Burning you out of the company is built into the system

[Anonymous]

Get this straight right now...(Yes, even you prized S3s with your hair like golden flax)

Merck does not want you to make a career out of pharmaceutical sales...They want to use you, (brainwashing you into thinking you have a career) and then dump you at the worst time...(when you are older, and more vulnerable...)

Unless you are one of those who enjoys being a corporate drone and relocating constantly to get to a more "protected" level of the company, you will be in Merck's crosshairs...

There is a career track at Merck, but you better be on it within the first couple of years of joining the company as a newbie...(and I mean a youngin' newbie)

 

[Anonymous]

So true...it didn't used to be this way..."back in the day" one could make a lucrative career out of pharma sales (i.e., "the career rep")....but those days are gone and never to be seen again (especially with Obamacare). Advice to the "youngin's": find another career path outside of pharma.

 

[Anonymous]

So true...it didn't used to be this way..."back in the day" one could make a lucrative career out of pharma sales (i.e., "the career rep")....but those days are gone and never to be seen again (especially with Obamacare). Advice to the "youngin's": find another career path outside of pharma.

Kind of sad. All the tenured reps retired with over $1M when I joined Merck. Now you are tenured if you have been around 3-5 years. We used to grow old with the customers we called on. Now, oh well, another new deck every other year.

 

[Anonymous]

Kind of sad. All the tenured reps retired with over $1M when I joined Merck. Now you are tenured if you have been around 3-5 years. We used to grow old with the customers we called on. Now, oh well, another new deck every other year.

3-5 year even 8 years is not any money to speak of....gone are the days of millionaires.....I'll be 80 and still working full time....sad and sickening

 

[Anonymous]

ory to say but you won't still be working full time at age 80 - or 70 or 60 even because you will be let go as soon as they see a wrinkle or grey hair on your head - corporate American does not keep "old" people on their roles any more - unless of course you happen to be in the C suite

 

[Anonymous]

Sit back and look at who's left at Merck. See a lot of older reps? The ones I do see walk around like zombies...slugging through the day-to-day and hoping they can make it to retirement. The job has changed for the worse. I didn't need a college degree to get into this line of work and my brain power has been sapped. I feel like I have conscious dementia!

 

[Anonymous]

When I joined Merck 15 years ago, it was explicitly discussed in my interview that Merck encouraged long-tenured reps. I accepted that position because I never had any desire to enter management. Around the time of Vioxx's demise, the company changed. Management changed. Sales alignments changed. It all changed---repeatedly. In all of that confusing change, Mother managed to lay off thousands and push more thousands out with underhanded pressure. The best reps this company had are now all gone.

 

[Anonymous]

Sit back and look at who's left at Merck. See a lot of older reps? The ones I do see walk around like zombies...slugging through the day-to-day and hoping they can make it to retirement. The job has changed for the worse. I didn't need a college degree to get into this line of work and my brain power has been sapped. I feel like I have conscious dementia!

Totally bogus. No pharma company I know would touch a rep with less than a BA degree. Today most better companies want at least a masters degree. As far as older reps you are absolutely wrong....know at least 5 reps who are late 50s to mid 60s, one later 60s and most continue to be some of the best reps in the field. Age means experience, accomplishments, understanding how to treat other people and usually an exceptional work ethic. A lot more than no more wetness behing the ears. At least least 3 of these 5 have graduate degrees as well.

 

[Anonymous]

Totally bogus. No pharma company I know would touch a rep with less than a BA degree. Today most better companies want at least a masters degree. As far as older reps you are absolutely wrong....know at least 5 reps who are late 50s to mid 60s, one later 60s and most continue to be some of the best reps in the field. Age means experience, accomplishments, understanding how to treat other people and usually an exceptional work ethic. A lot more than no more wetness behing the ears. At least least 3 of these 5 have graduate degrees as well.

wow...a whole 5 reps over 50 that you know...alert the media!! what percentage does that make them...maybe 1-2% of that...

Merck wants you out by 45 at the latest...after that you are on borrowed time...any rep worth his salt has left this company already, no matter how old they are...Dignity is worth more than Merck's blood money.

 

[Anonymous]

wow...a whole 5 reps over 50 that you know...alert the media!! what percentage does that make them...maybe 1-2% of that...

Merck wants you out by 45 at the latest...after that you are on borrowed time...any rep worth his salt has left this company already, no matter how old they are...Dignity is worth more than Merck's blood money.

Thanks for the advise, manager somewhere in age between 40-60. Guess you'll make sure you dont get touched by the layoffs. You'll be sure you push out everyone else ...

As for the 5 reps these are just a few..I know plenty more who fit the same criteria.

 

[Anonymous]

wow...a whole 5 reps over 50 that you know...alert the media!! what percentage does that make them...maybe 1-2% of that...

Merck wants you out by 45 at the latest...after that you are on borrowed time...any rep worth his salt has left this company already, no matter how old they are...Dignity is worth more than Merck's blood money.

"Dignity is worth more than Merck's blood money"....what the hell are you talking about...ah, but wait, it must be a fraudian slip on your part.....Mr. Manager, on a mission.

 

[Anonymous]

Totally bogus. No pharma company I know would touch a rep with less than a BA degree. Today most better companies want at least a masters degree. As far as older reps you are absolutely wrong....know at least 5 reps who are late 50s to mid 60s, one later 60s and most continue to be some of the best reps in the field. Age means experience, accomplishments, understanding how to treat other people and usually an exceptional work ethic. A lot more than no more wetness behing the ears. At least least 3 of these 5 have graduate degrees as well.

Oh come on! All these bimbettes being hired DO NOT have masters degrees!! They probably barely got their BAs, or if they did--- communications majors. Sorry but that was the joke degree at my university; filled mostly with dumb chicks who didn't know what else to do with themselves, or in college for their mrs degree. Easy major. There is NO WAY the trash being hired in this day and age in pharma have Masters. That is a fact.
And I do know of some reps who didn't have BAs when they were hired. A while back, granted, but they were like nurses, etc., and did a fantastic job.
The pharma job doesn't require much intelligence (this statement has nothing to do with nurses, btw). If you can memorize shit, you can do pharma. I went brain-dead as a long-term rep; bored out of my skull, and finally got the guts to cut the ties with the big salary, in order to regain my sanity and my brain cells.
It is true, older reps are not really wanted in pharma. They want people who won't fight the system or think for themselves, hence the Kens and Barbies! Sad, very sad.

 

[Anonymous]

Oh come on! All these bimbettes being hired DO NOT have masters degrees!! They probably barely got their BAs, or if they did--- communications majors. Sorry but that was the joke degree at my university; filled mostly with dumb chicks who didn't know what else to do with themselves, or in college for their mrs degree. Easy major. There is NO WAY the trash being hired in this day and age in pharma have Masters. That is a fact.
And I do know of some reps who didn't have BAs when they were hired. A while back, granted, but they were like nurses, etc., and did a fantastic job.
The pharma job doesn't require much intelligence (this statement has nothing to do with nurses, btw). If you can memorize shit, you can do pharma. I went brain-dead as a long-term rep; bored out of my skull, and finally got the guts to cut the ties with the big salary, in order to regain my sanity and my brain cells.
It is true, older reps are not really wanted in pharma. They want people who won't fight the system or think for themselves, hence the Kens and Barbies! Sad, very sad.

Dont see anything wrong with communications major. Good training for media buffs of all sorts. Sounds interesting but not my field.

My field is here. I have a grad degree. Older. Not highly paid. Not brain dead. Do more than memorize; understand. Enjoy the study. Imagine....they want to can me and others like me. All to be replaced by Kenny and Barbie? This can't be smart move.

 

[Anonymous]

Many years ago they would hire someone with an associate degree with the stipulation that they completed the BA within so many years.

One of the posts may be true as I was surprised by the lack of depth and inability to comprehend and a dire void of computer skills in some of the Ken and Barbie models. They gone through college when everyone are given a laptop. Why they seem so clueless? How did they manage to graduate with so little understanding of computing if the courses require the use of it? Why they keep asking me, a guy raised in the ancient punch card IBM card reader era, in how to use a Merck laptop? They are supposed to teach me, not the other way around.

 

[Anonymous]

Sit back and look at who's left at Merck. See a lot of older reps? The ones I do see walk around like zombies...slugging through the day-to-day and hoping they can make it to retirement. The job has changed for the worse. I didn't need a college degree to get into this line of work and my brain power has been sapped. I feel like I have conscious dementia!

I haven't seen anyone older period walking around the halls of Merck. They like to get rid of you as you get closer to your 50s. It's happend to so many of my colleagues. Sad but it true what you're saying.