Hey, guys. Welcome to podcast. Today, my guest is Mitchell de Rosario. He is an MSL with Genentech, and we discuss the three things that Mitch wish he knew about being an MSL. So great conversation. Hope you guys enjoy it. Welcome to MSL talk with Tom Caravella, a podcast specifically designed for MSLs and all things field medical. Hey, Mitch. How are you doing today, my friend? I am doing well. How are you doing, Tom? I'm doing awesome.
It's Friday, and I'm really excited that you're joining me. So I'm look and I'm really looking forward to this conversation. I think it's gonna be great. Thank you for the opportunity. I'm really looking forward to this. Yeah, man. So, you know, we've known each other for a while. We've communicated. You've I wanna thank you in it, like, just because you've given me some great ideas and helped me with this podcast.
So, you know, I appreciate what you've done in your career, and I appreciate the fact that you've helped me. So why don't we get into it? If you can do an introduction and just tell everybody who you are and and and, you know, a little bit about yourself. Sure. My name is Mitch DeRozaria. I am, an MSL at, Genentech Roche. I'm a hematology MSL, and, a little bit above myself.
If if you've ever done this profile, I'm a yellow red, so that means that I love engaging with people, and I like to think about strategies. Yeah. I'm a dad of 2 toddlers. I'm, living a busy life right now. Prior to the hematology MSL role, I was a ophthalmology MSL at Genentech and at also Alimera Sciences. I have both experiences at a a large cap company as well as a micro cap company.
Before we, delve any deeper, I just wanted to have a a disclaimer that any of these views that I have in this podcast are my own and not, does not represent for Genentech Roche. So Yeah. Back to you, Tom. Totally. Yeah. No. I appreciate that. And, so let's go back to the beginning, and and, I would love for you to talk about how you broke into industry. But, specifically, I remember you telling me your approach to your job search, which was incredibly systematic and organized.
And I would love for you to share some of these, your strategy and some of these ideas, with some of the folks listening. Sure. So a little bit of background about myself. So I was doing I did my PhD in Philadelphia, so very close to you, and then I moved to Missouri for my postdoc at WashU. And, during my postdoc, you know, I got, I got fellowships, from the NIH. I knew that I was on that academic route, but then life happened.
My lab decided to move to Oregon, and I was not gonna move with them. And so at that point, during my postdoc, I asked myself, what do I wanna do with my life? What do I wanna do? And what are what are the things that really excite me? And so a family friend told me about the MSL role. And as a true scientist, Tom, I reached out to a 130 MSL and MSL managers all around the country. And, you know, these were LinkedIn messages.
These were combinations of the first and last name at their company dot com. And all of these were cold emails, but they were all personalized. So the way that I did it, Tom, was that I, you know, I looked up their background and saw if there was any similarities for between us and then mentioned that in that cold email. Kept it really succinct. You know? I started off, Tom, sending out long paragraphs, 3 or 4 paragraphs, and I noticed that it wasn't getting a lot of response back.
So I made it tailored it into 1 paragraph, and that that was getting a lot of hit. So out of the 130, I had about 30 people that responded back, and then so I built and grew my network from there. Kept in contact with them, asked them for advice, and all of the job interviews that I had, were through referrals. I didn't have a lot of luck applying online. It was all of the ones that I got actually got an interview for were through referrals, and that's how I broke into my first role.
That's I I I the funny thing is I've heard that before. You've told me this. But as you're telling me again, it's it's literally textbook. It's so perfect. It's exactly what I try to express to people is that the research, the networking, the personalized messages, taking that extra step, whether it's on LinkedIn or finding email addresses, and just that networking approach so that you're not applying to a 1000000 positions and not getting a response.
You're reaching out to people that are appreciating how you do business. You're showing that you could be an MSL, that you have the business acumen and emotional intelligence. But the one thing that I think is is so important is you really have to be precise. You cannot be, like, long winded, 3 paragraphs. I I could tell you from my own personal experience when I get these long I don't read them. It's too much. Yep. I have the attention span of a 14 year old. I might be exaggerating.
No. No. No. You're absolutely right. And then the other thing you all also have to, like so I think the whole process really trained me to think like an MSL. Right? Yeah. So first thing Yeah. When you're reaching out to these MSLs and MSL managers, they're busy. Right? They're traveling, before COVID, but they're still, like, working on internal meetings and and whatnot. And so you have to be precise and have a real clear call to action. Right? Why would they wanna meet with you? Why them?
Why you? And so asking that question is really important. And the other thing also is, you know, you have to put yourself out there. Yeah. Right? And this job is about putting yourself out there Yeah. And engaging. And sometimes you're gonna fail, and sometimes you're gonna hit a really good relationship that has been really insightful. So it's it's always kind of like fail fast and fail forward mentality. Well, but look at I mean, think about your response rate is incredible.
A 100 and 30 reach outs and you got 30 responses. Like, that's I don't know. I'm not good at math, but that's like 20%, maybe more. Like, that's that's incredible. And, I I appreciate you sharing that story, and I hope that others will take you up on that and, and try to do the same thing. So you you came up with a really good idea for this podcast, which is to talk about the 3 things you wish you knew about being an MSL. So let's talk about that. And let's start with the first one.
I don't even know what the first one is, but fire away. I'm very curious to hear what you have to say. So, I am putting myself in the shoes of someone who's aspiring or is new to the role. Okay. And so the first advice that I wish I knew was that expand your circle of competence. Okay. And by the and and your network. So what I mean by that is that, identify opportunities wherever you are right now.
Identify opportunities for improvement, for growth, be be open to learning from others, and build a support network. Not only your family support network, but also, your, professional support network. So expand that network. If you're a Pharm d, reach out to PhDs. If you're a PhD, reach out to nurse practitioners who are MSLs so that it expands your your horizon. Practice gratitude. One thing that I've I've been working on during COVID is to build a hobby outside of my work.
So not letting my work define me, but also having hobbies that I can learn, and pass along to my kids. So those are those are the that's the first advice I would have. Yeah. Well, that's great. I love that idea. It's funny. Like, I this is my hobby. I I became a podcaster, so it just happens to be work related. So what's so what what's next? I mean, that's that's awesome. I think that's a great place to start, and I wouldn't have thought of that.
I mean, I think that that's, you know, really insightful. So what would you say is is second if if it's in any specific order? The second one would be, shifting your mindset from that of scarcity to abundance. And I I found myself locked down in that in that situation when I was trying to break into this role is that you get, you get, sometimes you get frustrated with all of these when you feel frustrated with all of these that knows that you hear back from people.
Maybe they're saying you don't have enough experience, or we are looking for someone who has prior MSO experience. Maybe this is not your therapeutic area. But, so you kind of, like, get to this mindset where, you know, every no means a lost opportunity. And what I've what I've been trying to kind of build in myself is the abundance, opportunity mindset, which is that the world is full of opportunities.
If I don't get through one door, I'm gonna get through another or I'm gonna build my own door. And so that's that's something that I would I wish I knew when I was trying to break into this role. It's such a great attitude because it's overwhelming. And I talk to people all day long that, and hear from people on a regular basis on how hard it is and how discouraging it is.
And I talked to somebody this week that's been looking for a position for he's been trying to break into the role for 4 years. 4 years. Yeah. He's got a great job, and and he's, you know, he's in a good place, but he just really wants to be an MSL. So, I love, again, I love your attitude and your system, and I think that if anybody could take anything from what we've already talked about, those two things combined, I think, are are secrets you know, definitely secret to success.
But what's the third thing? I know that there's more. So the third and last one is be curious. And, from my experience, you know, being being curious does not mean being intelligent or being smart. Being curious for me means to to be always asking questions because you want to learn, not because you wanna sound smart. For me, it means engaging with every interaction as if it's my next job interview. You know, asking questions like, what does good look like? How might we make a change?
What are some of the challenges that we're facing, and how could we turn the challenge into opportunities? So, that has been really helpful for me in terms of whenever I'm engaging with external stakeholders such as customers, but then also internal stakeholders such as my teammates when we're tackling a challenge and, trying to come up with solutions. Yeah. Awesome. I mean, great advice. All 3. Really, really good stuff. So Thanks. Looking at that and I have a question for you. Okay. Go ahead.
Bring it on. As I as I said, being curious means that you ask a lot of questions. Yep. And I want this this, this conversation to be both two ways. Right? Yeah. I have a couple of questions for you, Tom. Fire away, man. I got plenty listen. I have I have plenty of questions, but I love to talk too, so bring it on. I love that you engage with so many people, so many MSLs, both aspiring as well as people who have been in this role for a while. So let's switch roles, and I'll ask you questions.
So what do you wish aspiring MSLs knew about this role? Well, I could tell you that I I wish that they knew not just one thing, but I wish they knew all of the elements to the role. I think that people have a general overview of what an MSL does, but I don't really truly think that they know what a day in the life of an MSL might look like, and I don't think that they realize how hard it might be, to navigate through the long haul. So for example, it seems it seems great. It's like, wow.
It's a remote position. I get to work from home, and I can communicate peer to peer on the scientific topic of my that's in my expertise, and I can communicate and disseminate data and and, you know, this this sounds great to shred up my alley. But do they realize how challenging it is to get face time with KOLs?
Do they realize what it's like when you're when you're not in front of the KOL, you don't have meetings set up, and you're in your office, you know, 1 or 2 days a week, and you're doing, you know, administrative work, or you're trying to hit your goals, or you're dealing with issues, or, you know, internal, you know, situations maybe with your commercial counterparts. There's so much to it. So I think researching the role is really important. Talking to MSLs is really important.
But I think that the understanding of the position is what MSLs aspiring MSLs need to know before they even get involved in the job search. Mhmm. I totally agree with you. I think this job, breaking into it, as well as staying in it is a marathon. For sure. Right? It's not a there's no quick fixes. It's it's a lot about, you know, learning how to compromise as well as to collaborate. Right?
And lean in and lean on other people in your team for things that you might not, you just can't single handedly do every project in the company as an MSO. And so, yeah, being able to work with others is really important. Second question that I have for you. You probably screen you screen a lot of candidates. So this is a question that I always wanted to ask a recruiter is when you are screening candidates for roles, what do you look for? The it's it's it's really simple.
I look for what my clients set as the criteria for that job search. So for example, in my world, it's it's a lot more specific than you guys might think. So my clients might come to me and they they might say, okay, Tom. You know, whether it's 1 MSL or 3 or 4 on a team, the criteria is here's the job description, but what we really want is a PharmD, MD, PhD with a minimum of 3 years of MSL experience, preferably in neuroscience.
So, like, right now, we're working on a couple positions in sleep medicine. It would be great if we found somebody that has sleep medicine background. But if not, we definitely wanna find somebody that has a neuroscience background, an understanding of neuroscience background, and MSL experience. We also look to see so where does that person reside? Are they right smack in the best part of the territory, major hub where they can get to the other parts of the territory very easily?
Do they have relationships with key opinion leaders in that territory in that specific disease state? These are all the things that we look for. So the more boxes we can check when we look at the criteria, the better of the better fit the person is, the better a chance we're gonna submit that candidate to the position. Gotcha. Last question for you. While you're screening, what are some of the red flags that, like, you you notice often that people should avoid?
Everything. Like, I literally when I screen candidates, I look at everything. I look at the way the person answers the phone. Mhmm. If we have a call set up about that. What's that? More about that. Tell me more about that. Well, so I have calls set up all the time. Mhmm. And when I call somebody, if I sometimes I get this. Hello? Like, they're surprised to hear from me or they forgot that we had a call set up.
So that in and of itself makes it it puts me in a position of, wow, I don't feel like this person appreciates me. They don't appreciate my time because they're not ready for the call or they are either that or they're just I don't know. I don't know what that approach is, but I get it every once in a while, and it's disappointing. What do I wanna see? Mitch DiRosario. You know? Hey, Mitch. It's Tom Caravella. Tom, hey. Thank you so much for taking time.
I was really looking forward to speaking with you. Can't wait to chat with you a little bit. Totally I mean, think about polar opposites. Yep. So I look at how the person starts the conversation. What's the first impression? I look at, is the person giving me one word answers, or are they really giving me thoughtful answers? Are they succinct in their answers, or did I ask them a question? Like, I might say, hey. Catch me up to speed. You know, how's it going?
Tell me what you're up to. 20 minutes later, they stop talking. So it's dialogue. I evaluate the dialogue. I evaluate the emotional intelligence of the conversation. I look to see what questions do they have for me. How prepared for the call were they with me? Because if they're not prepared with me, they're not gonna be prepared when they talk to the client. I look to see their excitement for their scientific expertise if they're they specialize in a certain area.
I look to see what types of presentations, what kind of communication skills they have, what they've done in the past that can show me that they're a good presenter and a good communicator. I I look at everything. I look at where they live. I look at what they've done. I look at every every single piece of it from beginning to end. And then I also look to see, how did they correspond with me? Were they responsive? What did their resume look like?
When if I told them that they needed to tweak something on their resume, did they do it? Did they do a good job with it? How quickly did they get back to me? Because that's how you're being evaluated by the company. So I know that that's a pretty long explanation, but I could tell you we look at all those things. And as a team, we document those things. We had a conversation yesterday as a team. Mitchell appreciate this.
My whole team is is on a training meeting, and we were talking about this exact topic. And I'm not gonna mention the person's name, but someone's name came up, an MSL, experienced MSL. And there was a collective kind oh, oh, oh, yeah. I've talked to that person. And the this person is not nice to recruiters. Just not nice. Just, I mean, it's painful for her to talk to recruiters. She makes it a point to say how she doesn't like talking to recruiters. She doesn't like dealing with recruiters.
She's just downright mean. How am I supposed to be an advocate for that person if they can't have the common decency to just show a little bit of respect and courtesy for what we do? You know? So we pay attention to these things. When someone's a really good guy, someone's, you know, really sharp person and they communicate well and they're responsive and they're just likable, we make note of that. It's in our database. Great guy, you know, love this woman. She's the best.
Like, those notes are in our database. Yeah. So just keep that in mind. And I I mean, I have to agree that it comes back to the first, first thing that I mentioned. Right? Which is be, be able to expand your circle of confidence. So what I'm hearing from you are opportunities for me to grow. Yeah. You know, things that I might not be doing that I can grow up upon. But then, again, it comes back to every interaction is a job interview. Right?
And and it's that's the same with your customers as well because your customers will remember how you picked up the phone or how you answered their question. Were you defensive, and did you shut them down? Because that's something that they'll remember, and that's gonna affect your future relationships with them. Yeah. So with that, I'll switch roles again and let you bring us home. I love listen. I love the fact that you flipped the script on me. I love I could do this all day.
I think maybe what I'll do is I'll start doing podcasts where my guests interview me. Well, it's interview's a mutual thing, so I I love getting insights from you as well. So For sure, man. No. I appreciate that, for sure. But getting listen, I'm eager to know look. Getting back so we talked about 3 things that you wish you knew. Great advice. But now you've been in MSL for a while. You're obviously successful. So what keeps you on track? That's a good question.
I think, what really gets me out of my bed every morning is being able to work in a company where we're delivering new medicines for patients. Right? Or, being able to answer questions, medical questions from, physicians who are treating their patients at that time. Right?
So that's something that really motivates me is being able to work at the bleeding edge of science and talk about products that are in the pipeline, but then also out there in the market, and, and learning from the customers, learning from the physicians themselves, about how they're using it. Tom, I think what we as MSLs, we are the we're working on the science of medicine. Right? We're talking about new scientific molecules and whatnot.
But I think what the physicians do is the art of medicine, and that's that's so much more that is also as valuable as the science. So learning from them how do they use the product for their patients, where does it fit in their paradigm, is something that I really like to learn, and, that's something that motivates me. So two two way of answering that is 1, working on the bleeding edge of science. Mhmm. And then second, engaging, physicians and learning from them how they use that product.
Yeah. That's great. So, like, what I'm hearing is if I had if I had to kinda coin that and give it a name. So you have this scientific curiosity, and this desire to learn, this desire to engage, this desire to help the patient. Do you think it's so is that mandatory for someone that is either aspiring to be an MSL or someone that is an MSL and wants to be successful? I think if you don't have a purpose for this role, you're easily going to burn out.
And you've asked this question to multiple, interview you've interviewed multiple people in the past, and you've asked them about burnout. Right? Yeah. And I think if you don't have a purpose, it's easy for you to burn out. And for me, you know, patients are are are waiting. And knowing that is so much more powerful for me is that that really is that engine that keeps me running is the fact that there are people that are waiting for the right kind of treatment for them.
Yeah. And if I do my job well, I would help someone identify the right kind of patient for the right kind of drug. Yeah. That's great. I mean, that and that's it in a nutshell. I mean, I think that's that's what you should be doing as an MSL. That's what you should wanna do. And if your purpose is something different, that's okay. Maybe MSL role is not for you. Maybe you might be better in medical communications or med info, or you might be better at as a bench scientist at a pharma role.
I think farm I think the industry is so diverse, and there's so many opportunities out there, and it's needing so many bright people to join it. Yeah. Right? So there's I think there's multiple different roles for you, depending on what your purpose is. Yeah. So what have you learned in 2020 going through the COVID pandemic, and how has that changed you as an MSL? That's a 2 part answer.
1 is I've learned that building and maintaining relationships are different in a virtual world versus a face to face. And what I mean by that, I think it's easy to maintain relationships virtually. You know, some of my, my customers are happy to meet with me over Zoom. We I get more time from them, because I don't have to wait because it's not during their practice hours, or whatnot. So that has been really good. But building a new relationship is really hard over virtual.
Mhmm. I think, you know, face to face, you can build that. You can you can kind of learn from their body language. You can get multiple cues. It's hard to do that over over, over, over virtual. The second part of it is thinking about my team. You know? Our teams would meet at conferences. Our teams would meet at internal meetings, and that would really help us feel connected.
I think the the challenge or something that we need to think about now is in the virtual world, how do you make your field feel connected during a pandemic? Yep. Yeah. Well and looking into so, I mean, that's that's insightful. Looking into 2021 and beyond, what do you think happens next? I mean, do we go back to the old ways, or is it never gonna go back to the way it was? Is it gonna be a combination and a hybrid of virtual plus in person? I don't know. I that's a a good question.
I don't know about it. I don't know what conferences are gonna look like. Are they gonna switch towards a hybrid situation? It it's it's gonna be interesting, Tom. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know. But I think it's really hard to replace that face to face connection and the real time insights that you can gather by meeting in person. I think that's still very valuable. But, maybe I agree. I'm an old school guy.
I I I can't wait to get back out there and see people and chat with me people and go to conferences and and go to client meetings. I can't wait for that. And I think that that's the way the industry is gonna wind up, but I do think there might be a lot of virtual engagement because we've become accustomed to it, and it's easy. I think we're social beings, so we want to engage with people in person Yeah. When we like them. Right?
So I don't imagine physicians wearing virtual headsets and meeting with you in the future, in the in the immediate future. So I think I think the the the physical or the face to face interaction is is gonna be there. I think it might be a little modified. Yeah. Well, listen, Mitch. You were awesome. You you know? I I knew you would be great. I knew I would learn a lot. I knew we'd have a great conversation, and you didn't disappoint.
So I wanna thank you for, you know, for your friendship and and for your help, you know, along the way, and I wanna thank you for coming on today. You're awesome. Thanks, Tom. I really appreciate this opportunity, and hopefully, this has been helpful for people listening in. And, you know, if you're an aspiring MSL and you're reaching out to a 130 people, count me in as one of those 30 people that might respond that will respond back to you. You're a good man, and I appreciate that.
And I'm sure a lot of people will. So thanks again, buddy. Good luck to you the rest of the year. Thanks, Tom. Hi, man. Catch up soon. Alright. Thank you so much for listening to the show. And if you enjoyed it, please subscribe so that you don't miss an episode in the future, and feel free to leave a rating or a review or a comment. Thanks again, and we look forward to seeing you soon.