What industry have you (or your co-workers) gone to after pharma. sales?

Curious where to go after my career in pharmaceuticals is over. Looking at a layoff soon. I have heard that other industries don't look kindly on a pharmaceutical sales history. Is this true? It has obviously been a while since I interviewed/ looked for another type of job. What industry have you gone to post-pharma. sales?

 

Most people build off of their experience. So if we think about the sales reps jobs, what comes to mind? Well, we do deliver a lot of food to Drs offices. That gives us broad qualifications within the food industry and there are always many job openings at fast food places in almost every market. The best match is pizza delivery. The good news is that you can start now, before you lose your current gig. Use your company car to delivery pizzas on the weekends. Once you lose the pharma job, you can just transition to full time hours.

 

Most people I know, in particular those who acquired a Master's degree during their career, declared themselves a "consultant" of some kind. I don't know of any of them who were successful. They all ended up back in the industry, if they could.

The people I know who went on to post-Pharmaceutical success have some unexpected career paths, including myself.

One former co-worker opened up a mobile pet grooming service out of an old van she bought. Six years later, she is up to four custom vans and six employees, and having a blast!

Another colleague opened a franchise for a national hair salon company. He has three locations now, and is running them with a lot more enthusiasm than he ever did in his managerial assignments.

A few people, including myself, bought real estate properties for renting out. I bought all of mine during my last ten years of Pharmaceutical Sales, paid in full for each property. I guess some people were able to live off the rents they collected, especially if they had pensions or Social Security supplementing their real estate income. I was too young for SS, and I didn't want to pay tax penalties on drawing off investments I'd put my stock option money into.

So, I sold the properties, and invested the money in flight school for helicopters. I had my Commercial License in less than a year, and my Flight Instructor ratings about six months after that.

Where age worked against me in Pharmaceuticals, it has worked for me in aviation. Prospective employers in aviation respect age and life experience. In the two cases so far where I have been hired in my nearly six year career, I was hired with less flight time than younger pilots because they knew my decision making would be better. I'd also like to think that they were impressed with a guy who started in his mid- to late 40's and flew as well as I do.

Hopefully this helps. There isn't a blanket answer to your question. I think the people who didn't make it so well after leaving had a couple of things in common. They were too optimistic/unrealistic about their ideas, abilities, and reception in the Great Beyond outside Pharmaceuticals. They thought they were giving over 100% to make it.

There is no such thing as over 100% effort, in my book, unless you are bleeding or losing life or limb in the process. Once you delude yourself into thinking your efforts are on such a grand scale, you will delude yourself into other false observations, and you will fail.

Those of us who "made it" picked something we could be passionate about, and had no expectations about results. The only thing we expected was a 100% effort from ourselves, win or lose.

 

Do you think before you write?

 

Govt: Health care compliance and Regulatory-OIG
First hand experience in pharma!