Not a troll. I just finished the screening for a position at AZ but I'm still working for another pharma company. Just curious. If the benefits suck I'd like to know.
Aetna for everyone - no idea if this is good or bad. AZ meds for free A reasonable 401 match with good choices A separate pension account but you are not vested for 3 years - so, good luck making it that long. Spouse and family benefits Dental, Vision, Life, STD, LTD, Buy-ups. Wellness Benefits here are good. However, the culture in many areas of the country is absolutely horrible. I have been with many companies and this is the most backstabbing company ever. You could get a good partner or a bad one. Many will throw you under the bus before you are even onboard. Field management is micro-management central. I mean this to the nth degree. Every single thing you do is measured, including your daily urine output. (BTW, hair drug testing is the standard - so if you have smoked weed, you will NOT pass!). If you have a large territory, you will never get done all the TCs and administrative tasks. ALL, and I mean ALL, IT and software are shit. You will spend hours of your own time talking to the Helpless desk and even more hours trying to fix what is basically impossible. Most of us have become software experts just to figure out how to navigate what is a complex web of reports, records, HR sites, and policy. Nothing is in one place and everything requires duplicate and triplicate entering. You will get so many emails a day, it is dizzying and good luck finding the "action" item buried inside the two page text! It is like finding Waldo! Have fun with that. Reports are the name of the game here and your manager will ride with you two and three times a month, expect you to spout the message and close for action, and also expect a weekly report on your team's activities and accomplishments. So, pay is good - even excellent - but you will have no life and most here are majorly burned out with stress and lack of personal time. If you have a really small territory, you might swing it. If you are diabetes or CV, you will be sharing each of your accounts/targets with anywhere from two to five other AZ people who want access to the same customers. Nothing pisses off a doctor more than hearing a Brilinta detail for the third time in the same week. . . . Good luck. Oh, and your Ipad IS tracking you.
Thanks I guess. Is anyone positive about working for AZ? Maybe I need to reconsider leaving my current company. The grass isn't always greener and all that...
Retired DM here. Thank god I got out of shithole at the end of 2009 before it all really hit the fan. I do come back to this site every now and then to see how things have changed. I can't believe how much worse things have got. Let me tell you guys this. I was legacy Zeneca so I can't speak for legacy Astra or Astra Merck. In those days, prior to merger this job was coveted. You could actually think each day and really contribute to medicine. You were respected. You had great conversations with customers concerning your products your competitiors and the disease state. From what I read you now deliver a message. So sad. I still have many friends at AZ both sales reps and managers. You know what is so sad? You go to a managers meeting and "leaders" believe the sales organization is NOT process oriented but results oriented. Think the field believes that? Hardly. So I see you are still doing focus surveys. Hahahaha Like anything changes after the survey. I suppose the reasons why things have changed so much is another topic that would take pages and pages to discuss but you all have your opinions on that. My advice? If you are young get the hell out of this industry. Not only this company this industry. It is dying. If you are say ten years from retirement you are basically stuck and have to try and hang in there. Wish I had more encouraging advice. However I would NOT recommend my children becoming pharmaceutical sales people. Not that many years ago I would have been proud if they got a job in pharma...no more.
AZ attracted me with 20k more in salary. I rue the day I came here. All the above are 110% correct and my manager is a toolkit.
Do NOT come here. Everything being said is true. I can't sleep at night due to the stress from this job.
In a nutshell, here is Darwin's theory of evolution (read on, I have a point): Most organisms produce far more offspring than the environment can support. (Plenty of seeds everywhere, lots of acorns fall to the ground but few become oak trees.) Therefore there is a struggle for survival. There are differences among the offspring that gives some an advantage. Some of the differences give the heirs traits that provide them an advantage. So there will be a process of natural selection of traits that are more fit for survival. The fit will survive and pass along their traits to their offspring. The unfit traits will not be passed down. Got it? Times have changed. This is not the golden days of pharma. Either get with it or get out.
This coming from a message spouting, call lying, no ambition drone lost inside one of the worst pharma companies on the planet. . . . Oh, please, give me more pearls of wisdom wise one. LMAO! Like being part of pharma is such a great career choice. It may pay wonderfully but there are zero transferable skills and no other company gives a shit about your Silver Award or COE from AZ.
Did your mother teach you how to speak English? I have made no Darwin claims. I did not write the idiotic Darwin post.
