Random Pages from All MSLs Started with No MSL Experience
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example, by visiting a clinical trial site or resolving research‐related issues. However, the MSL’s main responsibility is to interact with thought leaders who are principal investigators (PI) of the clinical studies. MSLs’ clinical research responsibilities extend beyond regulatory checklists and contractual logistics for a clinical research study.
Field-Office Challenges If you have not worked in a field‐based position out of a “home office” before, the MSL career may pose some initial challenges. Initial challenges are logistic, where you may need to set up a designated work area where you may be productive and can conduct business with limited interruption or distraction. I use my cell phone as the primary business line. You also need to have high speed internet connection, which may require you to go through a landline if you do not use cable internet.
People who do not work in field‐based home office setting may pose a distraction if they do not view work done out of a home office as “regular” work. Sometimes family members who work in a traditional office setting may ask you to run errands during the day because they assumed that you have the utmost flexibility to do work whenever and however you choose.
For example, when I worked as a MSL, my husband would occasionally ask me to go to the post office during the day to mail a package for him, because the lines are usually crowded when he gets home from his job (that’s when people who work in office jobs get a chance to mail their packages). Depending
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on what I needed to do during my office day, I may run this errand as a favor to him during lunch break, but I did not want this to be a regular occurrence if it distracted me from being productive in my work.
It is critical to set rules and boundaries early on, and let friends and family know that you are working during regular business hours, and therefore not available for personal errands and activities. This is not to say that you cannot make an exception on occasion, but regular distraction should not be a rule during the MSL’s office days.
No, Really… What Do MSLs Do? If you find yourself scratching your head after reading a typical MSL job description, still wondering what the MSL does on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis, you’re not alone.
When you ask a MSL this question, you may find that MSL take a deep breath, as if you had just asked a complex question. This is because the MSL’s professional activities may be so variable that the MSL has to decide whether to give you the general explanation of what she does, or whether she should explain all the different things that had happened this past month on the job!
When talking about the “day in the life” of a MSL, you’ll get a more accurate picture by looking at the typical week or month in the life. That’s because each day will be determined by the objectives you have set for that week or month, and you may be doing very different things from one day to the next.
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does not have much experience in a therapeutic area. However, hiring managers can’t train an individual to develop emotional maturity and emotional intelligence, at least, not without much effort and usually as a result of interpersonal conflict. Thus, hiring managers prefer that you as an aspiring MSL come equipped with a level of emotional maturity that allows them to be confident in your ability to integrate into their MSL team.
Attitude of a Communicator Hiring managers look for a candidate’s interpersonal skills, which may be observed from your ability to communicate. Excellent communication skills do not demand you to be an extravert. However, MSLs are in the business of developing relationships. Establishing rapport with your clients and colleagues is an essential skill for success. MSLs engage in variations of communication, including negotiations and conflict resolution.
As field‐based scientists, MSLs communicate technical information to diverse audiences, such as giving scientific presentations and discussing clinical data. In addition to working with medical thought leaders, they interact with
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Starting Out as a Contract MSL
Contract MSL positions are viable options for getting your “foot in the door” as a MSL professional.
Read carefully the terms of your contract employment, especially terms relating to bonus disbursement, retirement matching, and what you may expect in the event of premature contract termination by the client company.
The highly defined role of a contract MSL may be an excellent way for an industry‐naïve professional to get started as a MSL professional.
Current job trends and economic challenges have made even contract MSL positions extremely competitive, where you may find yourself competing with candidates having prior MSL experience for a contract MSL job.
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you get some training support as well from the client company? How exactly would you be “trained” on the art of MSL’ing?
Pros and Cons of the Contract MSL Role The major benefit of a contract MSL role is that you may have a better chance getting the MSL career opportunity through a contract role – that valuable “foot in the door”! For many, this is really the key benefit of being a contract MSL, and is a viable way to break into this rewarding career.
Since MSL contracts are highly defined by the pharmaceutical client company, another benefit can be the specificity of duties that you would be expected to perform as a contract MSL. You probably won’t be “wearing many hats” or suddenly find yourself tasked with diverse projects beyond the traditional MSL role. For a new MSL just learning the ropes of the job, having a defined set of tasks you are expected to perform and deliver can be a blessing: you can focus on developing the important basic skills of the MSL role.
Of course, this means when you are interviewing, you need to know what the expected work tasks would entail, and whether these tasks meet your expectations as well. If you are excited about facilitating research projects as a MSL, but the contract MSL role is all about the educational aspect and has no research component, then you will be disappointed by this missing dimension. If your desire is to work with investigational compounds or drugs still in clinical development, but the contract role is to support a mature drug that has a few years
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documented efficiency you created for your employer or team. These numbers differentiate you from others who tend to put generalities on resumes.
If you’ve read this far, then you already know that MSL Hiring managers are looking for people who have strong interpersonal skills, who can solve problems, and work effectively in a team. Hiring managers are also looking for examples of leadership and excellent communication skills. Most candidates TELL with their resumes that they have these qualities, but don’t SHOW the proof of these claims. To stand out from the pack, aspire to provide in your resume as many concrete and specific examples of your ability to establish rapport with people, solve problems, work in a team, lead, and communicate.
Candidates in the basic sciences often focus their resumes on analytical methods they know or molecular techniques they’ve used. Hiring managers may come from a clinical background – and even those who come from a basic science research background may not always appreciate your esoteric expertise. The MSL position is a clinical one, and is far removed from a laboratory setting. An exhaustive discussion of non‐clinical methods can work against you because this conveys an impression that you are not ready to leave the lab or have the capacity to quickly adapt to a clinical role.
Clinical expertise is generally a requirement for MSL positions. If you do not have clinical experience, it does not mean that your resume will be automatically discarded, but understand that this presents an entry barrier for you. Even if you do not
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What proof or example can you offer that will support your claims? One candidate’s cover letter started with an inspirational quote that served as a guiding motto for the candidate, and the candidate elaborates on how this has led him to take the career path he had chosen. Another candidate’s cover letter talked about caring for a child with a chronic illness, and how this has led him to want to explore another dimension of healthcare that the MSL career may offer. These candidates’ approach help create a personal connection with the cover letter, which makes their cover letters memorable.
The body of the cover letter should be one to two paragraphs, and should highlight the most compelling achievements from your resume and create a benefits statement for the hiring manager. Answer the “so what” question by showing how your results may be transferred in whole or in part to a MSL position, especially if you have no prior industry or MSL experience.
Your closing paragraph should thank the reader and schedule a follow‐up. Schedule a time when you will follow up to answer questions that the hiring manager may have. Avoid passive statements like, “I hope to hear from you,” because you can be hoping for a long time without receiving any response. You can get results more readily by setting a course of action. This can be a challenge if you are applying via the Internet, and you are given no return contact for follow‐up.
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position. Some candidates have work experience that raises questions in the recruiters’ mind about whether the candidate would be a fit even for the pharmaceutical industry in general, let alone for a MSL career. I’ve seen resumes that had many years of real estate experience and no significant “medical science” or “healthcare” experience even if the candidate has an advanced degree in life science. This raises concern about the candidate’s sudden interest in the MSL career and whether the candidate may have an opportunistic view of what the MSL job may offer.
Beware of recruiters who may ask you for any payment for the search or to “market” your resume. One of my coaching clients had a recruiter tell her that her resume wasn’t a match at this time, but then warned her not to work with any other recruiters – this is a red flag, because the recruiter is not able to assist the candidate, yet discourages her from seeking help from other recruiters who may.
Honesty is the Best Policy Honesty is required in a productive recruiter‐candidate relationship. You should be honest about your career goals, how long you have been on the job market, and what opportunities you are currently prospecting. Be honest about your job expectations. If you are no longer interested in an opportunity, let the recruiter know immediately.
Recruiters can help assess the chances of your getting to the next step in the search process, preferably by communicating
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with you about the reality of chances that you would advance to the next step. However, you may often learn that you may not be the best fit by not hearing back from the recruiter if you shared your resume with that person.
If your experiences do not meet the expectations of the client’s criteria, the recruiter may let you know via email or even by telephone, but don’t be offended if your “no” came in the form of “no response”. Recruiters field so many phone calls every day that it is unrealistic to follow‐up on every single resume that they receive even if only by email. They may only call candidates whose resumes appear to have potential to advance to an in‐person interview with their client.
Establish Clear Rules of Engagement Clear rules of engagement will make working with recruiters a positive experience. First and foremost is confidentiality. Recruiters absolutely must keep your information confidential. Keep in mind that you are sharing contact information and professional work history: you want to entrust this information only to a competent and professional recruiter.
Your resume and contact information should never be shared without your explicit permission. You should ask about the privacy policy of the recruiting agency, and the circumstances where your resume may be shared. Likewise, if a recruiter shares the details of a search with you, such as company information, you should observe the confidentiality of this information.
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of actually doing experiments, and as perks, you get to work with brilliant, idealistic people and earn a great salary.
When you become employed as a MSL, you will be professionally attired and you will earn a great salary; some of you may even get a company car for regional travel.
However, you will not be the star in the relationship. You will not enjoy the “peer‐to‐peer” status from the thought leaders, or even their staff members, until you have earned it. You will have more mundane conversations about subjects that barely interest you than mind‐shattering discourses that would change the face of science and medicine.
If you like to be the center of attention in every conversation, you will not enjoy the MSL job.
If you tend to, or want, to dominate most conversations, you will not enjoy the MSL job.
If you can’t recover quickly from rejection, you will not enjoy the MSL job.
If you need constant “new” intellectual stimulation and dread talking about the same clinical studies for weeks or months at a time, you will not enjoy the MSL job.
This job requires you to listen more than you speak, respond with laser‐like focus to appropriately answer questions without risking your company in a legal warning or lawsuit, and provide
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Overcoming “Catch-22”
Lack of thought leader relationships, or “relationship capital” is a major cause of the “Catch‐22” that candidates encounter when trying to break into the MSL profession.
Candidates trying to break into the MSL profession must develop at least a working knowledge of who the medical thought leaders are in their therapeutic field of interest even if they do know personally know the thought leaders.
In therapeutic areas where an understanding of patient care is tantamount, having patient experience may be regarded to be as important, if not more important, than having a doctorate‐level degree in science.
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No Doctorate? Not Always a Problem Most MSL positions today have a requirement for a doctorate degree, especially PharmD (Doctor of Pharmacy), PhD (Doctor of Philosophy), or MD (Medical Doctor) degrees. However, if you don't have an advanced degree or a doctorate degree, this doesn’t mean that you don't have any chance to become a MSL. Conversely, those with doctorate degrees aren’t automatically enjoying better chances of breaking into the MSL career.
Certain degree types are more attractive to certain MSL positions, and hiring managers will adjust their hiring practices based on their experience managing candidates with different degree types for different MSL positions in different disease states.
Specialty nurses, for example, oncology nurses will successfully break into the MSL career even without prior MSL experience. Specialty nurses have the patient care experience that is very valuable to pharmaceutical employers, and many have clinical trial experience. They understand what is involved in a clinical trial setting when patients are very motivated.
Many specialty nurses also have worked in situations where many therapies are competing for the same patient populations in a disease specific clinical study. Nurses therefore have a
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Asking is as Important as Answering Questions Asking questions shows that you are interested in the position and that you have done your homework about the company and the position to have questions. If you have not yet spoken with the hiring manager, ask the screener questions about the manager’s experience and personality. Ask about the interview format and the hiring manager’s interview style.
Learn as much as you can about the company by visiting the company’s web sites. How many employees does the company have? What products are marketed by the company? What compounds are in the company pipeline? Who are the members of the senior management team? What are the company’s goals in the therapeutic area? Answers to these questions help you prepare for the interview, and to gain some insight into how the company may use its MSL function.
Asking questions about the company shows you are interested in the organization. Hiring managers will often give you an opportunity to ask them questions at the end of the telephone screening. If your telephone screening was engaging and conversational, where you felt you had established excellent rapport with the hiring manager, then you may have asked most of your questions during the telephone conversation. Your only remaining question may be about “where do we go from here?”
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presentations is not a good idea! Candidates who do this can find themselves lost when interrupted, and have trouble regaining their momentum or train of thought.
When I interviewed for a MSL position years ago, I was asked to give a lunch‐time interview presentation as part of the all‐day interview process. At that time I was a transparencies person (this may give you an idea of how far back in time this was), and I brought my stack of transparencies to the conference room. People started filling the room, and, of course, these were people I’ve never seen in my life – staff from medical information, marketing, and pharmacovigilance – as well as medical affairs professionals who worked at the corporate headquarters.
There was no overhead projector in the room.
So, there I was, armed with transparencies for a presentation that required an overhead projector to visualize.
One of the staff members began a frantic search for the missing overhead projector. She was literally running up and down the hall way and going to different floors, desperately seeking an overhead projector.
Many MSL candidate interviews last all day, and I only had an hour to give this presentation before I was scheduled to meet the next person on my interview itinerary.
People were looking at me and my stack of transparencies. Everybody was sitting down except me: I was standing up, as you’d expect from the main attraction in an event like this.
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Questions and Answers
I learn best from asking questions, and listening to answers to other people’s questions. Here are some context‐specific questions that may be useful and relevant to you.
An academic researcher once told me that the best way to get into pharmaceuticals was to post‐doc in academia until positions opened up. Is it possible to become a MSL right out of graduate school?
Of course ‐ anything is possible ‐ but in today's job market, there are many MSLs who are either looking for a new opportunity or “floating between contracts” as contract MSLs, because they’ve either been laid off or they’re about to be laid off. This means that for those of you looking to enter the MSL career straight out of graduate school, your entry barrier is getting higher.
The “logical” way to get into pharmaceutical industry R&D may be doing a post‐doc, but I am not enthusiastic about portraying post‐doc as a competitive advantage for MSL career, unless your post‐doctoral projects expose you to some clinical experience.
I've heard diverging views about the helpfulness of a post‐doc from MSLs with PhD degrees. Those whose post‐doctoral experience allowed them to collaborate with clinical investigators do benefit from this, because they now have
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Will putting “medical science liaison” and “thought leaders” in my resume, even when I didn’t work as a MSL, help my chances?
I’m starting to see more candidates put “medical science liaison” in their job title and include phrases like “thought leader development” in their job description when their actual job title WAS NOT MSL, and what they describe as “thought leader development” was not the thought leader development activities that MSLs are responsible for.
When you do this, you aren’t fooling the recruiters, and definitely not the hiring managers. Even if you own your own company and you can make your job title legally say “medical science liaison”, don’t do it!
In fact, if what you’re describing as “MSL” and “thought leader development” is completely off‐base, your decision to misrepresent yourself will hurt – not help – your chances to getting a phone call, because the hiring managers’ conclusion would be, “this person obviously has no clue what the MSL role is about.” I’ve seen a resume that used “thought leader development” and “pitching business/marketing plans” in the same sentence. Given how paranoid hiring managers are about working in this highly regulated environment, that resume would scare off any potential phone conversation the hiring manager may want to have with a candidate.
Words and jargon are important, as you’ve read in this book, I’ve emphasized the importance of knowing the words to use
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indirectly was not worth the hassle of answering the questions I had to answer to do this.
Most of the questions I answered had to do with the specifics of what I wanted to write about in the newsletter, but a big concern was also about "time." How would I be able to balance this additional project as part of my work‐life management? Even if I claimed that this project would not affect the time I spend MSL’ing, I may end up sacrificing precious personal time, which may eventually affect my professional performance.
How much travel do MSLs really do? I have small children at home and would prefer to have as little travel as possible.
I spoke at a career forum some years ago to a group of postdoctoral scientists, many of whom have heard of the MSL career (especially the eye‐catching starting salaries). This question about travel was asked by one of the attendees of the career forum.
You can expect to have periods of extended travel, when you are away from home for many days. You will travel to meet with your thought leaders, attend scientific meetings, or participate in company meetings. If you are assigned to a large geographic area of many states, you will be frequently flying to meet with your clients. If you are assigned to a smaller region within a state, you will probably be driving and sometimes flying to meet with your clients.
Scientific meetings and medical conferences usually run a few days to a week, and can run through the weekend.
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Bibliography
Peer‐Reviewed International Journals
Dumovic, P. and Chin, J. “Medical science liaisons: A look to the future.” Journal of Medical Marketing; Jun 2008, Vol. 8 Issue 3, p193‐197.
Chin, J. “Measuring performance of field‐medical programmes: Medical science liaison metrics consensus” Journal of Commercial Biotechnology, Volume 13, Number 3, May 2007.
Chin, J. “Biotech’s Special Forces: field‐based medical science liaisons.” Journal of Commercial Biotechnology, June 2004.
Books / Book Chapters
Chin, J. and Armon, B. “Off‐Label Communications: A Guide to Sales and Marketing Compliance” (Book Chapter) Published by FDLI, 2008.
Industry / Trade Publications and Journals
Chin, J. “Relationship, Risk, and Reinvention: Lessons from Field‐based Medical Programmes.” Journal of the British Association of Pharmaceutical Physicians, January 2006.
Chin, J. “Can We Bridge the Clinical‐Sales Divide?” Pharmaceutical Representative, May 2005 (Part 1) and June 2005 (Part 2).
Chin, J. “MSLs: Off‐label promotion.” Pharmaceutical Executive Magazine, January 2005.
Chin, J. “MSLs: Show the value.” Pharmaceutical Executive Magazine, December 2004.
“PharmFree Day: Let’s dialogue.” (Opinion) Medical Meetings Magazine, September/October 2004.
Chin, J and D’Costa, A. “Training newly hired industry‐naive medical science liaisons.” Drug Information Association (DIA) Forum, July 2004.
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Chin, J and Gilad, B. “Canaries in the coalmine: MSLs are well positioned to signal early opportunities and risks.” Pharmaceutical Executive Magazine, May 2004.
Chin, J. “Why liaisons lead to success in clinical trials.” Good Clinical Practice Journal, January 2004.
Chin, J. “Medical science liaison training beyond box of books (BOB).” Society of Pharmaceutical and Biotech Trainers (SPBT) Focus magazine, Winter 2004.
Chin, J. “From sales to science: becoming a field‐based scientific liaison.” Pharmaceutical Representative Magazine, July 2003.
Magazine Interviews and Newsletters
(Panel Interview) “Coaching v. Mentoring” by Monica Horvath, AWIS Magazine (Vol 36 No 2, 2007), Spring 2007.
(Panel Interview) “Emerging Trends in Specialty Pharma Growth” by Jean Male, Specialty Pharma magazine (Vol 2 No 3, 2006), May/June 2006.
Chin, J. “Pharmaceutical brand building through science: Medical science liaison is playing a bigger role in brand development.” Pharmaceutical Business Strategies, September/October 2004.
“Breaking their silence: medical science liaisons stand up for their integrity.” (Interview) Medical Meetings Magazine, March/April 2004.
“The medical affairs‐marketing connection: the growing importance of MSLs.” (Interview) PharmaVoice, April 2004.
Available Multi‐Media and MSL Study Courses
7 Fundamentals of Compelling MSL Resumes Program
Secrets MSL Hiring Managers Know 2009 Career Webinar CD
Real Life Contract & Big Pharma MSL 2009 Career Webinar CD
Real World Perspectives with a MSL 2009 Career Webinar CD
3 A’s All Aspiring MSLs Must Have 2009 Career Webinar CD
Become a Medical Science Liaison Career Primer Webinar CD
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About the Author Jane Chin created the first information website for medical science liaisons when she worked as diabetes MSL in 2001 and could not find support resources for MSLs. While working as an oncology MSL in 2003, Chin founded and launched MSL Quarterly, the first management magazine for MSL professionals.
In 2004, Chin made an entrepreneurial leap to found Medical Science Liaison Institute, a consulting and training company for MSL programs. Through MSL Institute, Chin created career resources for MSLs where none existed before. In 2006, for her contribution to the MSL profession, Chin was named one of industry’s 100 Most Inspiring People by PharmaVoice magazine.
Chin is a prolific author in the pharmaceutical industry on the role of MSLs. She has written book chapters and benchmarking reports, and published in peer‐reviewed international journals and top pharmaceutical industry magazines. Chin has been quoted in New York Times and The Wall Street Journal.
Beyond the MSL world, Chin is a keynote speaker, serial blogger, personal branding strategist, and social media enthusiast. She once appeared in a Star Wars magazine and on the front page of the Wall Street Journal dressed up as a Jawa. Chin wrote the introduction to Celebrating Divine Presence: Journeys into God (2009 by Companion Books) and is currently writing a leadership book for pharmaceutical executives (2011 by BioHealthcare Publishing Oxford Ltd).
Chin holds a B.S. degree from Cornell University and a Ph.D. degree from University of Buffalo at Roswell Park Cancer Institute. She is a certified Competitive Intelligence Professional.
Jane Chin www.JaneChin.com
MSL Careers www.MSLcareers.com
MSL Institute www.MSLinstitute.com
MSL Job Opportunities www.MSLjobs.com
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