthcare salesperson who can deliver results is a critical skill for any company in the pharmaceutical or medical industry. Hiring the right sales representative can lead to a long chain of successful deals, helping move the company in the right direction.
However, hiring the wrong person can create a massive waste of time and missed opportunities as unskilled or unmotivated sales reps botch basic sales meetings. Additionally, poor-fit sales hires are more likely to leave the organization—contributing to high sales team turnover that can cost thousands of dollars.
So, you may be wondering: “Should I hire a salesperson, considering the difficulties?” If you’re having problems reaching out to all of your sales leads in a timely manner, then hiring a healthcare sales rep should absolutely be a priority. The important thing is to do it in the right way.
How can you ensure that your company is hiring the right representatives for your medical or pharmaceutical sales team? There are a few things to do during the hiring process to help find the best candidates while weeding out the ones who aren’t going to be a good fit for your organization.
Sales Interview Questions
One of the first things to consider when vetting potential sales recruits is what sales interview questions you should ask them. Using the right questions during a sales interview can help you identify the candidates who are a good fit for your organization’s needs and the ones who may not be a great match.
Questions to ask candidates during a sales interview may vary depending on your organization’s needs. However, the questions you ask should help you assess how motivated a person is, what their preferred means of keeping up to date with the industry are, what relevant experience they have in your industry, how well they understand your target market, and what their go-to sales strategies are.
Some examples of great sales interview questions include:
These are just a few potential questions to ask—organizations like HubSpot have large lists of such questions that they apply to sales interviews.
However, it’s important to keep in mind that sales interview questions don’t always reveal the whole picture—even when you’re asking all the right questions. Job interviewees might give you answers that they think you want to hear or may even outright lie to get past the sales interview. Alternatively, some great questions may not work for all sales reps.
For example, the classic “sell me something” question is often used to put potential sales reps on the spot and see how they react to a sudden and unexpected sales opportunity. However, it isn’t always an accurate representation of the kind of conversations sales reps will have with prospects.
In most cases, healthcare salespeople will be selling products they’re intimately familiar with and have a solid grasp of what the unique value proposition is. Also, they often have at least some knowledge of the prospect’s interests and needs beforehand—having done research before the call.
Another issue is that some interviewees are highly skilled at answering these kinds of questions, and will have a prepared response ready to go. Meanwhile, others who focus more on pre-meeting prep may flounder a bit if asked to sell the interviewer some random object they aren’t familiar with—despite being quite good with actual sales calls.
In short, sales interview questions are far from the only thing that should be used to assess a candidate’s suitability for your sales team—though they are very important.
Still wondering how to hire a healthcare salesperson? Aside from asking the right interview questions, there are a few other common tips that you can follow to improve your chances of finding the best candidate to join your sales team:
It’s a common situation: A job candidate goes through your interview process, having heard about your company’s benefits, advancement opportunities, and more. However, once they get to the actual work you expect them to do, they seem completely lost or are uncomfortable with their job expectations.
As it turns out, the candidate had been told all about the benefits of the job, but wasn’t exactly aware of what the job was beyond the basic title of “sales rep.” Different organizations may have different processes and procedures for their sales teams. So, it isn’t always enough to expect an interviewee to know everything about how your company handles sales and what is expected of sales reps on the job.
For example, at some companies, salespeople may just work in a massive cold-calling center, dialing up one number after the other and reciting a script. Others may have a more involved process that relies on in-depth prospect research and relationship building that takes more time and effort to generate better results. Some companies might have sales reps double as marketers, while others won’t.
So, it’s important to verify that the interviewee is fully aware of the job expectations they’ll face. This may mean meticulously updating your sales job descriptions on your company website and especially in recruitment ads to help minimize the risk of surprises.
A common metric for assessing potential new hires is their appearance. However, as noted by The Balance Careers, “Appearance doesn’t just mean looks.” Two key aspects of appearance that go beyond the candidate’s looks and outfit are their attitude and body language.
For example, is the candidate sitting upright and paying attention, or are they distracted and having a difficult time focusing? Are they fidgeting with their hands, scowling, or otherwise acting nervously and being unapproachable?
While assessing someone’s demeanor from how they look and act is a tricky soft skill to master, it can be an important one for sorting out the best salespeople from those who are simply there to cash a paycheck.
Is the interviewee asking any questions about the job? Are they actively seeking knowledge about your organization and how it works? What are the specific questions they’re asking? Take some time to consider what questions the interviewee has and what those questions indicate about their priorities.
For example, are their questions mostly about benefits and pay? While there’s nothing wrong with asking about compensation, if that’s their only concern, then they may not be very motivated to do their best unless there’s a specific reward in it for them.
Alternatively, if they’re asking about how you do things, the company culture, and what their job expectations are, they could be assessing how well your company’s processes fit their expectations and needs. This could indicate a great fit (or someone who’s really good at getting through job interviews).
After the interview, it’s important to follow up with sales rep candidates and let them know about their hiring status as soon as possible. Job candidates aren’t just sitting idle. Odds are that they’re applying for sales positions at several companies looking for a good fit—and a lack of follow-up after the interview can drive good candidates away.
Following up is also important for salespeople you don’t intend to hire. A courteous “thank you, but we don’t believe that this is the best fit for you at this time” email isn’t just polite—it’s a crucial tactic for avoiding bad press among future applicants.
Leaving job seekers on the line for weeks at a time without updating them about not making it to the next round of interviews is not going to earn trust and respect. In fact, they may complain to their peers about the lack of communication—driving away potential future candidates.
The hiring process isn’t done just because you settled on hiring someone. Even sales reps with lots of experience in a relevant industry will still need some onboarding to help them adjust to your company’s processes, tools, and regulations. This is especially important in the healthcare and pharmaceutical sales industries, where regulations can change at the drop of a hat.
Employee training helps your new sales reps master important skills and learn what to avoid during sales calls so they can stay within industry regulations. It also gives you an opportunity to see how well they adapt to new procedures.
Training should also be ongoing—with everyone on the sales team getting the opportunity to refresh their knowledge and skills periodically. This way, sales skills can be kept up-to-date across the whole sales team.
Not every company has the time and resources to dedicate to creating and managing an outstanding sales hiring process. This is where outsourced services for sales can help. The benefits of outsourced sales companies are numerous for healthcare and pharmaceutical businesses.
For example, outsourced services from a contract sales organization (CSO) can help your company:
Do you need help with building your sales team and driving sales results? Reach out to the Axxelus team today to get started!
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