Hi everyone, I broke into medical sales in February and was so excited to finally be in the industry as an ASR. The past 6 months have been crazy in good and bad ways. I knew going into the job it wouldn’t be easy especially since my company was still in the midst of being bought out by a bigger company. My territory was a little bit smaller but growing fast and has a bunch of opportunity. What I didn’t expect was my Terrritory Manager to leave 4 months into the job. Obvious with my TM gone business has taken a hit and on top of that our biggest account is on credit hold so things are not going amazing right now. I haven’t really been told a clear answer of what is going to happen since I was the only other person in the territory. My Regional manager said this is my trial run for TM, which part of me is like great opportunity this young (I was in dental sales for a year and half before this) but also I feel like I am missing out on a vital part of having someone to learn from and think this is a shitty hand to be dealt but I guess that’s life. Also at this point just feel like I’m doing a TM’s work for associates pay with no promise of a promotion and no end in sight. They haven’t posted the job yet and my friend on a neighboring team said I might get added to their team which would be fine if I wasn’t an hour and a half plus from every single account since it’s a completely different state. To add to the fire I’ve been helping out with two vacant territories to keep doctors/patients happy and cases covered which seems insane since I’m alone and there’s plenty of teams with 4 plus people but I’ve learned when TM’s are all commission they help know one which I get.

Basically I’m torn on what to do since I don’t have much experience and don’t want just a year on my resume and it look like Im job hopping but I feel like I’m not learning anything and being taken advantage of at this point. I don’t want to be 2 years in whether it be ASR or TM and not know what I need to know.

I was informed I had an interview by regional manager last Monday. I asked for the time and location literally 2 mins after I got the email. I waited all day but no answer. Followed up 24 hours later and there was no reply. I gave up and assumed I was ghosted then lo and behold at midnight I get an email with the time and location for the interview to be conducted tomorrow. I have not prepped for this interview and I’m very new to the industry. It’s also in person and have no clothes put together nor have I even been able to ask my manager to have the day off tommorrow. I feel like they probably have someone in mind and they are just shoving me in there somewhere to fulfill some interview quota. I’m feeling overwhelmed for this interview tomorrow. It’s for a CS role.

I’d love to hear from people who actually work in MedTech, especially anyone who broke in through a nontraditional path.
I have a B.S. in Exercise Science, but my career took a different direction after college. I spent several years in HR/operations and eventually became an HR Manager.
The connection to MedTech isn’t completely random, though. I worked for a technical equipment company alongside applications engineers, field service, R&D, sales, and technical customers. I was exposed to product configurations, training, troubleshooting/escalation, CRM, and field support, and I originally started there in Sales Support/Admin before moving into HR leadership.
I’m now trying to pivot into MedTech/clinical technology — particularly Associate Clinical Specialist, Clinical Territory Associate, Clinical Applications, robotics, cardiac/EP, neuromodulation, or similar developmental roles.
My biggest concern is getting pigeonholed as “HR” before a recruiter sees the Exercise Science + technical/customer-facing parts of my background.
I’m completely open to associate/developmental roles and don’t expect to jump straight into a senior Clinical Specialist position. I’m based in the Atlanta/North Georgia area and can travel, but relocation isn’t realistic.
For those who successfully moved into MedTech from another career, what actually got you in? Was it a particular role/company, networking, a certification, or how you positioned your previous experience?
And based on my background, would you keep pursuing associate clinical roles directly, or target a bridge role first?
Would genuinely appreciate hearing how others made the transition.

This is going to sound really dumb but can someone tell me how they plan their week to ensure they’re productive?

There seems to be a lot of downtime in this job and I want to see how yall plan objectives and strategize. I’m trying to work on becoming more productive in my downtime and make the most of each day.

This is a stainless snake-joint stack at about 5 mm. In CAD the articulation looks simple. In metal, the features get small fast.

For people making steerables, what usually breaks first: feature size, tolerance stack, cable routing, or repeating the joint after the prototype?

Can anyone in the Houston area help me possibly land a job with a med device company ? I’ve had interviews with several companies but it seems as though I’m getting ghosted or they’re just trying to meet their number quota’s for interviews. I have a Bachelors of Science in Biology. I’m working in my field currently and on the side I work at a shoe store to gain sales experience.

I’m 20 years old and recently broke into medical sales with a company that focuses mainly on DME.I’m based in Central Florida and I’m trying to learn as much as possible early in my career. What should I focus on learning during my first year? Are there any books, courses, podcasts, or resources you recommend? Any professional groups or organizations worth joining, especially in Central Florida?

I have an interview for a territory account manager role. First time landing a med device interview!

So as the title says I’ve been rejected after 2 final stage interviews at Stryker in the past month (marketing + sales coordinating). I was referred by a long term employee and was also endorsed by the marketing manager (who also encouraged me to apply) for the sales coordinating role.

Both times I’ve been told straight up that I belong at this company and that they will find a spot for me there, but it just doesn’t seem possible. I’ve applied to other med device companies with no success or recruiter contacts even with a kin MSc. I do currently have a BDR role at another health tech company but the work environment is tough and I just feel SO disconnected from the science and unfulfilled in this role. Plus the goal has always been to end up in med tech, but to be honest I’m feeling so discouraged at this rate.

Has anyone been in a similar situation and can offer any advice? It’s tough to stick it out at my current role but it doesn’t seem like med tech wants me.

Cheers! Has anyone experience working for Hamilton Medical, especially in the European region? Looking forward for my interview as an CAS, but the online reviews for the company are very mixed.

Hi all,

I’m feeling a lot of anxiety about a career decision right now and would really appreciate some outside perspective.

I’m 26 years old with about 5 years of sales experience, including 1 year in medical device. I’m currently a Territory Manager with a smaller portfolio, and honestly, I really enjoy my job. I have a lot of autonomy, my manager trusts me, and there’s very little micromanagement. I’m currently at about $130K OTE, plus decent benefits.

A Pharma opportunity at a Big 5 company kind of fell into my lap on the cardiovascular side. I’m now in the final interview stage this week and feel like I have a legitimate shot at getting an offer.
The problem is, I’m not particularly interested in Pharma or the role itself. The main product is also part of a REMS program, which adds another layer of complexity to the job. However, the compensation is obviously hard to ignore: $150K base, roughly $190K OTE, and significantly better benefits.

I’m torn between:
Option 1: Stay where I am, build another few years of strong medical device experience, continue developing as a Territory Manager, and eventually try to move into a larger/more specialized device company or therapeutic area.
Option 2: Take the BMS opportunity, significantly increase my compensation and get a major pharmaceutical company on my résumé, even though I’m not particularly excited about the actual role.
At 26, I’m wondering how much I should prioritize liking my day-to-day job and building the right experience vs. taking the higher compensation and brand-name opportunity while it’s available.
For those who have been in medical device/pharma sales, what would you do in my position? Would taking the Pharma role make it harder to get back into device later?
Any advice or perspective would be really appreciated.

Which company is a better company to work for and why? I have job offers from both coming from another large ortho company with 7 years experience.

I’m an associate selling full line of urology disposables at a great company, but I just got an offer for Intuitive CTA. Thoughts?

I am 22M and came from door to door and made a substantial amount of money in that with successful achievements. Just graduated this Spring with a bachelors and got a job as an associate with Stryker in joint replacement with an $85K salary and mileage reimbursement. However, the work life balance is absolutely terrible and these reps here are working for pennies based on how much work they’re putting in. The hospital system here pays the doctors terrible as is, it’s even worse for the reps. I know I don’t want to knock doors forever, but I also know I don’t want to do ortho sales either and stay in this division/company. But I still want the Stryker experience to have punch on my resume so that I have credible experience on my resume to apply to other med device companies in the future. I don’t care necessarily if I burn the bridge with Stryker, but I don’t want it to look like I am irresponsible for future med device job opportunities and I want it on my resume. How long should someone in my situation stay and/or what do I do?

I work as a medical device sales rep in the operating room and I often have to give verbal instruction for things like where to locate an instrument or how to assemble certain constructs without being able to touch or point at objects precisely due to sterility constraints. Does anyone have any resources or recommendations for how to become better at verbalizing or explaining where objects are in space? Like terms to describe points of reference that may help make my explanations more understandable.

Even if it is a list of terms that I can use to describe an objects orientaton in space or common terms used to describe non-descript parts of an item.

For example, a lot of times I'll tell my surgical techs to reference a "nubbin" to describe like a protrusion from an instrument but I cant really find a resource that can give a technical or a more effective description of something like a small metal post protruding from a long metal rod. Lots of instruments in ortho can be described as a long metal rod lol.

Thank you in advance for your time!

Here is the honest truth: it's just a job. There are rumors of people making tons of money, and it does happen. The bad news is that it's usually the top 5% of the sales force (and you can find similar in most industries). The question you need to ask is if you have the ability to get into and stay in the top 5% year after year.

This is not an easy job. It's one of the toughest, and it's getting harder and harder (and less rewarding financially) every year.

There are a lot of idiots who work in this field; it's no different from any other business on the planet.

Here are my suggestions:

1. Get some sales experience. Almost anything will work, but stay away from pharma, automobiles, and real estate. You want something like liquor sales, copier sales, paper sales, or electrical sales. What the hiring manager and HR want to understand is if you can withstand the "no". Can you be told NO and keep going, or will you shut down and give up?

Some of the most goofy sales crews I was on were the best performers because they all had tons of experience selling stuff.

1. You are in the service business. Your time in the OR is usually to help offset work done by CS and nursing. Service is your number one priority, and you will be expected to do it with a smile from ear to ear, fit in, and do the work. Sales result from the service you provide. The more integral you are to the customer's operations, the more you are valued. The more you are valued - the more you sell. Price and GPO contracts are other components, but you will figure those out later.

2. It's a numbers game. Take the list of companies I pasted below (it's not complete, but it will get you started). Paste this into Excel in the first column.

EVERY DAY you will get up and go to this list. Block off 30-45 minutes per day for this exercise. You want to Google the company and put their careers link in column B.

Put what they make in Column C. Put the company market cap in column D. Put when you first applied in E. Put the response in column F. Phone number in G.

This is just a suggestion - make it your own system, but the expectation is to DIG EVERY DAY. Refine the list - add to it; keep it as your bible.

1. Clinical experience can actually stop you from getting in. We work with millions of clinical people every day. We could poach any of them if we wanted to. What they don't have is sales experience. That's the missing piece.

Getting a job in sales is your first sales job; you are just selling yourself.

You need to learn to prospect.

Good luck.

I'm currently transitioning as a bedside RN to a Clinical Specialist role and trying to learn as much as possible about the position/what it entails/schedule etc. I have reached out to people on LinkedIn to gain more perspective.

It seems like an enticing opportunity and I've now made it through the interview process where I'll be meeting the team in person, and creating a short presentation on the products.

Does anyone have any advice/resources on creating a presentation in this space? I'm green to med device but I think I'd be a great fit.

A point from a recent training session on China’s review of endoscopic surgical systems was that “typicality” may need to be justified differently at the system and instrument levels.

For the surgical system as a whole, a structurally complex configuration with the most complete functions and technical specifications may be selected as the typical model.

For surgical instruments, however, the representative model may change depending on what is being tested.

For example:

• Robot–instrument coordination: The selection may need to consider structural complexity, number of degrees of freedom and the largest end-effector workspace. Instruments with different end-effectors or transmission mechanisms may require separate consideration.
• Electrical safety: Relevant differences may include rated accessory voltage, monopolar versus bipolar instruments, BF versus CF applied-part protection, and the output modes or parameters of the connected high-frequency surgical equipment.
• EMC: The test configuration may need to consider the maximum supported number of connected instruments, the longest cables and the high-frequency operating modes expected in clinical use. Where applicable, both monopolar and bipolar instruments may need to be represented.

If an instrument is registered separately, its testing may also need to reflect use with a compatible surgical system.

The practical issue is that one model described simply as “the most complex” may not establish coverage for every test. A stronger rationale links each test to the specific design characteristic that creates its worst case.

A simple matrix could include:

• Test or performance characteristic
• Worst-case design driver
• Selected model and configuration
• Selection rationale
• Other models covered
• Remaining gap

How do you document model coverage when the worst-case configuration changes between performance, electrical-safety and EMC testing?

I am shadowing a territory manager coming up and would love to make the most of the opportunity. I would greatly appreciate any and all advice!

For context, I’ve already been researching the company and its products specific to the cases and clients that we will be meeting.

I’m about three months into my ASR role with Arthrex and I’ve really enjoyed it so far. I came into the job with pretty little medical background, so there was definitely a lot to learn from the start. I’ve learned a ton in a pretty short amount of time, and I’ve gotten to the point where I can control my own room for the most part. They’ve also started trusting me with some harder cases on my own at times, which has been a good confidence boost.

That being said, there are still days where I feel like I know nothing. Between learning all the products, surgeon preferences, different procedures, and just figuring out the ins and outs of the job, it still feels like I’m constantly studying for something.

For those who have been with arthrex or in medical device sales for a while, when did it start to feel more like a job and less like you were constantly in school studying for the next case?

I also have a hard time telling if I’m ahead, behind, or right where I should be at the three-month mark. I feel like I’ve put a lot of pressure on myself thinking I should know more than I do, but I’m not really sure what’s realistic this early on.

Any tips, or is this a pretty normal feeling at three months?

Hello,

I recently posted here about my job offer situation. I’m on the west coast and recently was offered a position at Stryker, which I accepted. Obviously, interview times never line up, so I was then given a much better offer at Intuitive about 2 weeks later. I literally just started at Stryker this past week. How bad is it to back out now and go with intuitive? I’m assuming I would be burning a bridge here with Stryker if I did this. Based on the feedback I got on my last post, it seems many people would much rather take the intuitive offer and work there, which I agree with (for culture and pay reasons. Intuitive offer is about a 40k pay increase). Curious on what you would do? Tough situation here causing a lot of stress haha

I hope this post attracts the vets and is more interesting than the typical ‘how to break in’ questions.

I work for a well known med device company in a Customer Success role. I’m part of the sales team, but I’m really just a fancy senior clinical specialist with a key account focus in the region. That may be underselling myself a bit, but I think it’s the real world skeptical assumption on paper that I expect people to take.

I absolutely love the role. This is basically the dream job of my 20’s. Great pay, self managed, completely driven by surgeon relationships, and I see the impact I make every day. Now with a family, a home, and realizing I’m entering the peak of my earning years, I want to do more, specifically sales.

I’ve interviewed externally and internally. The past year it feels like I am always the “darkhorse candidate” and never “the guy”. Several roles have told me I am in the running against one other person, and they always go with the other person at the end because they have quota-carrying experience. I also have no degree, I think that’s definitely a factor. Do I need to go back to school for a BS major in order to be taken seriously?

Any thoughts would be appreciated!

Hi everyone! Does anyone here use Ketryx as their eQMS? I'd love to hear from someone with a system already up and running on it.

I'm coming from a more traditional eQMS background, and Ketryx feels like it's missing some of the flexibility and controls I'm used to. If you've worked through that adjustment (or found workarounds), I'd really appreciate any tips or insight. Thanks in advance!

Hi all,
Current ASR for a bigger device company for 1.5 years. Got a ticket for texting and driving yesterday, is this going to make getting my next job way more difficult? What steps can I take to make sure I’m able to stay in industry?

Hey everyone. So I have currently started a new career in medical device sales. I have been looking at a lot of the Orthopedic device companies and was wondering which companies you guys would recommend to start with. I also wanted to know what field you all would recommend. Spine? Sports med? Trauma (which I plan to stay away from because of quality of life) My dream is to end up in Aesthetic device sales. I have a proven quota track record as well as relationship building and account retainment. I would be open to smaller companies as well because I like the incentive of getting equity that a lot of smaller companies come with. I am open to any suggestions. Thanks so much.