Hey, guys. Welcome to the podcast. My guests today are Josh Yoder, regional director, and Kendra Peltz, who's an MSL. They're both with Syneos Health, and we talk about how to architect a presentation for an MSL interview, and it was awesome. These guys are really, really amazing. I think you're gonna like this. And as always, don't forget to follow us on YouTube and Instagram and, MSL talk live. Join us. It's, the first Tuesday of every month, 1:30 PM EST. Hope to, see you there.
Welcome to MSL talk with Tom Caravella, a podcast specifically designed for MSLs and all things field medical. Hey, Josh and Kendra. Welcome. How are you guys doing today? Great. Couldn't be better. Awesome. You're doing well. Thanks for having us on. Well, thank you, guys. Thanks for joining me. This is, I've been telling Josh, this is something that I've been planning for a long time. I know Josh for a long time. I see him cup like, at least once a year, but while that was pre COVID.
So this is long overdue, so I'm excited. And I'm really excited, Josh, that you brought Kendra along because I think that this is gonna give us an awesome one two punch. So before we get started, why don't we do some introductions and disclaimers and stuff like that, and maybe we'll start with Kendra. Yeah. Hi. My name is Kendra Pelz. I'm a pharmacist, Pharm d by training.
Spent about 10 years in clinical practice between retail and and UnitedHealthcare or with OptumRx and made the transition over to medical science liaison in March of 2021. Super excited. Josh Josh hired me on at Syneos with BBI Vaccines. Awesome. Awesome. Well, welcome. We're so happy to have you here. Thank you so much. I'm excited and a little nervous. That's all good. It'll be fun. So Josh Yoder. Again, Tom and I have known each other for a while. Been in the MSL game for about 6 years now.
My background's in in academic research. I spent about 15 years doing academic research on viruses and then switched over to a small biotech for a little while in r and d and then, kinda looking at what I wanna do when I grow up. And I'd always came back to science communication. Like a lot of people found out what an MSL was, it sounded awesome and jumped into it. And it turns out it is awesome. So I've had a lot of fun doing it and, recently switched over to being a manager back in March.
And I had the pleasure of hiring people like Kendra on my team and has really she's made it easy for me. So it's been a it's been a good time. And, as we mentioned intros and disclaimers, we work for the same company. Obviously, everything we say here today is kind of our own personal opinion. Doesn't necessarily represent the opinions of the company. Awesome. And not that we're gonna get too far into this.
So we'll just I like to talk about sometimes you gotta throw a little something personal out there, and we the 3 of us have something in common. Right? So we all have wrestling backgrounds or have wrestling in our family. Right? So right? So, Josh, wrestling background. Kendra, what's now how are you affiliated with wrestling? Is it family? Yeah. It's family. Always grew up with a wrestling school.
My cousin won state at 103 as a senior, and then I went to Oklahoma State, to support the the cowboys. Go, Pokes. Awesome. Alright. So for any of you wrestling fans out there, if you have any good wrestling stuff, send it over to us. But we were not we promised not to talk about it, although I had to bring it up. Indeed. I I warned that this this could devolve into the 1st wrestling podcast on a cell talk. Right? It could. It absolutely could. It could.
It's, you know, stuff goes south fast here. You know, it goes south fast, or north, depending on how you wanna look at it. Right. Reversal. There you go. I love it. So for those of you don't know wrestling, reversal is actually a wrestling move. So, Kendra, you get 2 for that. Anyway, so let's jump into this. So this topic, we've kind of covered beef well, we have covered before. So it's about how to architect a presentation for an MSL interview.
Now the difference in what we're gonna talk about is a lot of people have asked me, and we had a great podcast on, MSL presentations with Katherine Gan. The the difference is a lot of people are like, well, I don't like, I would love to hear from somebody that's been successful doing it to see what their framework was. Like, how did they actually put it together? So we're gonna talk about that today.
And what I think is gonna be great is we're gonna get a hiring manager's perspective from Josh, and we're gonna get the candidate perspective from Kendra because she just went through this fairly recently. So I think the best place to start is with the instructions. So what types of presentations? Because there's a lot of different types of presentations that companies might throw at you. So let's start with that.
I mean, maybe if you guys wanna talk about a couple of different scenarios or or different types of presentations that you've been aware of or that you guys have seen out there, you know, from companies and hiring managers. Andrea, why don't you go ahead with the experience you had here? With the experience that I had, with with Syneos was I was sent an email in a recent press release for phase 3 clinical trials on the therapeutic area that I was being hired for or interviewing for.
And so they asked the ask was 30% of background information and 70% of clinical information. Basically, the unmet need, with the background that kind of the therapeutic area overview of the landscape, what's out there. And then going 70% into the actual clinical trial and kind of tailoring that to the strategy of the company and, disseminating that data.
Kinda tying it all in at the end to to see the unmet need, kind of what we're doing here with the company, and then how that's gonna look in the future is what the ask was. And and, really, I had never seen anything like this. I googled MSL presentations, and there's not a whole lot of framework behind it. And there's absolutely no examples that I could find, so to speak, on YouTube either. And so my first step in this was I got the email, and I immediately sent it to my mentors Mhmm.
To have them read it. So I understood they asked. Okay. And they were able to help me out with that. And then also send me their presentation so I kind of had some kind of baseline framework. Wasn't the same therapeutic area, but I knew what order I needed to go in, what flow I needed to go in. And that was kind of my starting point. Alright. Well, let's let's that's brilliant, by the way.
So tip number 1, ask a friend or colleague or mentor, if they can help you out and you can take a look at what maybe they've done. So in this scenario, how what was the timeframe like? How like, how long did they give you? How long did they say you should do, you know, slides versus QA? So it was a 20 minute presentation, 15 to 20 minute presentation.
They did not mention they said that there would be q and a, but I didn't have an outline whether or not the q and a was going to be a part of that 20 minutes. So I reached out to the hiring manager to ask that question because that's important as well. Are they expecting you to do a 20 minute presentation, solely 20 minutes, or are you going to have that question and answer period within that 20 minutes?
I talked to one of my mentors and he said, I feel like you present about the same speed as I do. I would focus a minute on each slide. Some sites are gonna be less than a minute. Some sites are gonna be more than a minute. So I at about 20 slides, for the actual bulk of the presentation and, turned out to be about 15 minutes for the actual presentation. Awesome. And so, Josh, you were obviously a part of this. Right? So you this this came from you, from your company.
So what was your perspective? Was, so that was the right amount of slides in the right timing, left enough room for QA. So from your perspective, what are you looking for? And then when do you just jump into the QA portion? And then how does that work? Yeah. So, you know, obviously, there's gonna be some variability all the time, you know, depending on how each interview goes and that sort of thing.
But I I think the whole kind of thought behind sending out something like a press release or or, you know, phase 3 data from your own company or anything is to standardize it for everyone. Right? So, you know, as you know, there's tons of different approaches at different companies. Sometimes you pick your own topics and things like that, but that can lead to a lot of variability. Right? Some people pick something they're an expert in. Some people pick something your company does.
Some will pick something way off topic. So I think just to standardize it a little bit, give us a little bit of of, you know, frame of reference on our end. This this was kind of the approach that was adopted. It wasn't really my decision, but it it does make it a little bit easier when you're looking at everything in the same in the same way. And I know when I've interviewed, I've done the same thing, about a minute of a slide.
And we're not setting your timing, making sure you're right on 15 minutes, 20 minutes, whatever it is. You have to tell the story, right? This is a communication role. Can you tell the story in that time frame? Be concise, be clear, get the get the point across. And it can go either way. Sometimes there's questions sprinkled throughout. Sometimes, you know, people are sitting there listening to the presentation and ask questions at the end.
You know, I think as long as you're you're telling the story, you're responding questions appropriately, whether they're throughout or at the end, that's kind of what we're looking for is, you know, do you kinda get what this is? Did you do the background research on the therapeutic area of the company, the, you know, the overall context of why this is meaningful? Mhmm. So and so what makes this a little tricky is that everybody that's interviewing has the same task.
Everybody has the same instructions. So, Josh, you're comparing all the candidates against the same assignment. Yep. So does like, what so then what would you say separates the good presentations versus the ones that don't stand out as much? Yeah. And, you know, some of these themes will go throughout the interview, obviously. You know, it's it's preparation. Again, did you did you really dig into this and figure out what is important?
You know, obviously, you can focus on on certain things that, you know, may or may not be important. Right? Did you get the gist of the data? Did you tell me, you know, my my colleague on the on the east as a regional manager always likes to ask people, what are your 3 top takeaways if I have, you know, 2 minutes to talk with you? So I think things like that, if you can focus on what the real message is, how does the company message it? Right? This information is out there.
Companies put press releases out. They put, you know, social media, however they wanna distribute it. How are they saying it, and are you on board with that? Right? You know, you're gonna go out and represent this company. Do you know what the company wants to say? Ultimately, that's that's what we're doing in our job. So I think those sort of things. But, you know, one thing that I I that constantly comes up whether I'm thinking about it or not is what's your passion for it. Right?
Why why do you want this job? Why do you wanna work for this company? How how are you invested in this particular therapeutic area? And I think that can come across, like I said, throughout the interview, but certainly even in the presentation, just the you know, do you have a little story to tell? Why is this personal for you? Or, you know, what what's meaningful about about this for you? Because, you know, we're all gonna have laws in our job, laws in our personal life.
What's gonna motivate you to come out here and and tell this story when you don't feel like telling the story? Or you have a person on the other side that doesn't seem interested. Can you engage them? Can you get us excited about it when we've heard this 20 times? Yeah. So I think, like, you know, those sort of things really can differentiate it. Like you said, the data is gonna stay the same. Right? But how are you getting it across?
And are you convincing me that this is important data and this is important for patients? That is so true, man. I could tell you. I'm 101000 percent agree with you, Josh. I think that number 1, when all things are equal amongst candidates, the position's always awarded to the person that shows they want it the most. So if you bring that level of interest and excitement and enthusiasm, you're gonna separate yourself from everybody else.
But then the other thing too is you keep talking about, you know, telling the story and and and making the presentation compelling, making it interesting, showing that you put a lot of work and a lot of time into it, that just translates. And then when people leave that presentation, like, wow, that person did a really good job. So, Kendra, question for you. So when you were given this, a lot of times our clients will give candidates a certain time frame to prepare.
Like, everybody will get the article or the instructions 5 days before the presentation so that it's a totally equal level playing field. So how much time did you have to prepare? And then how did you prepare? Like, did you do it all in one night? Did you obsess over it and do it, like, 10 hours a day for 5 days? I'm curious. How much time do we have for me to explain that? Honestly, I feel like I got the assignment, about a week before I was, asked to present it.
It had a weekend in between, and that's kind of what the framework that I knew from just, Sam Dyer's book. I knew I would have some kind of weekend. I had a vacation scheduled, and so, luckily, I had some time off with work, to be able to prepare for this. But my first step was to, get the slides down. You know, just get it all down on paper. 2nd step was to script out what I wanted to say.
And, after I got that script, I read it off to an MSL or a couple MSLs, and then they were able to tell me how an MSL would present it. Because I know how I would say the data and things like that, but I didn't realize the intricacies and, like, the art of MSLing. And somebody was able to show me that and how they would present just, you know, inclusion inclusion and exclusion criteria.
You don't wanna read the whole slide, but he would pull out certain things or just epidemiology information and making it personal to to my clinical experience. I had never been an MSL before. So in those kinds of work, it could just be a data dump. I was able to use my clinical experience and be like, oh, you know, I'm vaccinated. I'm sure you are too. Or, you know, I've been a pharmacist for 10 years. I didn't think this was a problem.
But when I dug into the data, then this is what I'm seeing. And the most compelling thing is here's a personal story to it. And so I think that's what they're looking for. People aren't gonna remember the numbers, but they're gonna remember how you made it personal and what your experience is analogous to the MSL role. And so where was I? So I, scripted it out, heard somebody else help me out in in communicating this data. Also, you know, one of the pro tips was use more pictures.
Make your PowerPoint as easy as possible. Take breaks between slides. Something I didn't realize is or especially in the virtual world. I use my hands a lot in person to person presentations, but you have to orient those folks to the slide. If you look at the figure on the top left, you can see in the navy blue this, that, and the other thing. So being able to orient folks to know what you're talking about is incredibly important.
So I kinda got those down in a in a couple days, and then the rest of the time is just perfecting what I wanted to say. Make sure I wasn't reading it. I made everybody listen to it. My girlfriend that presents a lot, she had 3 screens. I didn't. And so I went to her house. That way I could look into the camera. And those are things that, those are some points of feedback that I got from Josh and Mark during my interview is I was looking into the camera.
But I also had 3 different screens to set myself up for success. My girlfriend stole my slides and told me to present the data. So I didn't have anything to look at. Had a girlfriend set it up completely on Teams. I presented to her. She recorded me. Mhmm. I mean, I did everything that I possibly could with MSLs and also with a person that knew nothing about the therapeutic area and got their feedback and was able to create a presentation that was that was personal to both audiences.
And I think that's really important because you have no idea who you're going to be speaking to. It could be somebody that works for the state of Kansas that has no scientific background or the top hepatologist for the liver center that cured Naomi Judd. You know, and so it's really important to get that feedback from different audiences because you're you're interviewing to a panel. Different people pick up on different things. Yeah. So that was my take on it.
HR. Like, somebody in HR could be on that panel, and they could have a really I mean, they could have a seat at the table, and they could be a decision maker. So you have to make it interesting for everybody. Exactly. I think making it personal is the best advice that I can and getting as much help as you can. I think that was the I knew the information that I wanted to present. Everybody was presenting that same information. How can you make it your own? Yeah. That's awesome.
You know, and I've heard people say that and and it does happen, but technical difficulties play a big part. Whether you're live or virtual, if if your slides go down, you know, the the whatever technical medium, the the laptop or whatever, if you all of a sudden don't have slides, you still have to present.
So if you can present without slides, because you know, literally from 1 to 20, whatever, however many slides you have, and you can roll right through it, you're gonna nail that presentation. No question about it. So Josh and by the way, Kendra, awesome. Awesome job. Congratulations. You totally crushed it. Great advice. So I know there's a lot of people that are probably like, oh my god, taking notes and and, getting a lot out of this. But, Josh, getting back to the framework piece of it.
Is there, like, an order or outline of how people should go about this? So Kendra just explained how she put things together, and she talked to a bunch of MSLs. Is it the type of thing where it's like, okay. Intro slide, title, then, you know, I don't know, mechanism of action, and then scientific data, and then conclusion, and then summary, or whatever. Like, is there such a thing? So I think there's kind of a loose framework. Right? You know how to tell a story.
You know how a paper is written. You know how a presentation goes when you go to a conference, those sort of things. So I think there there's some logic behind it, but I I don't use a rigid framework myself. And, certainly, it varies between therapeutic areas. It varies between the audience you're talking to and those sort of things. So I would hesitate to say use, you know, step a, step b, step c in that in that sort of way. But I think it's again, it comes back to telling the story. Right?
It's how humans communicate. You know, if we wanted to just get information out there, I could just email someone the paper and tell them to read it. Right? So the information is all there. They can do it on their own time, whatever. If you wanna really tell that story, weave in these personal stories, whatever it is, you you kind of the same way you would tell a story to someone again that, you know, I'm I'm riding in a Lyft to the airport.
How do I tell that story to someone when they ask what I do? Right? So I think you do. You have to start with that background. Why is this even important? Right? We already have a you know, for instance, we work in hepatitis b. There's a vaccine out there for hepatitis b. We're taking we're done with that disease. Right? What's why is this still important? Right? Why should we care about it? You know? And depending on the doctor you go to, some of them see the patients that have it, some don't.
Some, you know, see people that are at high risk for it and maybe don't realize it. So make it personal to them. How do you catch someone's attention? Right? So you do need to do that intro, establish your own credibility. Why are you here? Why are you interested? Why is this important to everybody, though? You know, if I don't think about this every day, why is it important? It's easy to just jump in and and assume things are important and say, oh, we developed this thing. You know?
Obviously, it's important. Why? Why should I care? So, you know, what's in it for them is always the a a good mindset to have no matter what you're doing. Why why should the other person care? So I think establishing that kind of that unmet need and then, you know, prove it.
If whether it's, you know, epidemiology or whatever your kind of backup data is, show them that, you know, not only is this a personal interest, but there's there's real objective evidence out there to say this thing is important. And once you once you say it's important, lay out the landscape. Right? What do people do now? How do you take care of this? How can we prevent the disease? Whatever the case is. And then say, this is our solution to the the current unmet need.
So, you know, now I've established to you why why you should care. I I've given you some evidence of why you should care. I've I've told you what people can do right now, and then this is what we've come up with. Right? So if, typically, you're gonna be out and taking something new to the market or or say that, you know, this is better than whatever's on the market even if they're all existing, whatever it is. This is why we think our solution is good.
And, ultimately, you know, again, anything in the pharma industry, in the medicine industry is there to take care of patients. Right? And Right. One way we're helping is to help the health care practitioners make the best decision for their patients. So we're giving, you know, unbiased evidence. You have to make sure you're given the positive, the negative. Just lay it all out there, and and tell the story. This is why we think it's best.
This is, you know, the positive, the negatives, how it fits into everything. So I think it all comes back to telling that story. And, you know, a framework, a rigid framework, you can do it, but I think you need to be a little bit adaptable to get that story across the best way you can and then tie it all together in the end. Right? So, you know, again, I've told you why you should care. I I've shown you what's out there now. I've shown you what we think we can do and why we think it's better.
And, you know, put it in a real world setting too, I think, is the one thing. You know? We realize that, you know, you're dealing with x, y, and z, and maybe you don't have an extra 10 minutes per patient to talk about this. You know? How can I make this easy for you? Right? You don't wanna make it a burden on the other person. You're there to provide value for other people. So what can you do to make their job easier and let them take care of their patients better?
And I think if you can get all that across, the the exact logistics of how you do it, You know, again, there's there's some frameworks that work better than others. And I think like Kendra said, you know, present this to a bunch of different people and see what their feedback is. And it's like you're a stand up comedian working on your routine. Right? See which ones land and which ones don't, and you you come back to the the things that work best, and you'll see the themes in there.
That's awesome. I think people are gonna appreciate that. I think being able to put your own kinda touch on it and and put your own kinda stamp of authenticity of how you put it together, I think is important. But at the same time and one of the things I wanted to mention because this happens, believe it or not, a lot is that you have to follow instructions. I I've seen candidates go totally rogue on this, where the instructions are such that it's like, okay. Here's what we're giving.
Here's the article. Here's the amount of time you have. Here's how you have to do it. And then they come in with their own presentation, their own article, their own. Well, I I felt more comfortable with this. This is something that I did, you know, at my old company, blah blah blah. And it's like, dude, like, you can't do that. You have to stick to the instructions. It's really important to do what the the company is telling you they want you to do as far as the assignment.
But to your point both your points, because you guys both have said this, is that it's really important to personalize it and put your, you know, your style into it and and put your expertise into it. So that And just to just to build on that real quick. A couple of things you just said there. You know, one of the biggest things when you're coming into this environment from somewhere else is the the compliance nature of it. Right?
Yeah. And if someone comes in and goes rogue on the on the interview, how do I know that you're gonna be able to be compliant when you go out there and follow the follow the rules? Again, you know, we gave you explicit instructions, and you're already ignoring them. Like, how are we supposed to trust that you can go out there and function not even within roles we made, within within roles that, you know, the FDA made or or someone at that level. You know?
You you have to show that you can function in that environment and that you're gonna be a team player. Right? We're always looking for people who are a good fit on the team, who are gonna help each other out and do that sort of thing. And if you're just gonna ignore, you know, your your directions from the company or from outside the company and go rogue right away, I mean, how are you supposed to build trust that way? It's it's it's crazy. It's almost immediate disqualification.
Yeah. Yeah. No. I completely agree. Yeah. But like you're saying, you know, with making it personal too, we all have the same data. Right? And I've seen it presented in 5 different ways by 5 different people, and they can all be effective. So, again, I think that goes back to the you don't have to follow an exact script. That's not what we're saying by following the instructions. There's wiggle room within the instructions and within the structure of your talk. Make it personal. Do a good job.
Show your passion, but keep it within this loose rule frame. Again, you know, most things we get are are even regulations, not laws. Right? So you have to follow the spirit of that. You have to follow the the kind of loose guidelines, but that doesn't mean you have to say a, b, and c in order. Right? So Yep. Well, one of the things I wanted to ask and, Kendra, I'll ask you this.
So you get these instructions, and this could be for any this could be for whether they give you the article or whether it's a topic of your choice. But one of the things I've heard from hiring managers is they really wanna see people go above and beyond. So you have an article, whether it's yours or whether it's theirs. What else are you putting into it? Are, you know, are you taking information from the package insert? Are you looking at other relevant articles?
Are you looking at the therapeutic area? Not that you wanna divert too far from topic or get to, but, you know, so for for you, my question is, like, how far reaching did you go with it? So did you really, like, uncover every stone to make sure that you knew everything in case they asked you questions about something that maybe wasn't on the article? I think as a scientist, we we go through these articles and we're asking our own questions. Right?
And so sometimes we don't have the time to go into details. So some advice that I, received from an MSL is make slides for those anticipated questions. I didn't have time to go over both of our phase three trials. The one that was highlighted in the press release that I received was the one that I presented. However, I was ready for questions on that other trial. I had 5 slides about the other trial in case they did present a question, So I was prepared for those sorts of things.
Of course, you look at the package insert. I think I got some of the most important information, like Josh said, just to reiterate that, is is the press release. What was their messaging? What was their wordsmithing? How did they say those kinds of things? How much time did they spend on the background information? What's important to them is what's important to the company and what they want anyone to hear about their investments and things like that.
And so I think, you know, using how they their verbiage really helped me. And then also, oh, this wasn't in the article, but obviously, they think that this is important. What can I dig into this Kind of thing? So I think just looking at the company as a whole, what was kind of unique about our situation is we work for a contract research organization. And so we have Syneos, but also BBI. So not only looking at BBI vaccines, but also looking at the culture of Syneos Health.
I looked at your podcast. Syneos Health also has a podcast. They have 4 episodes on medical affairs and kind of pinpointing what they want the culture to be and presenting that in a way that aligns with their culture is really important. And so trying to show that, yeah, I've done my research on this particular article. I know about the other study, and I know about Syneos as a parent company. You clearly went above and beyond.
Obvious. I mean, and I could hear the amount of effort that you put into it. So it just goes to show. And for those of you that are just listening and you can't see, Josh is literally nodding his head like, yeah. Like, she crushed it. She put her heart and soul into it. So, Josh, I'm gonna come back to you because this I get this question a lot. And I know how I answer it, but I'm curious to hear how you answer it. So you get you you know, you're on you're in an interview process.
You get your instructions for the presentation, and it's topic of your choice, you know, 15 minutes of slides, 5, 10 minute QA. Right? How do you choose a topic? And what is your advice on, on how to approach that? So for example, first question is, do you select the topic that is on the company's product or research? Do you stay away from it? What let's talk about that a little bit. Sure. And I think there are different approaches to this. Right?
Different people do it different way ways if you're already in that therapeutic area. Maybe you're comfortable enough that you know as much as the people in the company. Pro tip, you never know as much as the people in the company. They never release everything. You don't know what they tried and what failed or what the biases in the company are. That's a a dangerous way to go about it, I would say.
So my approach always was go to PubMed, put in, you know, phase 3 pivotal trial, and see what's recent. Again, you know, we've talked about this. You don't wanna present something that was 10 years old. Right? It's old news at that point. People have moved on. The field has evolved, whatever it is. But, you know, if you do that, you're you get it in chronological order, so you get stuff that's new. And then start to look. You know, what's in New England Journal of Medicine or JAMA?
You know, the look at the top journals because you know they're important. Right? If that journal said this is important enough for us to publish, especially now with all the COVID stuff coming out, if you can fight through that and and have something else come out, it's important enough for for people to think about. Right? And they're gonna explain everything in it. Right? What is the just like I said before, what is the unmet need? Why do we need something new?
Why is this, you know, an important thing for the patients that providers should even consider? So I think looking at high profile journals and looking for new things. And then, obviously, you wanna pick something that's interesting to people, so, you know, something that may be at least close to what the company is doing. It doesn't have to even be the same therapeutic area, but, okay, they work on biologics here. I found another antibody drug, another biologic.
You know, something along those lines. Most things that are a big new thing that's exciting in pharma, anybody's gonna be excited about. This is great for, you know, patients because we never had a a treatment in this therapeutic area or there's one that's okay, but this one's better or cheaper or whatever the case is. I think you, you know, there are reasons people are gonna be interested in things. But, again, I think it's you wanna make it relevant. You wanna make it interesting.
But at the same time, you don't wanna go in there and think you're the expert in something when 10 experts are sitting across the table because most of the time you're not an expert. And people have different comfort levels. I'm fine going into a new therapeutic area, learning as much as I can and saying, you know, this is what I know because you have to you have to be comfortable with that as an MSL. Right? Again, we work for this company. We know the company's information.
But if I'm going to talk to, like Kendra said, the top hepatologist at whatever institution I'm at, I'm never gonna know more than them. They've been doing this for 30 years. They've devoted their life to it. You know? They they truly are the expert. I can bring them specific company information, but I'm never gonna be the expert. So I think going into an interview and that same mindset of this is what I know. I I've done the research. I know why it's important.
After I found the paper, again, I went to the company's website. I looked at their press releases. I you can dig back through their phase 1, phase 2, phase 3 trials. I I've seen what their go to their investor section. They tell the investors everything. Right? So, you know, all the the relevant data's there. You see how they wanna present it to the people who they consider important. So I think you can do that amount of research, show that you've learned something.
And I I think people appreciate that and notice that that, oh, you're not an expert in this, but you did the work to know what's relevant. We don't expect you to become in. I think our instructions to our candidates even say, you know, we don't expect you to be a therapeutic area expert. But, you know, we can tell if you did the work. Like, you know, Kendra's preparation, it's completely obvious.
Some people come in and ask basic questions about the company or the therapeutic area that you're like, that would have taken you 30 seconds to find and research. So it's not even that we're trying to grill people or trying to catch you, but it it's obvious when someone make you know, does that amount of pre preparation versus someone that doesn't. It it's very simple. It's very obvious. And you know that when the person does that in the interview, that's how they work. Right?
You know, if someone comes in unprepared, they're not gonna be prepared in the field. If they come in prepared, they're prepared in the field. And I can tell you, Kendra does the same level of preparation for every meeting she has as an MSL for us. So, you know, I think these things you you almost don't have to, like, really look into it. It it becomes obvious when you see a handful of people go through this sort of stuff. Yeah. But I think, you know, the most direct answer here sorry.
I'm going on for a long time, but I I think you wanna you wanna find something new. You wanna find something relevant, and then do your research on it and present it the best you can. And do what Kendra did because she crushed it. Exactly. Exactly. No. I get that question a lot. And I think you did an awesome job explaining that regardless of what the topic is, whether it's on their product, on their science, or whether you're doing it on your own.
If you follow I'm not gonna repeat what you just said, Josh. If you follow what you just said, you should be fine. I think if given the choice, I try to tell people you probably don't if you have a choice. Do something you're really comfortable with, but that's relevant, that's new, that's exciting. But maybe not do it on their science if you can avoid it. Or or the if you're really confident in your ability, it's a risk. But, hey, go for it, man. You know, give it a shot.
But I always try to tell people, I try to, like, steer them away. So awesome awesome stuff. So, Kendra, back to you. I wanna talk about the QA portion. So what types of questions like, what could people expect? Were you were the questions that you were given? Were did you anticipate them? Were they harder than you expected? Were they easier than expected? Were they layups? Were they curve balls? Like, how did that go? I think some of them were layups, to be honest, and I was ready.
I was ready for it. There was one that I was taking completely aback, and thank goodness, I said I didn't know. I said, that's a great question. I'm not sure the answer, but I can get back to you in an email. And thank goodness I didn't have to because, the resident virologist, Josh, answered the question for me in the interview, because they knew I wasn't going to know the answer to the question. It had to do with the immunology of of the vaccine and the virus, and I I didn't know it.
And I didn't even know how to start to answer that question. And I was just, but it gives you it buys you a little bit of time also to ask a question about the question. Mhmm. And then you're really thinking about it and then, you know, at first, you're on your heels, but pause. Take a second. You're not the expert. They are. What are they asking? What are they really asking? What's the question? After you've taken that second, do you still not know the answer?
Don't try to answer it if you don't know the answer and get back to them with the correct answer. I think that's the most important thing because their test that's a test too. We get asked those questions in the field as well. The best way to, you know, cut your legs out from underneath you as an MSL is being wrong and and thinking that you're right or making something up in the field. Yeah. That's the last thing we wanna do. We wanna be credible. And, I think that's the most important thing.
It's not necessarily if you can answer the question, but are you gonna get back to them? Are you accountable? Are you credible in your response? So I'm assuming, Josh, that that's by design. Right? You guys throw those curveball questions in there so that you're putting them on their heels and you're gonna see how they answer it. Right? Absolutely. I mean, I think you you wanna have a mix of what you said. You know, you wanna have the layups. Did you do the research?
Do you know the easy answers? Do you know the straightforward stuff? But then you wanna push. Right? And sometimes you push and people do know the stuff. Right? And that's super impressive. But you're trying to find that line. And this goes the whole way back to when I was in grad school. You're doing, you know, presentations constantly as a PhD student. And that's what, say, a qualifying exam committee wants to know. How much of this did you really look into?
And when I keep going, do you have either a credible answer or like Kendra said, are you gonna realize what your limit is and say, oh, no. That's a great question, but, you know, I didn't come across that. I'll look into that. I'll get back to you and those sort of things. One of the biggest red flags you can have is someone that's super confident in the answer that's wrong because that's the last thing you want in the field. Right?
You don't want someone going out there portraying that they know everything when they're saying something that you know sitting there is not right. It's a huge red flag. So I think, you know, do the do the research and answer what you can, but but be conscious of your limit and know that you're again in that environment where you don't wanna say something that the company doesn't want you saying. Yeah. No. That's great. This is good stuff, guys. But before listen.
Before we finish, I have to there's we we have to venture into one area that we haven't really ventured into. But, like, we gotta talk about the virtual piece of this. Right? Because we're speaking on terms that really I mean, it could be virtual. It could be live. But let's talk about the differences. What makes it harder to do this virtually? Like, what are the pitfalls, I guess?
So, like, Kendra, when you were preparing, knowing that you weren't gonna be doing this live, is the preparation different? You mentioned practicing. Like, so what are some tips that you would give somebody to help them when they prepare for doing this in front of a camera versus doing this live? I think set yourself up for success. Have the technology there. Have the multiple screens. Be able to look into the camera. If that means getting a webcam, get the webcam.
I don't I I haven't given a PowerPoint since maybe pharmacy school, so 10 years I haven't given a PowerPoint, if you think about it that way. So I think just making sure that technology wise, having those test calls with your friends and things like that is the most practice. Make sure that you're practicing. Look behind you. I'm looking behind you right now to try to find a connection. Oh, do you travel a lot? Things like that.
Be able to pick up on those cues that you might you might have been able be slam dunks in person, but you can't see virtually. You know, somebody has a a medal in the background. Oh, are you a runner? Did you run the Boston marathon? Is that what I see back there? You know, make conversations out of these virtual settings because people want connection regardless of where the setting is. And I think that's really important in the virtual world that we kind of miss a little bit.
Yeah. And, Josh, how do you guys do it? Because some companies do it different. So some companies will let you share your screen, and then you just present to the slides. Some companies say, no. We don't want you to share your screen. We wanna see you on the full screen. Send us your slides. We'll follow along. How do you guys do it? Yeah. We we have the people share their screen. I mean, I think that's closest to what you're gonna do with a KOL.
Mhmm. You know, a lot of times again, it's not like you're gonna giving a presentation every time when you go out out to a KOL. Right? We need to know that you can, and a lot of times it is just a a conversation. But I think, you know, just, again, handling the technology, like Kendra said, you know, practice and make sure you can do that. Make sure your technology and your environment is good enough. Right?
If your Internet's not fast enough, go to your friend's house or, you know, make sure you're in a controlled environment where it's quiet and you don't have, you know, animals running around or, you know, whatever the distraction is. We all know that happens and, you know, if something does happen, we kind of play it off. Someone makes a joke about it. You move on, and it's it's real life. But at the same time, you're in control of this. Right?
So find the environment where there is good Internet or where you have a a quiet space or you have, you know again, maybe it's interesting stuff behind you. We don't have distracting stuff behind you. Just any of those sort of things. You know, it's in your control. You can do the practice, and you can you can test things out. And I'll say, you know, we'll sit there and and we try not to hold it against people. Right?
You're sitting there and you're like, well, they had this technical difficulty. You know, that might have interrupted the flow of it. But at the same time, are they gonna fix that before they go see a KOL? So, you know, it's it's a real thing that, you know, you knew you had this interview coming up. You had the time to prepare and the time to get ready. What did you do about it? Right?
So I think, you know, to an extent, you're not here to make sure someone's an expert on Teams and could share their screen properly and has the best microphone. But, you know, I've had examples where someone had bad sound and they literally have a microphone from, like, Guitar Hero or something, and they used it. And it became a point of conversation, but the sound was fantastic. Right? They they knew they had the issue, and they found a solution to it.
So I think those sort of things show that, you know, the kind of preparation people will do and and what steps they'll take to, you know, make sure that they can do this job. And when they have an an interview or a a KOL call to do that, they're gonna figure out how to do it in a way that's effective because a KOL is not gonna wanna sit there and, you know, stumble through technology and bad sound and whatever. So I think it's it's it's all part of the package. Right?
It may not be the major part, but it is a part of it. Right. And what about pants? Are pants optional, mandatory? Like, how do you feel about that? Yeah. I encourage the Zoom mullet when you're when you're presenting online, you know, be professional on top, and the rest isn't isn't any of my business. So That's And if you go in person, you might wanna wear the pants. But Listen. I've had people on interviews where the the the someone on the hiring team says, can you stand up for me?
So they wanna see if if they got fully dressed. So, and that's a real and I I'm not making that up. That really happened. I believe it. I would I would personally never do that to a person. Yeah. I wouldn't either. You are what you want. Be comfortable. If it makes you more comfortable and you deliver the science better Yeah. Have at it. So, guys, I think we're out of time here. Wow. We went long. This went fast. You guys are good, man. You guys are good. Listen.
When we get on the phone, we could talk all day. We we always have fun things to talk about. No doubt. And you guys have to come back. We have to do a part 2. So start thinking now about what can talk about. Absolutely. Probably probably we'll talk about Penn State's dominance in wrestling. That sounds like a good topic. Let's do it. Oh, no. Oh, no. Ken just like Oklahoma State. Well, listen, guys. Thank you so much. Thank you for coming. You guys are the best.
And, I can't wait to have you back. But I really do appreciate all your knowledge, and, and I'm sure everybody else does too. So you guys are awesome. Thanks for having us. Super fun. Yeah. This is awesome. Cool. Take care, guys. Yeah. Have a good one. Bye bye. 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.