Hey, guys. Welcome to the podcast. My guest today is Joelle Martin. She is an MSL with Alimera Sciences, and we talk about how to advance your career through informational interviewing, informational interviews, which is an awesome conversation. She was great. Don't forget to subscribe to our YouTube channel and follow us on Instagram. And check us out on MSL Talk Live, which is on Clubhouse. And that's the first Tuesday of every month at 1:30 pm EST. Thanks for joining us.
Welcome to MSL Talk with Tom Caravella, a podcast specifically designed for MSLs and all things field medical. Hey, Joelle. Thanks for joining me. Welcome to the podcast. Hey, Tom. Thanks so much for letting me join you today. I'm excited. So let me kinda tell everybody how this came about. So you reached out to me kinda sort of with this idea, kind of out of the blue.
But I I mean, obviously, I know you, but, I thought this was a really good idea about doing a podcast regarding informational interviews. So before we get into that, why don't you just do an introduction, tell everybody who you are and where you're from and all that stuff? Yeah. So my name is Joelle Martin. I live in Tennessee now, but I just finished my PhD at Virginia Tech last May with a focus on neuro oncology.
And 6 days after I defended my PhD, I started at Alimera Sciences with the onboarding process and moved states, and now I represent the Southeast United States. Amazing. Well, congratulations to you again. That that's really unprecedented to find an MSL role that quickly. So now there's probably a lot of people that are listening to this that are like, how'd you do it? You know? Which a lot of we're gonna talk a little bit about that. Okay? That's gonna be part of the things that we get into.
But before I start, I wanna give a quick shout out. I like to do this sometimes. I today, I get into the office, and I get the results, or the rankings of the podcast every day. And today, we were number 6 in the careers category in Poland. So shout out to all our friends in Poland. Thank you guys for listening. Alright. Let's jump into this. So informational interviews. So you bring up this topic. I'm like, I'm not even totally sure what she means by inter informational interviews.
So what tell us what that means and and why it's important and how people can use these. Yeah. So, broadly, informational interviews are just conversations you have with individuals who have the job that you want or have experiences that you want and are interested in, and you talk with them just to gain a deeper and broader understanding of their experiences and their advice for how you can break into that role yourself. And so it can kinda go in 2 different ways.
Sometimes informational interviews are for if you like, if I was an MSL seeking an MSL job, you can talk to hiring managers and have an informational interview that way. But I think for this conversation, we're more focused on aspiring MSLs who wanna have informational interviews with current MSLs to gain that kind of experience and knowledge about the job. Got you. Okay. That makes sense.
That's what I thought it was, but just wanted to make sure that we got, you know, clarity on on that piece of it. But to your point, you're right. This could really be for any career if you're looking to, up level or if you're looking to break into a new path. And it's basically a form of networking. Right? I mean, asking for informational interviews is a form of networking and mentorship. Does that make sense? Absolutely.
Quite a few of the people I probably did 20 or 30 informational interviews while I was in my PhD trying to prep for this transition, and several of them became mentors that I still talk with today and have helped me along that 6 year period to get to where I am.
And that's part of the reason why I was able to start them as all jobs so quickly is because over the years, they gave me so many important gems about what I needed to be doing along the way while I was finishing my PhD, what kind of experiences I needed to get that would lend themselves to me being a good candidate for the MSL position. So for example, a lot of PhD programs don't really talk about industry jobs a lot. And so getting that exposure through informational interviews is critical.
I got the advice, you know, I was very preclinical research and so I got the advice that you need to go into the clinic. So I did neurosurgery shadowing and oncology shadowing and got experience in the clinic speaking with physicians. Obviously, that's a huge component of the MSL job that really helped me in the interview process showing I know what the MSL job is and I've done it. And I don't think I would have thought about that if I hadn't had people tell me that and help me prepare.
Heck, yeah. It's like you're getting the answers to the test. Exactly. Right? Yes. So if you reach out to the right people and ask people, you'll definitely get that experience and advice that's helpful. And how many did you say? You said 20 or 30? How many did you say you did? 20 to 30. So What? Yeah. That's a lot. That's a lot. It is. Alright. Well Especially in the last year of PhDs, I'm doing 1 a month, if not more. I've got to get networking.
I've got to put myself out there and make these connections. So alright. Let's go. But that's awesome, by the way. Kudos. No wonder why you landed the job the way you did. So how did you how did you get these informational interviews? Was it LinkedIn? How did you reach out to people? Lots of different ways. So, obviously, talking with, mutual colleagues, and I made it very clear, I'm interested in industry, specifically the MSL role. So many people were interested in helping me.
And, hey, I, you know, I have a friend who's in r and d, and I think they talked about MSLs one time. So I talked to that friend who then told me about their friend who was an MSL. So making multiple connections. Also through LinkedIn, it's also great to look at people who also graduated from Virginia Tech or from Washington State University or are also from Idaho. And some way that you have this connection, then people are more willing to help you. And I listen to your podcast a lot.
And so oftentimes your guests will say that they're interested in mentoring and they enjoy helping aspiring MSLs. So those would be people I reached out to and picked out something specific that they said in their interview. And, hey, would you mind talking with me more about that as I prepare to make the same transition? Everyone was really helpful and easy to talk to. So get let I wanna get in and that's awesome, by the way.
But I wanna get into the finer details of, like, did you have a script? How did you reach out to these folks? Like, what was your messaging like? Yeah. So it depended on if I had known them before or not, if this is just a straight cold email. But basically the the line was, hi, my name is Joelle Martin. I'm a PhD candidate at Virginia Tech. I'm interested in transitioning to the MSL career after I graduate in May or whatever timeline you have.
Would you mind speaking with me more about your experiences and your advice as I pursue this career trajectory? Or something like that. Or, hey, I noticed we're both from Virginia Tech and you recently broke into the MSL role. Would you mind providing me with some more insight into how you successfully made that transition? Thanks, Joelle. Like, super simple, super easy. Super brief. Right? I'm sure you didn't have, like, this long dragged out kinda thing.
No. LinkedIn notes, when you add someone, it's super helpful because they keep it to 200 characters or something like that. That's perfect. They're short and sweet. And did you was it, did you incorporate a call to action in each one of these? Was that something that you kinda forced yourself to do? Yes. I would normally say something at the end. Do you have time next week? I'm most flexible in the mornings. And then when they kind of talk back and say, yes, I'm available next week.
How's Wednesday? Yes. Wednesday works for me. What's a good way to contact you? Right. And I think that's another really important thing is as an aspiring MSL who's asking for someone's time, you don't wanna give them your number and tell them to, oh, hey. Call me at this time. You wanna make it easy for them to help you. So then you're the one who's calling them so that you're not putting more work on their schedule. Yeah. No. And that's that's important. We talk about that a lot.
I mean, this gets back to, like, emotional intelligence and just being tactful in your engagement. It's not about you. Make it about the other person. They're trying to help you. If they're agreeable to an informational interview, that's gold. I mean, that's so valuable. Obviously, you know. So you wanna just be really tactful about, you know, how you ask people for their time, and just, you know, really be respectful of, of the other person. So I appreciate you taking that approach.
So then what happens next? So you we obviously, you set out a goal. You reached out to these people. These people agree to set up some time. So now how does it go? How do you prepare? What questions do you have ready? Like, what can you tell people to do to make it to make the most of this experience? Mhmm. Oh, before I answer that question, back to what you had just said about being respectful.
When you're reaching out initially, I would say to use the title doctor because most of the time you're talking to MSLs who are doctors. Mhmm. Just and then they'll reply and they'll let you know or they'll sign their name, Joelle. And then you know you're on a first name basis, but always trying to make that great first impression. Just, hey, doctor Martin, etcetera, etcetera. That's good. And then, yeah, they'll let you know.
As far as after they have set up a time with you, of course, calling on time is super important because MSLs are really busy and you wanna be respectful of their time. Once they answer, then make sure to ask, hey, is this still a good time? And then how much time do you have? So if they say 30 minutes, great, stick to 30 minutes. They say 10 minutes, stick to 10 minutes.
So I had someone reach out to me on LinkedIn for an informational interview asking for 10 minutes of my time and then kept talking for 45 minutes, which is I mean, I could have hung up the phone at any time. Right? But I wanted to help that person. But it still was it stuck with me, and I remembered it. Like, oh, this person isn't necessarily always keeping to what they say they're going to do. That's not an impression you wanna make.
It's also the type of thing where you you become fearful of ever wanting to talk to that person again because you're like, I don't have an hour. This person's gonna take my ear off. So you're you're setting a tone for how the person's going to view you for the next time. So you don't wanna leave that impression. Kat, I'm sorry. Was it you're gonna say something? Oh, just sometimes they won't ask or they won't answer their phone.
And if that's the case, just leave a professional message and a callback number, and they'll get back to you when they can. But besides that, my advice for actually for the actual conversation is just have a prepared list of questions. And, basically, so my format was, you know, what what's your least favorite part of the job? What's your most favorite part of the job? What's your day to day look like? What was onboarding like? How do you deal with compliance and working with your Salesforce?
Like all of these different things and maybe and like those questions show that I know what the MSL job is. Right? So if you're asking about compliance, you obviously know there's that strain or something you need to be conscious of as an MSL. And so you might not be able to ask all of your questions in a half an hour, but it gives you options to pull from based on how the conversation naturally flows. And you wanna keep things natural and easy. So and I mean, that's part of the MSL job as well.
So you never know how conversations are gonna go. You have to be able to adapt and make them seem seamless and easy. Sure. Yeah. And I think that being prepared we always talk about this on this podcast. Being prepared is so important because let's just say you only have 10 minutes or 15 minutes or whatever the person is going to give you. You wanna make the most out of that time.
So not doing your homework, not having good questions, not knowing who the person is that you're that you're, you know, that you're speaking to is a big mistake. Did you research the person too? Like, how much did you learn about that person before you spoke to them? I did do some digging, and I also looked into the company as well and just made sure I pronounced names correctly, I pronounced their company correctly.
It's all of these little things that really add up, especially in a first impression. So especially, oh, I saw that you got your PhD from x university and your focus was on metabolism. Like, how did that transition to your disease state now? And was that difficult? Could you so my background is glioblastoma. I'd asked people who switched therapeutic, areas, how likely is that for me, which I did end up doing.
But it's these important things to ask in small pharma, big pharma, new MSL, old or experienced MSL. There's all of these different components to each conversation. So if you know the person's background, you can tailor the conversation, and it goes much easier. Well, that's part of being an MSL. That's part of being engaging. How are you gonna connect with somebody if you don't know anything about them?
So the more you talk about them and the more you know about them, not that you're gonna, like, come off as some kind of crazy stalker, but you you definitely want them to appreciate your your homework and your preparation so that they know that you took them seriously, and you took that interview seriously. What about things what would you say pitfalls, things that people should avoid?
Is there anything that you learned throughout this process of doing this that you would wanna caution other people about? Yes. So I've learned from my own mistakes. I've also learned now that I'm on the other side of the informational interviews, some kind of things that rubbed me the wrong way from time to time. So obviously being courteous of time is one thing, being careful about potentially, contentious questions like salary, for example.
So I think if you have a relationship with someone and you talk and you have multiple informational interviews and then they take on a mentorship role, it ends up that they're helping you prep for interviews, then that's a more appropriate time to ask about salary if you after you've already established a relationship and if there's, like, a clear reason. But so much goes into an MSL salary, like your disease state, your experience, what company you're working for.
So it kind of seems not important to ask that at that time. Yeah. Yeah. Exact and then another thing is kind of asking, well, could you tell me about the MSL role? No. But we're talking about the MSL role. You can Google that. The MSL Society has a whole web page dedicated to that. So there's really no reason to be asking those really basic bottom level questions. You wanna show insightful questions and make that person feel like their time is well spent. That's really good advice.
I love that last part about asking them about the MSL role. I feel like that's a huge mistake. And I could tell you, I have informational interviews with folks, in different, obviously, different, not just the aspiring MSL, but MSLs, MSL leaders. And I I feel like the most important piece of it is when it's a relevant conversation where the person is asking me specific question questions that are gonna help arm them for their purpose.
So if you're asking really broad questions, I I'll be honest with you. I've had people that I've set up time with that they clearly weren't prepared. They had terrible questions. The questions were too broad. And it was just it was almost like me doing a lecture. And that's what you don't wanna do. You don't want to put somebody in a position where, yes, they're educating you, but you want it to be personalized. Make it personal. Personal to that conversation with that person.
Otherwise, it's just gonna be annoying, and it's gonna kinda be boring for that. I couldn't agree more. I think you really hit a lot of important parts there just summarizing. So we talk about and I I wanna kinda get back to we talk about leaving a good impression. Is there any other advice or anything else that you would recommend in these conversations that's gonna leave the right impression with that person?
Because let's not forget, if you're looking to break into the medical affairs space, or if you're looking to get promoted into a certain role, these are all key connections that you might be able to utilize later on. So you wanna make a really good impression so that people say, wow. I had this informational interview with, this Joelle Martin, and I'll never forget her because she was really, really sharp. So what what are some of the things that you were doing?
So I tried to think about this is not a job interview, but it might lead to 1, so I better show that person that I have what it takes to be an MSL as much as I can through this interaction. So number 1, being a good listener. MSLs are professional listeners. We have to listen to our physicians to get those important key insights. We have to listen to our colleagues. We have to listen to our Salesforce, everybody.
So and I think I even read an article recently that MSL should be spending about 70% of each physician interaction listening. And so when you listen, that's when you gather people's advice and experiences. If you're the one talking about yourself, then you're not achieving the purpose of the interview, which was to learn from someone who has knowledge that you're seeking.
So being a good listener, of course, I definitely don't recommend asking for a job interview or a job recommendation in that initial, introduction interview because and that happened to me once and we had talked for 15 minutes before I was asked if I would wouldn't mind recommending them, but I don't know that person. That was really awkward for me because I had just started my job as well. I wasn't in a position to be recommending people, so that's something I would try and stick away from.
And then, of course, you've talked about this on your podcast before, gratitude, being thankful for their time because they are taking time out of their day to help you. And so just taking that time the next day to send them an email or a LinkedIn message saying thank you so much for your time. I appreciate your advice. And of course, if you can say something specific about your conversation.
So I would say I am currently speaking with individuals at the hospital to set up shadowing experience to gain clinical knowledge that we talked about. To show them that you took them seriously and you're gonna act upon their advice and that you value them. So important. Yeah. That's awesome advice. I love all that. I'm gonna if I can add to that too, I would say that you wanna now consider this person a part of your network because they are.
If they were willing to and agree to have this conversation, spent time with you, there's kind of an investment there on their side. There's a vested interest. They I'm sure they want you to succeed. So now when you get that MSL job, or if you get that MSL promotion, recognize that person. Go back and thank them or include them in your announcement when you do your job announcement. That is really important.
You wanna make sure that they feel like and understand that you appreciate their efforts in helping you, and that's gonna solidify your relationship with that person and continue to nurture them and nurture that relationship as someone in your network. Another way that you can do that, which I think is really important, is utilize LinkedIn. So when you see that these people let's just say you have there's 5 you have 20 people that you did informational interviews with.
But let's just say there's 5 or 6 people. Well, be mindful of those people, their activity on LinkedIn. If they post something like it, comment, share it. Show that you're, you know, you're a good ally to them as well as them being an ally to you because that goes a long way. You do your part in the relationship moving forward. Don't forget that person and what they did for you. And then if you can, whenever you can, try to do a favor for them.
But these the the the LinkedIn engagement strategy that I'm talking about, it's just easy. It's just super easy. If the person list their birthday on LinkedIn, wish them a happy birthday. If they got a promotion or they put up a job announcement, congratulate them on that job. So these are just little ways that you can show that you care about them and their career and that you're appreciative that they cared about yours. Absolutely. I couldn't agree more.
And just to build off that too, the MSL job is the job is to build relationships. Right? And so if you can't demonstrate that within your own sphere, how are you supposed to do that with physicians or nurse practitioners or physician assistants? And so relationships aren't built off of one informational interview. They're built off of the things you just talked about. Each of these individual things to show that you're present and that you care.
Like, you mentioned saying happy birthday or congratulating them on a promotion. That's how you build a relationship. That's how you are as successful on itself. Yep. Awesome. So let me ask you this. So what can people expect out of this? I don't know what your expectations were. Obviously, you were looking to position yourself for, you know, this this transition into an MSL role. But what were your expectations for each informational interview?
How did that go, and and how do you level set that so that you don't get too high and you don't get too low? Yeah. So I definitely recommend starting with either connections of connections or someone who has a similar scientific background as you or something like that just to make it more, I guess, comfortable because I was always so nervous for my informational interviews. And I'd sit there and I'd wait for the phone to change from 10:29 to 10:30. Okay. It's time. I can't be late.
I have to call them right now. And so I just thought about that as being well, that just shows you care, but you can't let that take you over, and so then you're awkward or, nervous too much on the phone. And so I would recommend just kind of if you have a if you've prepared well enough, like we talked about, then that will help ease your nerves. And, of course, the more you do, the less nervous you'll be and being reflective of yourself afterward.
Of course, that's something as MSLs we always have to do whether or not a physician interaction went well or it went poorly to think about that. And you've talked about this on the podcast too, lead with your strengths and develop your weaknesses. We have to be so self reflective about what we can do better and how we came across to somebody and thinking about that.
So definitely take time after each informational interview to level set yourself and think about what you can do better and what went well and then adjust based on those two factors. Yep. Awesome. So final thoughts. What what last bits of advice might you have for folks out there? Yeah. So I guess I wish I had followed up more. We talked about this briefly.
I have since had 2 people that I did informational interviews with reach out to me on LinkedIn and say they just got their 1st MSL job, and I love that. It's so great. But I never did that because I was scared that I was going to just put another email in their inbox or something or, like, bug them too much because they've already given me the gift of their time. And so I didn't wanna take too much.
But now being on the other side of it, I realized that it's awesome to celebrate in someone else's success even especially when you had a small part in that. Right? Like, you helped them and gave them some advice. So definitely following up with the people that you did informational interviews with either whenever you get that promotion or you wanna contact them again is something important. As I just said, be reflective after each interview and learn from each interview.
And more than anything, I think it's important to pay it forward. So that's the advice that I got and the mentality I went into it with. So I asked so many strangers for their time. Would they please help me make this dream a reality for me? And it happened. And so now I'm so happy and willing to have informational interviews with other people because I I want to pay it forward.
We all were there when, you know, it's so hard to get a job as an MSL, especially without industry experience, we all had to hustle and network and try really, really hard to break in. So if I can help somebody by so that they don't have to reinvent the wheel, and I can give them some advice or help them prepare for anything, I'm happy to do that. Well, I have I have the feeling you might be hearing from a couple of people because I'm sure there's folks out there. So, I appreciate you.
I I think that this is really insightful and helpful information that I'm glad you brought to my attention because I knew it was a thing, but I kinda know didn't really know it was a thing. Like, you know, this informational interview concept to me is is, you know, it's a critical piece of networking and mentoring, but I love the way you put it into this in its own little category, and you approached it in such a way where you created goals around it.
And and you went after this, and this became a real process and a strategy for you. And this strategy really paid off. So I wanna thank you for sharing that. There's so many people that I'm sure are gonna be able to take advantage of this. Absolutely. And my one one last thought is to make sure that you're recording or documenting your, interviews in any way that's best for you. So I would always have the question, and then I type out their answer.
And so then I would review that if I had another informational interview with them or another contact with that person just so we could pick up the conversation on the last thread that we left it off at. So again, that helps build relationships by keeping continuity of the conversation. So just some way that you can remember what somebody said is Awesome. My last piece of advice. That's great advice. Well, let's leave it at that. Thank you, Joel. You're awesome.
This was a great conversation, and, good luck to you. We're gonna I'm gonna be following along. I know you're gonna do great things. Thank you so much. Thank you for having me on the show, Tom. Appreciate it. Alright. See everybody. 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.