Sorry to hear your frustration, but it’s true that pharma companies require at least 2 years of successful business-to-business sales experience. By “successful”, they mean that they would like to see any documentation (authentic) to prove that you are actually good at selling your product.

Unfortunately, in the eyes of the pharma industry, insurance sales is considered direct-to-consumer sales, not business-to-business. Other examples of sales that are categorized as such are retail sales, real estate, Mary Kay, Tupperware and AVON. No matter how excellent you were/are in any of these, it is almost always excluded as viable b2b sales experience. Good examples of b2b sales are Xerox, ADP, Enterprise Rent-A-Car (corporate sales), Coca-Cola, etc.

Sorry, and good luck!

That’s a great question. If you don’t get an answer online I recommend calling the company directly and asking them (ask the receptionist for a sales manager).

I saw that salesguy.org publishes a list of top hiring manager requirements for sales jobs in general and pharmaceutical jobs in particular. This might be a good resource for you.

Good luck.

I know someone who was recently hired by one of the big pharma companies as a sales rep.

She had no outside sales experience. She had her Bachelors degree in some sort of life sciences degree, and she worked 6 months as an inside sales rep for a company related to the pharmaceutical industry.