Well, I was one of the many who got laid off in February and, finally got a job offer. It's in pharmaceuticals but in specialty at a smaller firm. I got a bump in base and the bonus is about 20K more at target on the back end. I also of course get the nice severance that NVS gave out. Having said that I wanted to share what I learned about this stressful process in hope that it helps someone. 1. Treat looking for a new job like a job. Work it 8-10 hours per day M-Saturday. It is a numbers game. I sent out over 500 resumes. Of that I got around 40 calls and 20 interviews. Getting this many interviews gave me confidence which I badly needed. I ended up getting the offer I wanted. 2. Network. I hate to say it but for every 10 people you reach out for help maybe 1-2 will truly help you. Treat networking like a numbers game as well. You will find out who your true allies and friends are. 3. Spend Sunday with family and friends. Looking for a job is very stressful. You need time set aside to be thankful for what is really meaningful and that is family and friends. 4. Never bad mouth Novartis or the company when interviewing. 5. If you stay in pharmaceuticals please please DO NOT take a Primary Care role. This model is dying not just at Novartis but everywhere else. Take on a specialty role or go into biotech or even medical devices. 6. Never stop looking for an opportunity. Companies are NOT loyal to you, why be loyal to them? Always look for a better opportunity. Best of luck to those laid off and still looking and remember this. It's not the size of the dog that matters, its about the size of the fight in the dog!
How do you say stay in specialty and that you got 40 calls back? Are you telling me that there are that many open specialty positions in your territory? It is generally good advice but come on...there aren't that many specialty jobs open in one area.
Not OP but he or she probably looked outside his/her immediate territory. In this tough economy you cannot simply look in your backyard unless you wanna stay unemployed for a long time. And you cannot just look at pharma specialty. Take a look at biotech and medical devices and even diagnostics. If you add these industries, over a month and a half like OP says, and you look outside your immediate territory then I could see how even 1000 resumes is possible to be sent out.
you must be open to all potential opportunities and if and when you get the offer, one can assess if moving is a real option given whats on the table.
Congratulations to the original poster! Best of luck to you in your new career. I wish everyone else the same!
We will all need luck. The total number of pharma rep jobs in the US is quickly shrinking to 25% of what it was a the peek.
The problem with counting on medium / small / niche pharma for jobs is that in the new reality they will be much fewer in number. The % of the US economy spent on healthcare went from ~ 11% in 1970 to ~ 18% now. So not only did the US economy grow during that period the total spend in the healthcare / pharma did as well. So there was always a place for new players to try and grab a hold and maybe find a niche to survive in. No more. Because of the demographics of the aging baby boomers healthcare spending will have to increase but this will drain resources away from the portion of the market that had grown so much in the past into products for these older people. These are all more expensive and at the same time the % growth has to drastically slow. As a result, there will be many fewer, smaller and medium size pharmas that survive in the future and many many fewer start-ups. The characteristic of this kind of fundamental change to a market is that it has feedback; it starts slowly but the changes reinforce themselves and accelerate. These are buggy whip days for pharma sales my friends.
