Pharmaceutical jobs and contract sales organisations

At this time I was in my early years in the pharmaceutical industry and this wasn't something you would have associated on any great scale with pharmaceutical jobs.

Over the last decade the contract sales industry, to supply medical sales people to pharmaceutical companies on a contract basis, has exploded. Today a significant proportion of medical sales people are on some form of contract, with numbers seemingly growing annually. Companies may use a contract positions in a number of scenarios.

1. To cover for sickness or maternity

2. To have a 'floating' team of mobile reps to fill gaps where necessary

3. To sell new products in their early stages. This can allow a full blown sales operation without the more permanent investments associated with increasing the overall company headcount. Once the product becomes established the team may be bought in.

4. Try before you buy. Rather than run an extensive recruitment process, what better way to test someone than in the job over a 6 month time scale.

Just to clarify the mechanics of a contract position, an outside agency will employ sales people 'on behalf' of the pharmaceutical company for an agreed short term contract. After the contract, the company can then decide to either, let them go, extend the contract, or employ them permanently.

We are often asked by pharmaceutical sales people whether or not they should consider a contract medical sale position over concerns of security. Well, in my opinion, the fact that it's a contract, as a factor on it's own, doesn't really make it any less secure. You really need to look beyond this to other features of the vacancy. For example, in example 3. above, clearly there is insecurity in the fact that if the overall product fails, the job you are in may come to an end. Whereas in scenario 4. the main insecurity lies with your own performance. If the company clearly has a permanent vacancy and is only using the contract as a trial period, this bears little difference to a probationary period, you just need to make sure you deliver the right results!

When contract sales emerged in the pharmaceutical industry, these early roles were viewed as part of a 'noise' machine with little sophistication associated to them. This has changed now with companies such as Takeda running the highest paid people in Medical sales on contract, permanently. Other companies such as Meda, the up and coming Swedish pharmaceutical are using 'try before you buy' to recruit the cream in the market. With recent changes in the pharmaceutical industry I can see high quality contract sales teams becoming a more prominent feature in developing companies. Whilst you should look in detail at any company advertising a vacancy you are interested in, I wouldn't view the factor of a role being on contract alone as particularly negative. Already some of the best paid roles are contract roles, and this trend is likely to continue.

Good luck.