Paragraph 2 is spot on. This person knows what they’re talking about.
Hang on there fella. Yes surgical is the smallest, but it’s the most profitable, so what happens here matters. Hologic is not getting rid of reps. Hologic is adding reps. They’re doing so through territory splits. They’re not adding clinical heads either, they’re adding sales heads. They’re not devaluing the “rep” as a concept, but they are creating a machine with more rep coverage, but less rep quality, as a territory split necessitates a commission split. You are right that the contracts and IDN amalgamation will insulate the business, which means the rep doesn’t need to be as good, but they do need to have a heartbeat. That means that although they used to bring reps in at near 200K, now they’re bringing them in at 90K. This means every rep is easily replaced by a B2B rookie at any time, with little delay in business coverage, and no additional commission payout. Doctors will learn to curb their expectations of what a Hologic rep looks and sounds like.
It’s more how they’re doing it that is freaking people out, and several other things are nuts over here. Hologic is firing the surgical managers as fast as they can, and replacing them with Stryker managers, as they work to create this new machine. The Stryker managers are everything you think they are. Those new managers fire their tenured reps, instead of letting them go in a dignified way on their own. So even the new kids that come in under the new regime are freaking out about all the madness and record setting attrition. Aside from that, the very few people they are trying to keep are trying their best to get out as well.
So it’s a total goat rodeo, but it suits the narrative that CEO McMillan gave the investors about how surgical was down because of bad leaders, even though in the same discussion he admitted the ablation market was trending down. Then he said that the fibroid meds coming into the market would only treat type 5 and 6 fibroids, so congrats Steve on the scientific discovery of type 5 and 6 fibroids... we digress.
So- if you are entry level in surgical sales, or looking to get your first surgical role, grind it out here for a bit. Hologic has one recruiter that even tells you what to say in the interview! You won’t love the culture, your manager will be new and won’t know how to coach you, but you will get in, even if you’ve been working at enterprise rent a car, and can then prepare to go to a better company after you’ve got a year or two under your belt. By then, Hologic will have a reputation as a “feeder” company for good TM jobs in surgical, and other companies won’t even wonder why you’re leaving.
Come on over!!