High-end marketing talent earns more than $200,000 a year
Because of its optimism about the bright future of China's medical device market, Cook Medical, the world's largest privately held medical device company, has viewed China as Cook Medical's largest single market in the world over the next five years, even though the company has not been in the country for long. Mr. Philip Norville said, "The growth of the Chinese market is beyond our imagination. Two years ago, we set up our Shanghai office and warehouse with the expectation that it would last five years. But today, we have doubled the size of our office and warehouse, and it is clear that we underestimated the market potential."
Expanding multinationals also include Johnson & Johnson Medical, GE Healthcare, Medtronic, Siemens Healthcare, Rekall Medical, Canon Medical and others, which are accelerating the recruitment of marketing talent while stepping up research and development of new products.
The reporter observed that hospitals, pharmaceutical companies, medical device sales companies are very eager to recruit to the right expertise, which technology research and development, sales director, marketing director, OTC business director, etc. are in high demand.
Talent recruiting big push pharmaceutical enterprises and medical equipment sales enterprises. As sales is the most direct and important means of survival, the sales elite has been a medical enterprise for a long time to attack the object, the enterprise is most willing to spend a lot of money to introduce such talent.
The reporter saw in several medical equipment recruitment website, like senior sales manager, senior sales consultant and sales director of the price, the headhunter has opened an annual salary of 15-30 million yuan.
Excellent sales consultant is like half a doctor
"It is hard to recruit excellent sales talents in China, on the one hand, the accumulation of talents is originally small, on the other hand, due to the rapid technological updating of medical device products, and there are not many people who love this industry and are willing to learn."
Mr. Philip Norvell told reporters that Cook will further expand its sales team this year while expanding its sales channels, focusing on recruiting sales elites, and the proportion of personnel expansion will be more than 50%. "Cook does not call the product sales staff directly as a salesman, but called Clinical Support --- market support or product experts. That's because their responsibility is not just to sell the product, but also to support the physicians who use it with their expertise."
Mr. Philip Norvell said Cook's high-end medical device products are technically complex to operate, and salespeople must provide detailed consulting services to users and answer questions. Salespeople must undergo rigorous overseas training before starting work, to ensure that each "technical support" can be demonstrated in both English and Chinese.
"They're not physicians, they can't go on stage and do surgery. But they have to be there when the physician is doing the procedure: they have to be fully armed: they have to tell the physician when they have questions about how much wire to insert and when to open the stent." Mr. Philip Norvell laughs and says that this exercise is something that every person who enters the Cook sales team must go through. So it should not be too much of a stretch to say that salespeople who have worked at Cooke for more than two years not only know the performance and utility of a medical product by heart, but can also give appropriate guidance to the physicians who use it, making them half doctors.
Professional background is the basic condition of entry
While medical device companies are eager for talents, due to the specificity of the industry's products, the selection criteria are relatively strict.
A medical device sales company's personnel specialist Ms. Zhao told reporters, "Because the industry is different, the company must recruit sales staff in the industry, otherwise it can not be sold. If you don't know the product, you can't explain the product. If not the industry, then the requirements must have more than five years of sales experience, acceptance of new issues to understand faster before. In addition, we also value a candidate's ability to handle and solve problems. As a salesperson, you need to have a keen observation of the market and the ability to respond to it, and have a wealth of contacts with major hospitals and medical organizations in the area. At the same time, it is also necessary to be proficient in English." Obviously, the hard and soft conditions of sales talent has become the leading direction of medical enterprise recruitment.
However, the high requirements of talent selection also makes the enterprise recruiting is not smooth, Ms. Zhao lamented: "The medical industry is different from other industries, the product is related to the life, the enterprise dare not lower the requirements, after all, the sales representative is the core sector of the enterprise, we are willing to give a high salary, but meet the requirements of very few."
"The reality is that job seekers with a background in medicine usually don't apply for our positions, they choose hospitals or clinics." Ms. Zhao said medical device salespeople work in irregular locations and are required to travel frequently, as little as one or two days or as much as 10 days and half a month, which is a bit uncomfortable for many. "Once we recruit good talents, we will try our best to retain them and try not to let them jump ship."