by: Christian Duran
April 20 2009 at around 8:30 am, I went to Bluejay coffee shop located at General Luna Street to meet the medical representative assigned to me. This was part of my job training under Pfizer. We will be exposed to the actual job a Medical Representative is doing.
The Med Rep assigned to me is Ms. Miggy Aadiano. She is 29 years old and is working for Pfizer for about 7 years already. Ms. Miggy is physically beautiful. She has a white complexion, rosy cheeks, red lips and a bright smile. She’s already married though. She met her husband in Pfizer, also a medical representative and they married 2 years ago.
Being with Ms. Miggy 1 whole day made me realize that the job of a Pfizer medical representative is quite challenging. We should reach the quota of about P900,000 to P1000,0000 in terms of sales per month of the products assigned to us. Aside from this, we need to cover a certain number of doctors that should be reached by our products, say for example 600 doctors per month. But the rewards that one will get if his/her team will reach the desired quota are overwhelming like trip to other countries plus allowance.
As soon as I stepped in Ms. Miggy's car, I asked her several questions and she answered all of them detailed and clear enough for me to understand and get the whole picture.
As what Ms. Miggy said, being a sales representative is about managing your time because there is no specific office hours which signifies the start and the end of a day’s work.Besides you have your own car provided by the company so you don't have aproblem about transportation. Another point that she said was, you need to get along with the doctor’s attitudes. There are doctors who are really friendly while there were others who are strict and seldom smile. You also need to be patient because in some cases, to get one doctor’s time and attention, you need to wait for almost an hour.
What Ms. Miggy said was really true. Roaming around Iloilo for about 10 hours, we came across different hospitals and clinics facing different doctors. In some hospitals there are other Med Reps from other companies who arrived before us and were waiting for the doctor to be free for consultation. The number of these Med Reps sometimes exceeds 15. It was really a long line of med reps waiting. I then realize that being a med Rep truly requires a lot of patience.
Ms. Miggy introduced me to the doctors as a trainee assigned to her. Some doctor’s just smiled and then paid attention to what Ms. Miggy was saying about the products she was promoting. Other doctors had the time to ask me questions regarding were I came from and gave me some advice to be order to become a deserving Pfizer medical representative.
One doctor mistakenly thought that I was finished with my training and was about to ask me on the products that Ms. Miggy was promoting. Luckily, Ms. Miggy said that I was just with her to observe. The said Doctor told me that Pfizer Med Rep’s are at the top of the ladder compared to other Med Reps and that she believes in them more than other med reps. She also added that Pfizer Med Reps can easily build a sense of connection to the Doctor to gain their trust. She challenged me to pass the training and prove myself to be worthy in becoming a Pfizer Medical Representative.
At around 5:30 pm. we covered around 12 doctors from different hospitals and clinics. Ms. Miggy has still plenty of time left to add to the list of the doctors covered. However, she decided that it’s time for me to go home. So, I bid her goodbye and thanked her with all the tips and advices she has given me. She was really nice and really deserved to be a Pfizer Med Rep because of the way she talks with the doctors with ease, with confidence, and with friendliness. One can really feel her aura when you are with her. I really learned a lot from this experience.
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
Monday, April 20, 2009
How I Became a Pfizer Med Rep Trainee
by: Christian Duran
I heard about Pfizer's job hiring activity from my friend Alexis who was informed by his close friend and our schoolmate Doyle. Doyle is already working as a professional health care representative or simply, "med rep" in Pfizer, the number one pharmaceutical company worldwide.
Pfizer's job hiring was done in different areas like Manila, Cebu and Davao. In my case, I went to Cebu with my friends, Alexis, Arwin, and JunV to try our luck. The venue of the activity was in Cebu Parklane Hotel. We thought that the said activity will only last for a day so we readily bought tickets going back to Iloilo at the very same day of our arrival in Cebu. We arrived at Cebu on Monday, April 14, 2009 at around 8:00 am and our ticket going back to Iloilo is at 6pm.
As it turned out, things happened the least that we expected them to be. The flow of the job hiring activity was as follows:
1. one on one interview.
2. exam (good for 6 hours)
3. panel interview
4. final interview.
5. orientation
To be able to proceed to the 4th step, you need to pass all the initial steps. It was already 6pm and I haven't been interviewed yet. There were about 80 applicants. Most of them were around 24-30 years old and already have several working experiences. There were those people who were really intimidating because they speak English fluently as if it’s their primary language and they were oozing with confidence. Still to graduate, I and my friends felt like we were the obvious underdogs among all the applicants.
It was 7pm when I’m done with the interview and I immediately took the exam. We went home at around 12 midnight and I still have one subject left to answer the very next day. It was really a grueling day. Our ticket going to Iloilo should be re-scheduled.
The next day, we arrived at the hotel around 9 am. After I finished my exam, I waited along with my friends for our names to be called for the panel interview. I was interviewed around 2pm. Two personnel interviewed me, a guy and a lady. I forgot the guy’s name but the lady was Ms. Angelina. They asked me questions like, “Describe yourself, Do you have experience in sales, what are your strengths, why should we hire you.” Stuffs like that and other situational questions which required confidence and wit to answer. After the interview, we were informed that we will just be contacted the very night about whether we passed and return for the final interview. We went to SM Cebu at around 5pm and re-scheduled our tickets.
That night at around 11pm, I received a message telling that I passed the 4 stages and that I was scheduled for the final interview the very next day. So, I went to the hotel the next day and found out that out of the 80 applicants, there were only 25 left. Me, and my friend JunV were among the remaining applicants. Nang Pie and nang Myer, both also came from UP but ahead of us by 2 years also made it. I did not saw those people who made me fell intimidated during the initial screening. It turned out, I was smarter in answering the questions and presenting myself to the interviewers than them. Out of the 25 remaining applicants, 20 made it to the orientation. Others did not make it because of different reasons. One applicant has a 2 year old child and the interviewer said that the said applicant cannot perform well because she has to give attention to her child. Another applicant has her husband working in Glaxo, a competitor of Pfizer. On the other hand, another applicant was told that she was not ready for a sudden shift in career.
Out of the 20 applicants who made it in the orientation, 6 are fresh grads if JunV and I will be considered to belong in the said category. It was a great privilege to be selected out of 80 aspiring applicants. It means a lot.
But challenges are yet to come. We still have our training in Manila starting May 11 and will last for about a month. We should get a grade of 90% in every exam that we’ll going to take during the training period or else we will be eliminated. Other than this, we should also past the driving test to be done during the training or else we will also be out. The problem is, I still don’t know how to drive. All I got is about 2 weeks to be fully ready.
But before this, we were scheduled to undergo field exposure wherein we will accompany a Med Rep and get to feel what it is like to be in such a job by being in the real situation.
I heard about Pfizer's job hiring activity from my friend Alexis who was informed by his close friend and our schoolmate Doyle. Doyle is already working as a professional health care representative or simply, "med rep" in Pfizer, the number one pharmaceutical company worldwide.
Pfizer's job hiring was done in different areas like Manila, Cebu and Davao. In my case, I went to Cebu with my friends, Alexis, Arwin, and JunV to try our luck. The venue of the activity was in Cebu Parklane Hotel. We thought that the said activity will only last for a day so we readily bought tickets going back to Iloilo at the very same day of our arrival in Cebu. We arrived at Cebu on Monday, April 14, 2009 at around 8:00 am and our ticket going back to Iloilo is at 6pm.
As it turned out, things happened the least that we expected them to be. The flow of the job hiring activity was as follows:
1. one on one interview.
2. exam (good for 6 hours)
3. panel interview
4. final interview.
5. orientation
To be able to proceed to the 4th step, you need to pass all the initial steps. It was already 6pm and I haven't been interviewed yet. There were about 80 applicants. Most of them were around 24-30 years old and already have several working experiences. There were those people who were really intimidating because they speak English fluently as if it’s their primary language and they were oozing with confidence. Still to graduate, I and my friends felt like we were the obvious underdogs among all the applicants.
It was 7pm when I’m done with the interview and I immediately took the exam. We went home at around 12 midnight and I still have one subject left to answer the very next day. It was really a grueling day. Our ticket going to Iloilo should be re-scheduled.
The next day, we arrived at the hotel around 9 am. After I finished my exam, I waited along with my friends for our names to be called for the panel interview. I was interviewed around 2pm. Two personnel interviewed me, a guy and a lady. I forgot the guy’s name but the lady was Ms. Angelina. They asked me questions like, “Describe yourself, Do you have experience in sales, what are your strengths, why should we hire you.” Stuffs like that and other situational questions which required confidence and wit to answer. After the interview, we were informed that we will just be contacted the very night about whether we passed and return for the final interview. We went to SM Cebu at around 5pm and re-scheduled our tickets.
That night at around 11pm, I received a message telling that I passed the 4 stages and that I was scheduled for the final interview the very next day. So, I went to the hotel the next day and found out that out of the 80 applicants, there were only 25 left. Me, and my friend JunV were among the remaining applicants. Nang Pie and nang Myer, both also came from UP but ahead of us by 2 years also made it. I did not saw those people who made me fell intimidated during the initial screening. It turned out, I was smarter in answering the questions and presenting myself to the interviewers than them. Out of the 25 remaining applicants, 20 made it to the orientation. Others did not make it because of different reasons. One applicant has a 2 year old child and the interviewer said that the said applicant cannot perform well because she has to give attention to her child. Another applicant has her husband working in Glaxo, a competitor of Pfizer. On the other hand, another applicant was told that she was not ready for a sudden shift in career.
Out of the 20 applicants who made it in the orientation, 6 are fresh grads if JunV and I will be considered to belong in the said category. It was a great privilege to be selected out of 80 aspiring applicants. It means a lot.
But challenges are yet to come. We still have our training in Manila starting May 11 and will last for about a month. We should get a grade of 90% in every exam that we’ll going to take during the training period or else we will be eliminated. Other than this, we should also past the driving test to be done during the training or else we will also be out. The problem is, I still don’t know how to drive. All I got is about 2 weeks to be fully ready.
But before this, we were scheduled to undergo field exposure wherein we will accompany a Med Rep and get to feel what it is like to be in such a job by being in the real situation.
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