Focus Magazine - Winter 2012 - 28

FEATURESTORY

Sales Training Internships: A Win-Win for Everyone
I By John Sjovall

harmaceutical sales representatives o en wonder what it’s like to be on the “inside” of the corporate o ce. More speci cally, many want to know what sales training does when they are not training. e Daiichi Sankyo, Inc. (DSI) Training Internship Program helps provide representatives the answers to many of their corporate o ce questions. ey get to integrate with other parts of the organization, develop new professional and personal skills and leverage themselves for future advancement. Launched about eight years ago, this program serves not only as a highly effective retention tool, but also a recruiting tool, bringing in a geographically diverse group of representatives that might not otherwise consider advancing their career within the Parsippanybased home o ce or relocating to New Jersey. Unlike most internships that last extended periods and are designed to support speci c projects or tasks, our training internship program is three

weeks. It is designed to generate a deeper understanding of the organization and o er career development opportunities for sales representatives — a vital part of our employee base who represent the face of our organization with our key customers. Besides classroom training, the internship provides insight into all aspects of the organization. Representatives are set up with 20 to 30 interviews with various employees across

Organizations as a whole cannot afford
hiring mishaps
departments allowing them a rsthand look at the full range of home o ce career possibilities, from sales operations and market analytics, to marketing and new product planning. Interns work collaboratively as part of the training team where frequent feedback is provided to help with their personal development in various professional competencies such as presentation skills, innovative mindset, suitability for the work and their t within the department. It’s a win-win. e training department learns an intern’s strengths and areas of development, while the intern gains an understanding of what the job entails and whether they want to further pur-

sue an opportunity within the department. While the program was initially launched to assist in recruiting highquality candidates for our primary care training team, it has since expanded to include our hospital and specialty training team. For the last eight years, about 90 percent of the new trainers that we’ve hired were previous interns. A recent training & development benchmark by TGaS Advisors shows that headcount allocation has decreased by 40 percent within the industry. As commercial models are undergoing major monetary shi s, organizations as a whole cannot a ord hiring mishaps. Our internship program helps to avoid this costly mistake.

How the Training Internship Works
Selection. An annual announcement is made and interested representatives speak with their managers, who then forward prospective candidates to their leadership. A er screening candidates, each area pools their top candidates and forwards names to training where nal interviews are conducted. Requirements include: speci c industry and company sales experience, suc-

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Focus Magazine - Winter 2012

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