Since Noble Futures launched in 2002, one of our key areas of candidate support has been helping and guiding veterinary and agricultural professionals as they look to transition into industry-based roles, and so in this latest post in the Clinic, we wanted to focus a little more on this popular topic and share some of our most valuable advice that we’ve learnt over the years!
Some of the Noble Futures team, such as Senior Recruitment Consultant Kay Ritchie, are able to not only advise candidates on the topic but also share personal experiences after Kay made the move herself, from Registered Veterinary Nurse before taking the leap into Veterinary pharmaceutical sales and beyond.
Kay has shared her answers below to some of the most frequent diversify questions this week in ‘Ready to Diversify!’ But if you’d like to speak to the team about what diversifying might look like for your career – call us on 0161 820 3510 or send us an email at [email protected] and we would love to help!
- What areas can I move into?
The three main pillars of diversify roles are Technical, Commercial and Education.
Some of examples of these may be:
Technical Roles – Technical Advisor, Insurance Claims Support, Regulatory Affairs
Commercial Roles – Area Sales, Telesales, Membership Sales, Sales Support, Marketing Assistant
Educational Roles – Lecturer, CPD Advisor, Examinations Support/Management, Assessor
- What is Veterinary Technical Advisor? Is that something I can do?
A technical advisor’s role is to assist the commercial teams in training and support, as well as being available to help answer any customer queries or adverse reaction reports via phone and email. A technical advisor can be either a field, office or occasionally a home-based role.
- My CV is very clinical – how do I prepare this for an application in industry?
Think about your cross-over or transferable skills and highlight those. Things like commercial awareness, decision-making, and time management will always stand out over any clinical skills that would usually be required in a clinical role.
Think about if you have supported sales campaigns in certain products, driven projects with pet club memberships or vaccination drives. These all could help give a more commercial and result-orientated results aspect to your CV if you wanted to include that.
If you’re unsure, the team here at Noble Futures are always happy to take a quick look and give advice free of charge to help you prepare your CV.
- What is the work-life balance like? Will I work late? Overtime? Travel?
This will always vary based on the role; all roles, no matter the industry will have the potential of working late and travelling, however, these are usually planned in advance, unlike clinical practice.
For more commercial roles, such as sales and area managers, you may see yourself managing a territory, and this can mean frequent travel throughout your designated area.
Education and technical roles may have less need for you to travel but does hold the opportunity of attending events, conferences and trade shows.
Whilst the work-life balance varies greatly from role to role, the predictability of the hours and weekends etc., are often desirable in creating a steady work-life balance.
- Should I do a Business MBA or a similar course before applying?
It’s useful if it’s something you want to do but is not necessary to make a move. Often candidates have decided to do a course to help strengthen the commercial or business side of their CV or give confidence in applying for the new roles, and these are all benefits but not essentials in making the move.
- How would the overall package compare to my current wage?
This varies from role to role. Sometimes the annual salaries can be lower at first than that in clinic, but generally, the full package, including the additional benefits, bonuses or commissions, will be a higher value at the end.
- How long should I be in practice before diversifying?
Again this can vary depending on the role; however, usually, the advantage of having a veterinary qualified person in a role is their knowledge of the industry, not only their qualifications. We’d usually recommend a minimum of 2 years in clinical practice for an RVN or 3-4 years for a Vet.
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