Medical Sales Representative Interview Questions And Answers

Let’s assume you’ve secured an interview for a medical sales representative position. You’re now left wondering what kind of questions the interviewer is going to ask, and more so how are you going to answer them.

 

You are going to pull this off, and how I know that?

 

Keep reading ..

 

My almost two decades of experience being in and out of pharmaceutical industry tells me that you’re going to be asked only two types of interview questions:

• Key Background Review questions
• Behavioral questions

 

And you’ll also learn how to answer each of them. Ready?

 

Let’s carry on ..

 

Key Background Review Questions For Medical Sales Rep Interview

One element or one category of interview questions they’re going to ask you is something related to your background commonly known as Key Background Review (KBR).

 

I’ll be frank. It's all those routine, mundane, boring stuffs kind of questions which make you wonder, “What they actually do to my CV? Do they even look at it?”. 

 

I mean, all those information were there, and if they’ve read it, they might not be asking me these kind of questions but let’s just take this positively and we’ll look at how to answer them soon, OK?

 

So, those questions actually were just to .. 

 

Get you warm up. That’s it.

 

Usually, the question they asked will be taken from the application form that they made you fill in before the actual interview (you did fill it, didn't you?) 

 

Don’t freak out if they didn’t make you fill in any form. The questions typically go like this (example only):

Can you tell us a bit about yourself?

(Please, don't bore them with the complete bibliography, that means no "my dad like me to be a doctor but... " Keep the info recent and relevant)

 

Can you tell us about your employment history? Why you do that? Why didn't you? What's your primary responsibility? Additional responsibility? Why the change?

 

(The all-time famous) If you are leaving your current company, why?

 

Just a routine. Just to warm you up but don't take them lightly though. 

 

Why? 

 

You'll be judged by the way you answer... your mannerism to be exact and the way you 'present' or structure your answer. 

 

It's imperative that you have a built-in structure for every question and there's one structure that works most of the time and widely accepted. 

 

What is it?

 

For now, you've learned about one type of medical sales interview questions the interviewer going to ask you which is called KBR or 'key background review.' 

 

Knowing this type of question can better prepare you for your interview or your next one.

 

Planned Behavioral Questions In The Medical Sales Representative Interview

There’s a second types of questions interviewers typically ask, and that question is called a planned behavioral question.

 

These are behavioral type of questions and there’s a reason why they used them. I'm going to share with you a secret that they’re keeping from you behind those questions.

 

And the secret is .. all questions were planned!

 

What? You knew about it already?

 

Sigh...

 

Never mind.

 

But do you know what areas they seriously and frequently look into?

 

It's not always your academic qualification or accolades.

 

So, what is it or what are they?

As a general rule, you can bet your bottom dollar that they're trying to look for the candidate who can fit into their vision and mission, but let's just leave it at that. Thus, it makes sense for you to make a quick visit to the company's website or Social Media page or what have they, and pay attention to the mission and vision.

 

I know this sounds superficial but that job is more critical... err I mean the income you can get from the situation is more important, right?

 

So, just play along.

 

Also, to ease your headache, I'll list down 4 key areas... the important ones, that always catch the interviewers' attention. Here they are:

Work relationship. This is important to determine how you will gel as a team, how you collaborate, lead, or being lead. If you have no working experience before the interview (meaning you're a fresh grad), they will dig as far as your secondary school experience to look at the behaviors if you ever demonstrate them. 

Just remember to give your answer in the STAR format (more on this format later)

Customer focus. No customers before? Fine. They will come up with a 'what if' scenario and see how you handle that. Again, bring in your STAR. And they will move to...

General management. As scary as it sounds, the questions will focus on your areas of work management, self-management including stress and time management, and another type of issues which they deemed necessary. 

By the way, if you rate yourself generally in these issues, from a scale of 1 to 10, 1 being 'total flop,' and 10 'super excellent', where are you? If you can go beyond 5, consider yourself OK. If less? 

Start pumping iron my friend, lastly...

Job fit which simply means 'how satisfy will you be once you get the job.' Can you cope with the training, traveling, detailing (I'll tell you what specifying means in the future), etc.? Check the resources I've listed for you in this blog and get the idea of what this job is about in actuality. OK. Done.

 

How To Answer The Question During Medical Sales Representative Interview

On the off chance that you have a moment, I need to demonstrate to you a quick method to respond to behavioral inquiries.

Being set up for behavioral inquiries questions is one of the most astute things you can do in your pursuit of employment.

Realizing how to address these inquiries can have a significant effect between finding the activity and continuing searching for another.

Behavioral or competency-based meetings are mostly a lot of inquiries that get some information about models from your past work involvement to enable a questioner to make sense of your qualities.

Behavioral questioners will search for the three sections (Issue, Action, Results) of your answer and take notes about how you responded to the inquiry.

These are otherwise called STAR inquiries questions.

STAR represents:

• Situation
• Task
• Action
• Result

 

1. The first thing you need to do while responding to a behavioral inquiry is depicted as a business-related Situation or Task that you expected to achieve, and you need to be compact.

2. At that point portray the Action you took. Try not to reveal to them what you may do or would do, you have to disclose to them what you did.

3. Lastly, depict what occurred - the result. What did you achieve? What did you realize? What amount of time or cash did you spare? Furthermore, in particular, does your result take care of the issue you depicted in stage 1.

That is the equation for addressing any behavioral inquiry.

 

So, when you're asked, "In your previous employment, why you agree to be posted in the accounting department?". 

 

Your answer, "Actually, we had a situation in the account, and no one was able to handle it causing a long delay. Rather than waiting for things to change, I decided to go down and look at the situation myself thinking 'we are a unit and should behave like a unit.' At last, I discovered an imbalance in one of the yearly statement figures, corrected it, and the delay was reduced to zero in no time."

That's is how I put it plainly. 

The elements are all there... the STAR. Structure all your answers around that framework, and you'll never go wrong.

Highlight your STAR, let it be on the center stage every time you answer the question for a medical sales job interview.

Summary To Medical Sales Representative Interview Questions And Answers

1. There are two types of questions you're going to be asked during an interview for a medical sales rep's position, namely the Key Background Review (KBR), and Planned Behavioral (PB) questions.

2. KBR uses general questions to warm you up for the interview while the PB questions aim to uncover you attitude, skills and knowledge.

3. You can use the STAR framework to give your answer where the abbreviation stands for Situation or Task, Action, and Result.

Can you see yourself using STAR for both type of questions during an interview for medical sales job? Can you see yourself secure the position?