Hey, everyone. Welcome back to the podcast. My guest today is Bridget Rasmussen. Bridget is my director of client services here at the Carolyn Group. She's amazing. She's really super smart. And we're gonna talk about promote ability and how to land your next promotion. It's a top ten list. I know you guys like that. I hope you find it helpful. Please remember to reach out to me on LinkedIn if we haven't connected already.
Follow us on YouTube and Instagram, and check us out on MSL talk live on Clubhouse, which is the 1st Tuesday of every month at 1:30 PM EST. Thank you, guys, for joining us. Thank you for all you do and all your support. I hope you really like this. Welcome to MSL talk with Tom Caravella, a podcast specifically designed for MSLs and all things field medical. Hey there, Bridget. Welcome back. Thank you for joining me. Hi, Tom. Happy Friday. Thanks for having me back. Happy Friday. Excited.
Always great to have you back. For those of you that don't know, Bridget is my right hand, and we, divide and conquer here at the Karen Group. So I always like having her on because she's really, really smart, and she knows a lot about this topic. Thank you, Tom. I don't know if I'm your right hand so much as you're the biggest nuisance in your life, but I appreciate the kind words. I appreciate it. Not at all true.
But, anyway, I wanna say thank you to all our listeners and everyone that has been sharing the podcast. I'm getting a lot of messages from everybody saying that, hey. I just shared it, and other people say, I've just started listening. So I just wanna thank you guys for all your support, and I appreciate you. Alright. So, Bridget, are you ready to go? We're gonna talk about promote ability and what you need to do to land your next promotion.
It's a great topic, and it's something that we hear from a lot of candidates. You know, whether they're positioning themselves for the next couple of years in their career or whether it's a a near term goal of theirs. Like, Tom, how do I how do I get there 6 months? What what can I do to develop myself? So this is something that definitely, it hinges across all industries. It's not specific just to medical affairs. It really can be utilized across the board to help you achieve your goals.
True. Very true. Alright. Well, I'm excited to get started. So what we're gonna do is we're gonna kinda flip the script. Bridget's gonna kinda be interviewing me, so to speak. So I'm going to share all of my knowledge in this area, and hopefully, it can help you guys get to the next step. Awesome. So before we start, Tom, how and why did you decide on this specific topic for the podcast? Obviously, you have so many episodes under your belt at this point. Why this topic and why now?
Well and it's funny. It's that's a great question. And I've been meaning to and planning to do this for a while because it comes up all the time. And I think that people wanna know, how do I navigate the course of my career? So over the course of time, it keeps coming up. I've been wanting to do it. So it's kinda sort of by request, but it's really needed. So that's why I wanted to figure, you know what? Now is a good as time as any because people are starting out the new year.
They have a lot of goals, and some people have goals of getting promoted. So I think that this would be really good information for really anyone, but especially people that have it on their their their list of goals for this year. That was actually going to be my next question. Does this advice that you're going to give, is it really geared around the MSL career? Could it be utilized in a different medical affairs path? You know, the who who's the target audience for this advice?
Well and interesting. You know, obviously, this podcast called MSL talk, and it's always geared towards MSLs, and this information is gonna be very good for MSLs. But to be totally honest with you, this information is really for anyone. Any industry, any career, anyone could benefit from this because I really think that the advice is going to be the same regardless of what industry you're in.
It could be good for MSLs or people that are looking to break into the industry or anybody that's out there that wants to navigate the course of their career, get promoted, or just have really good career progression. Excellent. So looking at the bigger picture, where do you think people should should start when they start to feel like they've hit that growth ceiling? Well, of course, I've decided to break this down into the always popular top ten list. People seem to really like that.
So, I I get a lot of requests. It's I get a lot of requests on that too. Hey, Tom. I love your top ten list. Can you, you know, keep doing that? So I thought that this would be a a really good way to share information is to do a top ten list on this. But let me before I get into that, I I wanna start by saying that this idea of promote ability and career progression starts with being proactive.
If you're seeking a promotion, if you're if you're trying to position yourself in your career, it's your responsibility to make it happen. So the more initiative you take, the better your chances are for future success. So you want to be proactive and look at your efforts as an investment in your career and in your future self, to be totally honest. Absolutely. And I think in your career, it's it's important to remember how much agency you have.
And you have to take ownership of next steps and what you want. No one's just gonna I mean, listen, maybe a recruiter calls you one day with the perfect job, but if you're not throwing yourself out there and really captaining your own ship, it's probably not going to happen for you. So talking about this top ten list, what is number 1 for you?
Yeah. So number 1 and this is, I think, the probably the most important part of the whole equation, but could be the hardest, is that you have to decide what role you want. Like, what do you want to happen next in your career? And the best advice that I can give to people is you really need to think of this along the terms of title. So what title or titles are you looking to pursue? Is this role or are these titles in line with your long term goals?
Is it gonna get you to where you wanna ultimately be? But you also has have to look at things in steps because your career is and we talk about the term career progression. It happens it's a marathon. It's not a sprint. It happens over time. So you wanna look at what is my next step? What might be the title for my next step? And then if you have a long term goal in mind, where let's just say for argument's sake, you're an MSL, but, eventually, you wanna be a VP of medical affairs.
We don't just wake up one day and be a VP of medical affairs. You have to figure out what is next, what comes in line. Now a lot of times what happens is people say to me all the time, Tom, I'm not sure what I wanna do next, Or, you know, I have a couple of ideas. So I think it could be difficult. And in situations where you really don't know for sure, you really wanna try to seek out advice and seek out clarity. So I would say the important thing on this is you might have to do some research.
You may have to talk to others in the industry and kinda see what roles and what titles align with your long term career goals. Like, what do you ultimately see yourself doing? And then work back from there and ask a lot of questions to people and seek out some advice. Definitely. I think that's great advice. I think it's important to, you know, keep your horizon in mind and identify the title, identify the exact position, and then come up with a game plan to work backwards from that position.
What would you advise? So we stumble on the perfect job, we decide this is what I wanna go after, this is what I wanna do with my life. What do you advise next beyond that? Yeah. So and and this is another tough one, but what I advise next is once you have an idea of of what you wanna do and where you wanna go, you wanna really hone in on your timeline. How quickly do you wanna get there?
So in your mind, what is the ideal time frame to make this transition and get promoted into that kind of role? It's not gonna be easy. You're not gonna there's no exact science to this. You want to try to be realistic to give yourself ample time to get there. So if you wake up one day and say, okay, I'm an MSL, but I want to be an MSL manager and I want it to happen, you know, within a year, that might not be the case.
Or if you're an aspiring MSL and you're and you're like, I'm, you know, I'm a clinical pharmacist, but I'm gonna be an MSL within a year, it might take longer than that. Hopefully, it happens for you, but it might take longer. So what I wanna make sure everybody realizes you need to be really careful not to be too hard on yourself because it might take longer than expected. But the reason I even mention establishing a timeline is because it makes you intentional. It makes you get after it.
It makes you work towards it. I just if you haven't listened yet, my episode my last episode, which was episode number 86 about intention, this falls in line with that. This could be a goal of yours. It could be an intention of yours. And when you set intentions, you also wanna look at them in, in time frames, in time lines. But, again, try to be realistic and don't be too hard on yourself. I think that is that's just tremendous advice, especially how fast time goes.
I don't know about you, but the past 2 years dealing with the COVID 19 pandemic, I feel like I've blinked my eyes and we're almost at the 2 year mark. So I think it's important not to float along and to hold yourself accountable for this as a deadline for me. This is again, be realistic, don't be too hard on yourself, but make sure that you break it out. Okay. A year from now, this is where I wanna be. 2 years from now, this is how I envision myself.
Because it is really hard to harness time and to not just let it go by because you're gonna blink your eyes and 5 years from now, are you gonna be at your goal? Are you gonna be any closer to your goal? I think timing is extremely important. Yeah. For sure. Figuring out the title, working on your timeline, honing down on that, what's next beyond that step? Well and number 3 is all about your resume or CV. You you want to really focus on your resume and your CV.
And this is just good advice for any point in time in your career. I put it up high on the list because I really wanna redirect people to make sure that their their resume is constantly being updated, and it's in line with where you're going. So if you decide that you want to get a promotion or you decide that you wanna pursue a certain title, you really need to start to make initial changes that show your experience and transferable skills are in line with that role.
But it it's it's very likely that you're not gonna be there yet. So just remember that your your CV and your resume, it's it's a live, breathing, living document. It it's it changes and evolves regularly. So you just need to expand upon and update that document on a regular basis, and think about what you're adding that can help position you for that promotion. You're actually working towards that promotion.
You're working towards accomplishments, achievements, content that's gonna go on your CV to show that you not only have the transferable skills, but the experience to land that role. So, for example, if let's just say you're a clinical pharmacist or you're a researcher, and you wanna be an MSL, but you don't have any experience doing presentations or speaking. Well, you need to get out there and do it. You need whether you volunteer or somehow, some way, you have to add that to your CV.
Otherwise, you're missing a critical element. It's the same thing with MSLs that wanna be managers or MSLs that wanna get into managed care or the payer side. You have to start to migrate towards those types of, of responsibilities. Right. And I think the the keys that I'm drawing from from that advice is just maintenance. It's funny. It's kinda like taking your car to the dealership semi annually or, you know, making sure you get those oil changes.
I worked with candidates before that they're like, oh, Bridget, I'm doing all of these things. But then I look at the resume and it's not being showcased. So I think may maintaining your resume, taking your car for an oil change, these things are very, very necessary, and you don't wanna let it build up to the point where you've been doing all of these different things, but you can't even really remember all of your progress.
You can't even really remember what needs to be added because you're just go, go, go all the time. So I think maintenance and making sure that your resume is accurate and showcases all of your abilities and all of your different responsibilities is incredibly important. So semiannual resume and CV checkups, revisions, updates. Beyond that, what would you do next, Tom? So number 4 is and and, again, this is up at the top of the list. This could actually be number 1.
This is how that's how important this is. But number 4 is be vocal. You have to raise your hand. You have to make people aware. Make your manager aware. Make sure that internal leaders are aware of what your goals are so that they can help support and develop you. If no one internally knows what your goals are, then they're not gonna tap you on the shoulder to give you extra work and responsibilities.
It's likely that in your organization, there could be, like, a leadership development program, or they could establish a development plan for you and offer you additional responsibilities. So you need to really make sure that you get the word out to folks, that can help position you and and give you opportunities to grow and advance your skill set. Now there is a chance that you maybe some people don't wanna get promoted within their company. Sometimes people are like, well, you know what?
I'm not gonna be here in a year. I I I see myself in another place for whatever reason. We hear that all the time. That's fine. If you have no intention of gaining a a promotion internally, then you need to be vocal with external sources. So you need to start to ping people outside your organization, and see if you could start to get some advice, and start to, you know, position yourself for what might be next externally.
Yeah. I think if you never verbalize it, people aren't gonna be able to read your mind. So again, agency, taking ownership, being captain of your own ship, all of those things are really important and you have to raise your hand and speak what you want into existence. What would you advise as the next on the checklist? So and this kinda goes hand in hand with what I just said as far as like reaching out and raising your hand. But you really wanna start to seek out mentors if you haven't already.
And the importance of mentors is you wanna find somebody that is possibly already in the role that you're looking to obtain that might be able to help direct your course. So mentors are really key because they can offer insights and direction to help guide you. And a lot of people say to me all the time, what what should I expect from a mentor? And what's the what's the purpose and the role of a mentor?
Well, that's a great question, and I get that a lot because I talk about mentors a lot on the podcast. A mentor is someone who who if willingly, if agreeing to be a mentor, someone that should be sharing their experience with you to help guide you to get you to where you wanna be. So it's all about picking their brain about their experience. What worked for them? How did they land their role in industry? How did they get promoted?
What do they advise you to do as a next step or how to, you know, handle your career progression? So mentorship is all about people willing to help provide feedback, insight, and direction by sharing their experience. Definitely. And I think so many people that have quote, made it are willing to pay it forward. Would you recommend I know you just mentioned talking internally as opposed to externally. Is there a benefit to going internal?
Is there a benefit to just seeking out a mentor completely external of your organization? Any benefit on either side? Yeah. I I feel like mentors you you should really seek out mentors internally as well as externally. There I don't really I really think that that's something that I know before we talked about, you know, depending on whether or not you're looking to get promoted internally or externally.
I think in this situation, for mentors, you really wanna go to anybody that's in a position to help you that might be a good role model. So it could be internal. It could be external. Excellent. So moving right along, we're at 50%. Wow. What is number 6 on your list of 10? Number 6, another important one. But number 6 is you really need to step up. You need to expand your role. And what I mean by that is you have to start to do some of the things that you may need to do in that role.
So, for example, if you're an MSL and you really wanna take the next step into a management role, you have to ask yourself, what types of tasks can you add to your plate to build your experience in that area? You know, you may wanna volunteer to get involved in some hiring initiatives, or volunteer to be a mentor to, to junior MSLs on your team, or or maybe see if you can get involved in projects that might assist leadership.
So you wanna try to figure out how can you grow your skills in other applicable areas, whether it's leadership, if that's where you wanna go, or let's just say you you wanna get onto the payer side. Well, you're an MSL, you wanna be a managed care MSL, or you wanna be, a medical outcomes liaison. Well, start to see if you can get involved in doing presentations presentations to payers, on your team.
You know, maybe you're a good writer and you wanna get involved in pubs or some kind of communications. Maybe you wanna be a conference team lead. Sometimes there's opportunities where you can you can now opportunities where you can you can navigate and and, and work the the lead role for a conference. These are all things that are really, really good to add to your CV. It's not necessarily considered accomplishments per se depending on what it is that you do.
If you complete a project, that's an accomplishment. But there are additional responsibilities. And this is really important to help showcase experience and transferable skills. Definitely. And I think when you take on more positions and you're more vocal, you're killing a lot of birds with one stone. You're getting this great content that you can put on your resume.
I mean, I've talked to senior MSLs that I look at their responsibilities and I'm thinking to myself, you're basically a manager without having the title. You hire you've helped hire people, you've screened people, you've onboarded them, you've mentored them, you're working hand in hand with them in the field. So, again, I think it increases your visibility at the organization.
You never know who you could meet by volunteering and saying, hey, I want to get involved on the medical communication side. Who knows? Maybe you meet someone that can really change the trajectory of your career. So I think you're kind of, again, killing a lot of birds with that one stone by doing that. So what is next on the list? No. We're at number 7, I believe. You might have heard me. Like, I was trying to get my notes together because I wanna make sure I keep these in order.
But even though quite honestly, like, these don't necessarily really have to fall in order. I think that they're all equally important. But number 7, I have and that this is a big one for me as well, is be a problem solver. Find ways to solve problems. I really think that the very best way to stand out and get noticed is to be a problem solver. And the way you do that is you have to take notice of the pain points that are affecting your your management, your leadership, or your teammates.
Think about what's affecting you. What's a problem for you in your role? What's a problem for your teammates? If you could find solutions for those problems and you can offer help, you're absolutely gonna get noticed. And people, they're gonna I mean, you're you're gonna wind up being and you can even this might even be a type of thing where if you can solve a problem, you could probably put that on your CV as well.
It could be the type of thing spearheaded or orchestrated this solution to whatever. So this this definitely can be a quantifiable type of thing, but you you definitely wanna try to solve problems internally with your team. But if you can solve problems for your if you're an MSL and you could solve problems for your key opinion leaders and your health care practitioners that that you're you're dealing with, that's also a huge win. That's how you start getting noticed. Definitely.
And it's this is just popping completely organically into my mind. But when I used to recruit MSLs, sometimes the companies obviously would tap us to do their reference checks. And so you speak to their manager, you speak to a previous colleague. And the standout MSLs, when you would ask that question, like, how did they get creative about coming up with solutions? Were they a problem solver?
Some of the examples literally shifted, like, the trajectory of a program at a company because someone volunteered, stepped up, work was willing to work across a lot of different departments.
And it just to have that kind of reference and to have that impact at your organization, to your point, Tom, you're going to get noticed whether it's for that job that you're getting an offer for or down the road to just have that presence and that ability to really step in and look at all the different variables and come up with a solution, that is going to further your career in some way, shape, or form. For sure.
Absolutely. So I think we're on number 8 at this point and this is probably one of our favorite things to talk about. So I will let you take the lead on this one. It's a big one, man. Number 8, networking. You have to network, and you have to network internally as well as externally. Networking is something that we talk about all the time, but it's something that you need to do regularly throughout your career.
You can't be complacent and not expand your network and expand your reach and expect to expand your career. So you have to spend time each week reaching out to colleagues and professionals that are in your space and try to build stronger relationships and grow your network. So, again, this should be done internally as well as externally. You never know who's gonna be in a position to help you out, or who you can help out.
But one of the things about networking that I wanna really, like, make sure you guys, consider is how can you help others, and how can you pay it forward? Because if you do a favor for somebody in your network, that's gonna build a much stronger relationship with that person. And they're gonna be it's like, you know, you're gonna create a sense of indebtedness, and they're gonna wanna do a favor for you.
So when you're looking to get promoted, or if you're looking to get an interview, that person could be the the the next step or or the the the key to you getting in front of the right people. So just keep that in mind. Absolutely. And I think approaching it from a place of sincerity and a mutual exchange, what how can we benefit each other? How can we learn from each other? That exchange of information, that connection, that support, when it's a two way street, it's an incredibly powerful thing.
And LinkedIn has become this amazing connector and tool that I talk to people that tell me, yeah, Bridget, I got my job through somebody I met on LinkedIn. We just kind of struck up a conversation and, you know, we became really close friends and it ended up working out that they passed the job my way. So again, it's just we all can enrich the lives around us and vice versa.
But approaching it with sincerity and making sure that we're constantly building with relationships with people that we respect, that we can learn from. Life is just an ongoing learning process, I think. And networking is really gonna bring so much value and color, to any to anyone's world, both personally and professionally. So moving on, we're almost wrapping up here. So number 9, where are we at, Tom? Well, so number 9, it goes really kinda it kinda picks up where we left off.
So number 9 is to show servant leadership. And this means find ways to give back to the organization and to your colleagues and your coworkers and your leadership. And this is a concept that I have to give a shout out to Chad Fellers. So Chad Fellers was recently on the podcast. He was actually on twice. His second episode, which is pretty recent, was about, develop how to develop a great MSL team culture. And one of the concepts that he talks about is servant leadership.
And servant leadership is a philosophy built on the belief that the most effective leaders strive to serve others. But the thing is, you don't have to be a manager or a VP or a director or a leader, so to speak, to to strive to help others and to show servant leadership. When you show servant leadership, you're showing that you're a leader.
And you could be an entry level employee, but if you show servant leadership, you're stepping up and you're showing that you're on your way to being a true leader. I would say that this is an incredibly important concept that you should adopt early in your career.
Consider maybe becoming a mentor to a younger employee or help coworkers with their projects whenever you can, be a trusted resource that others will appreciate and rely on because this is the the easiest way to show servant leadership, but it's also, again, a way to create stronger relationships, get noticed, build your network, and make your network feel appreciative of you as somebody that is, again, a true leader and somebody that's gonna help them out.
I personally really liked that one, Tom. I think that it's also about how people choose to live their life and carry themselves. And you can just pick a person out that has that mentality of servant leadership. If there's a team of 10, there's that person that's going above and beyond to help other people to jump in, to connect them with others, to help them with problems they're having, to support them, you know, from a professional and maybe even a personal, standpoint.
So I think that is such an intuitive and excellent concept to just keep in mind throughout the course of your career. So last one, save the best for last, Number 10. Best for last. And this could be the best for last. Number 10 is showcase your greatness. What makes you great? What makes you special? What are you known for? This is a big one, and I I think some people call these core strengths. Others may see it as your personal brand.
But the most important thing is put your best self on display, and others will take notice. So if you're the person on the team that's the best with technology, maybe that's your thing. Showcase that. If you're the person on the team that's the best speaker and everybody wants to come to you and, know, well, she's the best speaker on our team, and now you're the one that's constantly getting tapped on the shoulder.
You're getting the nod when it comes time to do certain presentations or help people with presentations. Maybe you're the best person with the payer stuff and with health health economics. And, you may be on a small team, and there's nobody else that does it, so you step up. And now all of a sudden, you become known for that. There's a million different examples, but the thing is you really wanna embrace that. You wanna showcase your greatness.
And more importantly, it's your responsibility to communicate your accomplishments, of course, in a in a very tactful and subtle way. But you wanna do that so that others will notice. And what I mean by that is, like, the obvious way is is you document things on your CV or your resume. But there's a lot of other ways that people can notice your greatness. And, again, it goes back to a lot of the stuff that we've already talked about.
Raise your hand, do favors for others, help out, get involved in in team initiatives where you take the lead. That's how people are gonna get noticed. Maybe you accomplish something that you're really proud of, and you do a LinkedIn announcement. And the LinkedIn announcement isn't like, hey. Congratulations congratulations to me because I'm great, and here's my greatness. It's it's just maybe thanking other people that helped you. It's recognizing the accomplishment.
But in doing so, people see that you were the one that spearheaded it and you did it. So this is a big one, and I think people should do more of this. Definitely. And and what I'm personally drawing from that is asking yourself the question, well, what is my personal brand? What am I all about? What am I really good at? And people notice that over time, you know? And if you're making that choice every single day to build out your reputation and build that skill set, you're going to find success.
Like you said, people are going to notice you. They're going to notice that, wow, that person can give an amazing payer focused presentation. I really wanna learn from them. I really wanna I really wanna, you know, draw from their presentation skills and so on and so forth. So all these are really awesome, Tom. And I think as you started with, it's so important to be proactive, to raise your hands, to identify your goals, build a timeline, and ultimately steer your own ship.
So that 5, 10 years from now, you're not looking back and saying, Wow, I never really went after the things that I wanted. You wanna feel like you left it all on the field. Even if you try and maybe your career deviates a little bit and maybe you land in a position that it just kinda comes to you through through these efforts that we're talking about. But still, I think all of these things, we all need to really take control of what we're looking for in our future.
So wrapping up, do you have any other final words of wisdom, advice, support that you can help us all out with? Of course. There's always. But wait. There's more. I knew our podcast was gonna be long. I told myself I wasn't gonna talk so much. Nah. We're good. This is a really important stuff. So but I we we will we'll wrap it up. Just give me one more second.
I think that just to conclude, I just I wanna share that increasing your promotability is simply just a matter of increasing your professional visibility. Everything that we just talked about is about visibility. And how do you make yourself visible? How do you stand out? And how do you navigate your career journey? And, again, you have to be proactive to do it. So we talked about that, which requires outreach. It requires initiative. It requires creativity and extra effort.
It requires communication. Again, you have to raise your hand. You have to reach out. But it all it's also about connecting with the right people. The right people internally, the right people externally. There are people out there that can offer assistance and mentorship. You have to seek them out, and that could make all the difference. But keep in mind, when I say visibility, I'm talking about standing out.
Mhmm. You know, and we talk about communicating your accomplishments, and that's great. But if you truly stand out, you don't have to communicate anything because everybody's gonna see it. So I wanna leave you guys with of course, I have to leave you with a quote. One of my favorite quotes is slowly is the fastest way to get to where you wanna be. So keep that in mind as you plan out your your your next phase or the next phases in your career.
And just remember, take action every day, every week, every month, and I'm sure you guys will get there. So good luck on your journey. Guys, thank you again for listening. Thank you for sharing this. I'm overwhelmed at how many people share this. Thank you for sharing this podcast. And, Bridget, thank you as always for being my ride or die and being my right hand and and joining me again. You're awesome. Thank you, Tom. And and thank you to you as well for just being so vocal about these topics.
And you embody what it is to be a leader, you know, with your leadership skills, not only on our own team, but just reaching out on LinkedIn, helping people achieve. You know, effort and elbow grease is gonna take you anywhere that you wanna go, and I think your personal story really embodies that. And we all need these reminders. You know? We have to throw ourselves out there. We have to put a lot of elbow grease in order to get what we want.
So thank you for all of your advice today and for continuously being a leader to so many individuals. And, yeah, thank you everyone for listening. We really appreciate it. Yep. Thanks again, guys. We'll see you next time. Thanks for joining us. 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.