Fed Up with the "Sales" Mentality Career Path - My story

[carlg]

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Howdy SDN,

I am a former prepharm student who was accepted to Temple in 05 and decided to stay on my current career path.

The decision not to go to pharmacy school has stayed in the back of my head for the past two and a half years.

It was a tough decision at the time since I did not expect to be accepted (came out of the blue) and I was 100% devoted to my current job as a Technical Recruiter.

At the time I was a bit greedy and decided that I would rather make money and build a foundation for my self , than go back to school for another 4 years.

Things have gone well as a Technical Recruiter, I've made relatively good money, and been successful, but I feel as though I might have made the wrong decision not having accepted admission in 05.


The reason I say this is my current industry values , relentlessness, being money hungry, aggressive and beating the competition.

While I am a hard worker, and very motivated by money, I am not the type of person who is driven to compete day after day to beat my coworkers sales numbers..aka Type A.

I am so sick of hearing people in my industry say you have to be a Type A.

I've gotten my self into a job that is driven by sales, and a "what have you done for me lately" mentality.

I guess why I am writing this is to ask if there are any others out there who were sick of being in this environment and decided to jump back into Pharmacy.

I really appreciate any input you would all have.

Thank you,

 

[LabbyRatty]

Hi Carlg,

I have a little idea of what you are talking about. I got my BS with the goal of going into research/biotech sales. I now do lab work at a biotech company and am totally sick of meeting company quotas, revenue, revenue, revenue, blah, blah, you name it. It's a lot of pressure for us lab slaves to support the managers and CEOs. I don't want to brown-nose in order to work my way up the ladder. That's kind of what led me to pharmacy. I like drugs/drug discovery, but I miss the "people aspect" of life when I am crammed in a lab all day. I like pharmacy because it combines science and people (I know, the classic generic answer, but it's true) and I am "too old" to start medical school. I'm pretty excited about pharmacy and the opportunities to be more autonomous and professional than a lab worker. Even though I will probably always be answering to some manager (unless I start my own pharmacy but not likely) I feel confident that I am entering a nice, respectable profession without just "working for the man."

As a side note, I shadowed at the pharmacy at Target and they did have a lot of pressure to fill X number of prescriptions per day and maintain some high standards. It seemed a bit stressful, but nothing like generating revenue in a biotech company. Good luck!

 

[confettiflyer]

I was in your shoes, but my circumstances were a bit different. I was middle management at a mortgage company doing equities/2nd TD's during the high flying years. I barely finished my undergraduate degree since the money was flowing like the damn Mississippi and, well, I had expenses that, in hindsight, were probably (er most likely) unecessary.

This continued until about march 2007 when...well, we all know where this is going (credit crunch, mass layoffs, etc...) Unfortunately, equities wasn't the place to be and my company ended up going bankrupt just a few months later.

I could have probably jumped somewhere else, but after taking a 2 month vacation and really thinking about it...I went back to my roots (health), took some classes at the local CC's and applied. I guess it took that shock of a layoff and knowing the industry that's been feeding you has all but collapsed to get you to think.

Sounds like being a head hunter has been good to you though...but if it's still bothering you now, maybe look into it? If you're still single, young, no kids...might as well explore. Keep in contact with your old colleagues though, you never know when they'd need a PharmD with recruitment experience. 👍