3 things executive medical sales recruiters want you to know

In this conversation, Claire Davis interviews Michael Butler, an executive recruiter in the medical sales industry. They discuss the importance of building relationships with recruiters and the impact recruiters can have on people's careers. Michael shares his background in recruiting and his passion for making a difference in people's lives. He emphasizes the importance of deep diving into clients' products and developing partnerships with them. Michael also mentions the significance of personal connections in the recruiting process and the value of treating conversations as more than just transactions.

The following is an AI-Generated transcript. There may be errors.

Claire Davis 00:03

Hey everybody, welcome for Welcome to the show. Welcome back to medical sales Insider. Today I have somebody who I am really looking forward to introducing you to His name is Michael Butler. And he is important to me as he's an incredible recruiter, but also helped me within my own career journey. And so today, we're going to get to hear a little bit of the behind the scenes of what it's like to be an executive recruiter in today's landscape. And we're going to talk about all the ways that you can make great inroads and relationships with recruiters, which is a very smart play if you're looking to be advancing in your medical sales career. So today, thank you so much for joining me, Michael. It's so nice to have you here behind the scenes. So I'm so glad you could join us. Thank you so much, if you wouldn't mind. Can you introduce yourself and tell us a little bit about who you are and what you do?

Unknown Speaker 00:55

Absolutely. Thanks, Claire. It really nice to join. You know, we've, we chat often. And I think we're both on, I think we both have a LinkedIn addiction. So we cross paths on on on that platform daily. So I'm really excited to join you. But yeah, so I'm a chief growth officer Cancer Research Group. We're a boutique medical recruiting firm, we focus on commercial position sales and marketing roles across the US, servicing the medical industry. So our clients typically manufacture a product or provide a service into into the medical community. So got a team, we're up to 17 people now. So got a team of 17 based here in the Carolinas and have a presence across the US so and I personally been in recruiting since 2004. So they're doing a long time. Start off medical sales recruiting actually back in 2004. So essentially been in this space for most of my career going on 18 years now. So but I'm really excited to join you and see where this takes us. So thanks again for having me.

Claire Davis 01:59

Yeah, I'm so glad to have you here. So, okay, so 2004 is when you had your entry into recruiting, what were you doing before you were in recruiting? And did you think that recruiting would be the path that you would take?

Unknown Speaker 02:12

Yeah, I was. So I graduated from Clemson University, Go Tigers 2002. And started off actually, in baking, I was a mortgage banker with Bank of America had an econ degree, gone into the banking industry, enjoyed it at first, but found I didn't enjoy all the paperwork. And my my colleagues here at concerts group would laugh when they hear that because they'll know I'm terrible at paperwork. So while I enjoyed helping people, I did not enjoy all paperwork involved. So. So I did that for about a year, year and a half and was trying to find something I didn't know what I wanted to do, right, I was 23 years old. Like the people I work with just didn't actually like the actual job. So I really enjoyed being out of commission role opportunity to earn as much as you can by putting in extra work and being in a performance role. So I did that for about a year and a half. And then I stayed in the role. But I spent about six months looking for really going on a career journey to talk about what I wanted to do next. So I looked at analyst roles internally at Bank of America, I looked at outside sales roles, I happen to trip across recruiting, someone randomly called me about a job because the recruiter called me about a job in whatever was I don't remember what it was, but I wasn't interested in wasn't a fit. And he started talking about my career. And he's like, Hey, I'm actually have a friend owns a medical sales recruiting firm. He's looking to hire some folks, would you be talking to him? And so I didn't even know recruiters existed. Like, literally just didn't even know as an industry so sure. So interviewed with a large national medical sales recruiting firm, was really intrigued by the mix of psychology and project management and sales that are involved in recruiting and, and really enjoy people reading, right. I always felt like I was a good people, reader, and I love psychology. And then I like to probably my econ background, I just love, you know, analytical skills required for a lot of project management responsibilities and all the different moving parts that go into recruiting. And then of course, the sales side I love helping others and trying to connect parties and and yeah, it was just just happenstance that I got a random call, which led to a random interview, an industry I'd never heard of. And then eight years later, here I am on a podcast with you.

Claire Davis 04:36

Yeah. And the sweet irony of being recruited to the recruiting industry, right. And at the time, what was that company was the system when

Unknown Speaker 04:45

it was Yeah, system wide, which is out of California. Yeah. They have three offices across the country and had one in here in the Carolinas. So started with them. I was with them for six years and then I started my own firm. Had that for seven years with kind of a mid career journey for a couple years trying to figure out what I wanted to do after that, and ended up in construction about a year and a half ago.

Claire Davis 05:08

Oh, that's great. Okay, so let me ask you this, when it comes to recruiting, of course, there are all types. And I think that if you're listening to this podcast, you know, that there are Headhunters, there are recruiting firms or in house firms as well. So one thing that I have found to be really, really helpful in a job search, whether you're our manager or hire is going with a recruiting firm, that is specialized. And I think like you many people, you know, when you're starting out in your career don't even realize that recruiting is actually a really impressive industry. Like it's a robust industry, especially today, it's probably more well known today than it even was 15 years ago. So why did you and what drew you or kept you in the medical sales recruiting executive level of that? Because I feel like that's a different conversation than a regular, you know, come what may recruiting house or internal recruiting firm?

Unknown Speaker 06:09

Yeah, I mean, ultimately, right. It's about impacting lives. So what's really cool about what we do is, is we're not only impacting lives, and people's careers, and also people's teams, but, but ultimately, the product they're selling, right, and so if we can make a small difference, and in the field of cancer oncology, that's just really rewarding. And so that's like, what's what's kept me on is just feeling like I'm part of something bigger and, and making a very small difference in people's lives. So. So it's been, you know that that piece is critical. And then also just just getting to learn right about all the different technologies and science and different disciplines, just a lot of fun, because, you know, medicines always changing. And so we'll pick up a client, once a month, we pick up a client, and we're like, deep diving on what they do, and trying to learn. You know, that may be like, similar to some of our other clients, but they're, you know, on the fringe of that tight niche to where we operate. And so we'll be learning something really complex to be able to go out and tell their story to the candidate community and make sure we know our clients really well. So that constant learning and also just making a difference to people's lives is really what's kept me on it.

Claire Davis 07:16

Yeah, yeah, I believe it. And you know, what I remember back when I was looking for work myself, and in working with different recruiters, there is a stark difference between working with a recruiter who is somewhat familiar with the role in the company, and then coming to an outfit like yours who deep dive on those products. Because, you know, tell me what it's like when you get a new contract. And you start, do you start automatically thinking of the people in your Rolodex, you know, your, your potential clients? And who would be a great fit based on what kind of technology you're introducing?

Unknown Speaker 07:55

Oh, yeah, absolutely. So. So I mean, one thing I'll say is we, we look for partnerships with our clients, right, we're not a transactional recruiting firm. So if I have a potential client, that's just looking for resumes from us, and not actual partnership, where we're collaborating on a search, we're just not the right fit for someone like that. So, you know, there's, there's plenty of recruiters that are really good at that, and make a really good living doing that. But we're, we're gonna to be really strong business partners, with our clients. And so, so with that, we do do a deep dive on every new client we take on, and we want to be an extension of their team. So we're never gonna know their products as well as they do. But we want to know enough to be dangerous, and to get on the phone with a candidate and help them understand like, how is this company different? How are their products different? Where do they fit in the marketplace? And how do they differentiate themselves from their competitors. And so and even when we present an opportunity, we always start big picture like, Hey, here's what the industry is, here's where they fit into the industry. And then we kind of narrow down kind of like an upside down pyramid, we start big and then get more focused on that particular role. So So that's, that's a big part of what we do. And then yeah, absolutely. When we get a new search, we typically have I mean, names will just start popping in your head right away, I think of a search and in Chicago, Illinois and looking for a very specific background, you know, there's, we often have a Rolodex of contacts already that are popping in your head and you think, Oh, I talked to Jim six years ago, you'd be perfect for this I need to call and so that that happens all the time.

Claire Davis 09:23

You know, what blows my mind about that is there is a there are well known studies specifically by this. This researcher named Dunbar and Dunbar's principle is that you can really only intimately know roughly 150 people at a time, like our brain can only really absorb that much information and personal detail, right? Unless you're a recruiter, honest to God, I will never we would be out to dinner and for anyone who doesn't know my background, I was helping my family and their pharmaceutical recruiting business eons ago. And I remember so clearly that they would get a specialized search and people would come to their mind as perfect fit candidates who, like you said you hadn't talked to in months and years, but you develop that kind of relationship with people that you really do know them. And they were kind of relationship with your hiring teams. So you really do know who they're looking for. Because it's not just Is this person a great candidate? And they do they get results? It's are they a good fit for this specific opportunity? So I really appreciate that. I think that it's a mark of a really solid recruiting firm and one that places probably people in really great right fit jobs. So

Unknown Speaker 10:38

yeah, thing I would add to that clear that I think that's one of the indicators of success in recruiting is the ability to recall that information, right. So some of our newer team members, I think they think I'm crazy sometimes, right? Because they'll come in, and they'll say, Well, I'm searching Dallas, and I'll say, oh, you know what you should call Betsy in Dallas, I talked to her in 2012, she interviewed really well, for this one opportunity. And she's got a dog and two cats. And you know, and she loves to go on her boat on the weekends. And, and then they're just like, You're crazy. Right, but but, but I think that's a you know, it's tough like with your mom, right? That's probably why she was in the industry for so long, because she had the ability to make the recall that information and make those human connections and be able to tap into that, because we of course, have a database, right? Where we keep up with stuff, but like a lot of it's just gonna be very deep in your brain, and then you gotta be able to pull that out.

Claire Davis 11:34

Yeah, well, you know, I think that goes a long way in saying it's important to as a candidate, right? If you're, if you're an executive level candidate, and you want to really use recruiters and recruiting firms in the right way, you've got to develop that relationship. So can you tell us a little bit more about, you know, what are some best ways that people can make an increase the frequency with chatting with you? Or is it a way that they can build rapport or the right way to connect and follow up with you, that helps them to develop that relationship? Because I mean, I, I know, for myself, developing a long term relationship with recruiters was very important to me. But I only knew that I only understood that having been in the industry myself. So how should people go about that, so they can really allow you to get them to get to know them as as well as they can get to know you?

Unknown Speaker 12:30

Yeah, that's a great question. So it's funny, we were talking to the team about this the other day, that if you, if you treat a conversation, transactionally, you're gonna get out transactional results, right. And if you, if you're gonna build a human bond and connection with someone, then you're gonna get more out of that conversation. And so we were encouraging our team members, just make sure make sure you're developing those relationships, building that bond, that connection, because ultimately, that person A is more likely to follow you on this, this journey into a potential new job opportunity, but be They're also more likely to just communicate with you and share their real feelings and maybe not goes to you right for an interview, if they decided they don't want to pursue it, they're gonna take the time to call you and let you know, hey, clear, like, I decided not to pursue this. So I'd say it's the exact same thing for candidates, right, you get out what you put in. And if you put in time and energy to build some relationships with recruiters, you'll get more out of that relationship. And they're more likely to remember you, even if they're still looking at it as like, hey, they're calling me about this one job and treat it transactionally. Like, am I interested in Am I not like, Hey, let me let me build a relationship with this recruiter and get to know them a little bit so that they the next time, they have a great job here in New York City, they're gonna call me because I took the time to talk to them, open up them, share them, where I'm headed on my career path, and, and that way on top of mine next time, something comes up. So like, what's recruiting recruiters need to be doing that and candidates need to be doing that? And, you know, we don't want we don't have time for a 90 minute conversation, right? And we don't necessarily want to, you know, we can't necessarily how much time we're all busy, right? But you can take time to let your guard down a little bit and actually build a relationship with another human being.

Claire Davis 14:00

Yes, you know, I'm glad you use the word human being because true and transactional, right? I mean, these are things that come up so frequently in the careers conversation at every level, recruiters people to write, let's just say, and, and, you know, it's that human to human relationship, which really forges the bond, and then builds the trust so that when that right thing comes up, you know, you feel comfortable throwing your weight behind a certain candidate, because you've built that level of trust. So can we give people a few maybe specific things or specific ways that they can follow up with you? Or, you know, what are some things they should be asking a recruiter when they're on that call and say you've got a quick five minutes to fit them in? What's that conversation looking like for someone you already know? Right? Somebody is already on your Rolodex but wanting to check in and just nurture that connection.

Unknown Speaker 14:57

Yeah, I would recommend a try understand And what types of roles do they? Do they work right? So what what is their expertise and even when within medical sales might someone you can say someone's niche in medical sales recruiting, but then there's there's niches or niches or niches or niches, right? So, so so we do a lot of work in oncology, right. And so I could say I specialize in medical sales. But then I can also say, even more narrow I specialized in oncology. And then even more narrow than that I specialize in molecular diagnostics even more specialized in that I, we specialize in startup and midsize companies, the molecular diagnostics space. And and we have other markets that we work as well. But to understand what are the niches you actually serve? What types of roles do you typically have? And does that make sense for where I want to go in my career. So if you have, if you're in urology sales, and you love surgical devices, and you're talking to a recruiter who never does anything in surgical devices, and they service other areas of the medical sales industry, that might not be the person, you know, for you to build that long term relationship with, because they serve a different market, and then where you want to go. And so I would say dig into what do they actually focus on? What is their expertise, there's there are recruiters that focus just on specific markets, too. So if you live in Philadelphia, and you're talking to a local recruiter that specializes in medical sales, they may do everything, medical sales, but focus just on their local geography. And so that's another thing too, is like geographically, where, where are you focused? And then, you know, from a niche standpoint, what industries are you serving within medical sales, but there are generalist too, there's, there's medical sales, recruiting, for instance, just do anything and everything. So they're more generalist firms. So that's, and in that case, you know, that could be, you know, if you're just kind of open to anything, you know, you want to hear about all different types of opportunities, that could be a good avenue as well.

Claire Davis 16:42

Yeah, you know, I think I agree, I know, you know, there are general there are more specialized, I tend to be in the camp of the more specialized you that you are, the faster the results you may get. And I think that with anything, once we know the goal, we're after we can kind of position ourselves from all angles to go after that one target. So do you feel like there's a jet? You know, once you find a great opportunity, right, and then you're reaching out to certain candidates? Is there a timeline that you generally see, are people getting things, you know, getting into positions that are right fit faster? Because they're working with you versus a generalist? Kind of?

Unknown Speaker 17:23

Yeah, I would say, well, a couple of a couple things I'd bring up there, it's, you know, just like myself, right? When you start your career, you might, it might take you two or three jobs to figure out where you're headed, right, and what you want to do with your life. And so oftentimes, if we see people have moved around a lot, have a lot of job changes and a short period of time earlier in their career, we're just like, hey, we're just, that's just self discovery, trying to figure out where I'm gonna go with my career. And then once you get into medical sales, right, it's gonna be you kind of start over on that path and figure out okay, now, now, I've gotten through this magic door, what do I want to do now, and you may start off in a pretty generalist role selling to kind of just basic general supplies into the alar. And, and he may quickly realize, hey, I really enjoy working with the OBGYN surgeons, right. And so I want to focus on women's health. And so that's what I encourage people is like, try and figure out what even if you're not currently touching, and what are the areas that interests you? And how can you kind of double down your efforts to start specializing, because that's where that's where the real opportunities are, in terms of earnings and career path is, you know, if you you can bounce around for 20 years, doing different, you know, sales roles in different industries, but then, but then you kind of just a general generalist, right, and you don't have any expertise in one area. And so to create value for yourself and for others, and to take your career on the right path, I think specializing as you said, it's, it's absolutely the right the right thing to do. And in most scenarios,

Claire Davis 18:49

you know, and I see it, I see it both ways, I see folks who get who get in, and they enjoy that specific specialty, and they ride that to, you know, the heights of career. And then I see folks who get into a specific specialty, do it for 25 years, and then say, I've been women, I've been a women's diagnostics oncology for a while. I think I'm interested in this other arena, right, this other sort of specialty in medical sales. Do you think that you know, since clearly the 10,000 hour rule applies here, because you have been doing this for far more far longer than 10,000 hours, I'm going to call you an expert. So when you receive a new, a new client, a new candidate, are there certain things about them that kind of tip you off that they are going to have an easier time with making inroads or getting the next opportunity? Are there certain things that you see that that say to you, okay, this person is not only going to listen to my advice, but they're going to take it and run with it. And what does that candidate kind of look like?

Unknown Speaker 19:56

Yeah, there's it's interesting you say that, so We make a lot of assumptions, right? Based on someone's resume and their career path. It's oftentimes it's the only information in front of us to go off of right. So it's, and we had a scenario this morning where a candidate backed out of interview last minute. And I was like, Well, of course they did, they've been doing the same job at the same company for 10 straight years. And, and I'm not surprised, right? Because that's, that's very typical that that may be just a very conservative mindset. And they didn't really have a lot of pain in terms of why they would leave their current opportunity, they were someone we approach. And so you can take like those types of assumptions and apply them to all types of candidates, right. And, and so to someone's been in a particular industry and done very similar roles for 25, straight years, and they're looking to pivot, that actually can add a lot of value, sometimes other organizations that they want, like a fresh line of thinking and their leadership team. And, you know, they have all industry veterans in their management team, and they just want an outsider's perspective. There, that does happen all the time. So, so that is where it can be great. And then and then a lot of times, what we find is people may make that pivot, and then they run back to safety, they wrote back to what they know, right? So they may go to F, they've been specializing in oncology for 25 years, and then they go and try something in the urology space. If it doesn't go, well, they often will, you know, they flee back to safety to what they know. So we do see that a lot as well. So it certainly can be done. And a lot of companies will value that kind of unique perspective. And we think a lot where people are like, Hey, I just need something new, I want to learn a new discipline a new science. And, and so the main thing is like, you know, are they open minded? Are they a learner? Are they constantly trying to improve? Do they want to actually put in the time and energy and effort to try to become an expert in this new field? You know, when they've been working for 30, straight years, developing expertise in another sector?

Claire Davis 21:52

I'm so glad to hear you say that, that, you know, I think a lot of people feel that once they make that jump that Oh, no, I'm stuck, like I completely derailed. But it's really encouraging to hear that companies are looking favorably on that, in some cases, because you do bring that additional perspective. You know, I mean, when we've done anything for 2030 years, it pays to have a little bit of a, you know, fresh take on it so that we can really move it forward and not get stuck. So I'm glad to hear that that's becoming more of the norm.

Unknown Speaker 22:22

Yeah. Oh, absolutely. Yeah, absolutely.

Claire Davis 22:25

So I would love to hear your perspective on the market to just change gears a little bit. Yeah. So the market in general, of course, right now is a confusing place. Some industries are hemorrhaging people, you know, a lot of tech, a lot of these these large fortune 100 companies, where do you see medical sales in that? Because what's confusing, I think to most is, while we're getting that message, we're also getting the message of it's one of the lowest unemployment rates in, you know, a very long time. So, what are you seeing in medical sales? And do you think that you could kind of predict maybe where the next quarter or two is going to take us?

Unknown Speaker 23:06

Yeah, I'll do my best. So yeah, it's, uh, yeah, right, because I don't think we've ever had inflation so high without being an official recession. And we've never had been, we've never been in a recession with unemployment so low. So we have like these, these confusing signals in the market where we have 3.6% unemployment, and I think 9.1% inflation, and those two numbers usually do not exist at the same time. So it's a lot of noise out there, and a lot of people confused on what's happening in the market. So right now, like, as of today, we're still seeing a really tight labor market. So there's candidates have lots of opportunities, a lot more choices. We have seen a few layoffs in the sectors that we serve. We've seen a handful of layoffs, nothing widespread. We've seen a handful of positions go on hold. But right now, it seems to be kind of steady and strong ahead. So I think there if people had expansion plans, I think they're reevaluating that at the moment, like, hey, we plan a q4 expansion. And can we actually go through with that? So but the good news is in the healthcare space, right, we have the aging baby boomers, it's going to continue to put a premium on health care coverage across the US and, and also, we're in a tight labor market, even if even upon employment goes up a little bit. It's still I don't know what the unemployment rate is specifically in medical sales, but I'm sure it's even less than what the broader market is. So there's a shortage of labor and there's going to be an increasing demand for health care services as the baby boomers continue to age I think the average age of the baby boomers in the late 50s Now humbly so they're hitting that phase in their life right where they're going to need the most access to care and the best health care so all that to say like long term feel good about it short term feel good about it. I wouldn't say like I feel great about it, but also still feel pretty good about a knot. You know, we just hired two more people, for instance, on our team, so which we wouldn't have done and they just started last month, which you know, if we were really fearful we would not have done that. So yeah. So yeah, I think for us things were still positive. So I still think we're gonna be good. You know, if we were intact, I'd be, you know, probably a little freaked out. But you know, we're in healthcare. And so I think we're gonna be fine.

Claire Davis 25:12

Yeah, well, first of all, congratulations for expanding your team. That's great. That's great news. And speaking of your team, you know, for those that are listening today, management, executive level medical sales professionals who are looking for a partner like you to get active in this space, that the diagnostic the oncology space in molecular oncology space and wanting to move forward in their career with a partner, like you and your team over at customer search, where can they reach you? What's the best way?

Unknown Speaker 25:44

Yeah, absolutely. So one thing I'll add to that, so we do a lot of work in oncology, we do a lot of work in med tech. And we also do a lot of work and the dental industry. So. So those are the three markets that we serve. And we have clients that are outside of that, but that's where we spend a lot of our time focusing in terms of prospecting for new clients. So my recommendation, of course, will be LinkedIn, if you're on LinkedIn, and please give me a follow on LinkedIn and shoot me a message to introduce yourself. You can also go to our website at Kessler search.com. And check it out myself, many of our team members to reach out about opportunities, we routinely have jobs, we post on there, and you can follow our company LinkedIn page, we post all of our jobs, typically, on our RP there. So you go to cancer research group on LinkedIn, and follow our company page and in any one of our team members as well.

Claire Davis 26:33

Great, thank you so much, Michael. It's always a pleasure chatting with you. I'm so glad we made this podcast happen. For those of you listening here this is we've had to reschedule a couple of times on my end. So Michael, thank you so much for your flexibility and I know that you are dedicated to getting this kind of information out to medical sales leaders and I truly appreciate you joining us today. So thank you so much.

Unknown Speaker 26:57

Thank you, Claire. It was great and your your energy, it's like a cup of coffee. So enjoy. Always enjoy talking to you. And it fires me up in the next few hours. So it's really been great.

Claire Davis 27:09

I'm so glad to hear. Well. Thank you so much. And thank you everybody for tuning in today. Thank you for those you're watching and be sure to connect with Michael and tester search over on LinkedIn and don't be a stranger. We'll see you next time.

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