POSTED ON June 10, 2026

The Proven Journey to Finding Your Medical Sales Path

In this solo episode of the Medical Sales Podcast, Samuel Adeyinka speaks directly to aspiring medical sales professionals who have spent months applying, networking, researching companies, and interviewing without landing an offer. Samuel explains why repeated rejection does not necessarily mean someone lacks the right background, experience, or potential, but often signals that they are relying on the same ineffective strategy used by most candidates trying to break in alone. He unpacks the doubts that begin to surface during a long job search, from questioning your qualifications to blaming the market, the economy, or your lack of connections, and challenges listeners to stop confusing effort with an effective approach. This episode is a must listen for anyone struggling to break into medical sales who needs to rebuild their confidence, rethink their strategy, and understand what may truly be preventing them from landing the role.

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Transcription:

Samuel Adeyinka (Host):
Desperation is visible.

The person trying to get in is always in a position of asking.

Asking for a chance.

Asking to be considered.

Asking someone to take a risk on them.

Even when the candidate does not realize they’re doing it, that energy is there.

It is what hiring managers feel in every interaction.

The candidate who has made a decision, not just about wanting to be in medical sales, but about how and who they are in relation to the industry, is different.

They are already a sales professional in their mind.

They are not trying to convince anyone they belong.

They are showing up as someone who already knows they belong.

That shift changes everything.

Hello and welcome to the Medical Sales Podcast.

I’m your host, Samuel, founder of a revolutionary medical sales training and mentorship program called the Medical Sales Career Builder.

And I’m also host of the Medical Sales Podcast.

In this podcast, I interview top medical sales reps and leading medical sales executives across the entire world.

It doesn’t matter what medical sales industry, from medical device to pharmaceutical, to genetic testing and diagnostic lab, you name it.

You will learn how to either break into the industry, be a top 10 percent performer within your role, or climb the corporate ladder.

Welcome to the Medical Sales Podcast.

And remember, I am a medical sales expert sharing my own opinion about this amazing industry and how it can change your life.

I want to talk to a specific person today.

Not everyone who is thinking about medical sales, but a very specific person.

Let’s talk about getting into medical sales and the application process for all of you listening right now.

You’ve been at this for a while.

Maybe three months.

Maybe six months.

Maybe over a year.

You’ve applied to a number of jobs.

Probably more than you ever want to admit.

You’ve connected with a bunch of people on LinkedIn.

Some of them have led to conversations.

Maybe a phone conversation.

Maybe a couple of messages back and forth.

You’ve done some research.

You’ve looked at a few companies and a few roles.

And maybe you’ve even gotten an interview or two.

But you’re still not in medical sales.

You haven’t gotten to a second round or third round in some cases.

And for those of you who have, you haven’t gotten to the last round.

Here’s what’s happening inside your head right now.

You’re starting to wonder if the problem is you.

Maybe your background is not strong enough.

Maybe the market is just too competitive.

Maybe the economy is too unstable right now.

Maybe you don’t know the right people.

Or maybe you’ve come to the conclusion that you don’t have what it takes, and medical sales, as attractive as it sounds, is probably just not for you.

I need you to hear something very clearly before we go any further.

The problem is not you.

The problem is the strategy you’re using.

And the strategy you’re using is the same strategy almost every person uses when they try to break into medical sales on their own.

It feels logical.

It feels like effort.

Sometimes it looks like progress.

But it almost never works.

So today, I’m going to get into exactly why.

And more importantly, I’m going to show you what people who actually break in are doing differently.

Not because they’re more talented than you.

Not because they have more experience than you.

Not because they know more people than you.

But because they understood something about this industry that speaks to how this industry makes hiring decisions.

And they completely changed how they approached it based on how the industry makes hiring decisions.

So here’s the question I want you to sit with for a minute.

Honestly, if a hiring manager looked at everything you’ve put in front of them, your resume, your LinkedIn, your interview answers from anything you remember, your outreach messages, and asked the question, “Why should I choose you over someone who already has medical sales experience for this position?” what would your answer be?

Take a moment with that.

Because when I work with people who have been trying to break in for six months, 12 months, or two years on their own, I ask them a question like that.

And most of them cannot answer it clearly.

In fact, most people cannot even answer why they want to get into medical sales.

And it’s not because they are not qualified.

It’s not because they don’t belong in the industry.

But it is because everything they’ve been doing has been a lot of activity without evidence.

Especially if they can’t even answer the most fundamental question of why they want to be in that specific area of medical sales.

So think about what activity without evidence actually looks like to a hiring manager.

You applied to 500 jobs.

That is activity.

But what evidence does submitting 500 applications actually build?

Nothing.

A hiring manager never sees that effort.

And frankly, they don’t care.

All they see is another resume in a stack of 1,000 resumes.

You’ve connected with 2,000 people on LinkedIn.

That is also activity.

But what evidence does a connection request build?

Nothing.

A connection is not a relationship.

It’s just a connection.

It’s an event.

You’ve had dozens of conversations with people in the industry.

Let’s take it there.

That’s also activity.

But if those conversations didn’t leave somebody saying, “Wow. You are amazing. You are so serious. You came so prepared. You understand what the challenges are in my industry. If you were on my team, I could immediately see how you’d be of value. I’m going to refer you to my manager. We’re going to get this done,” then no evidence was built.

So here’s the hard truth when we get to medical sales that almost no one says directly enough.

Hiring managers are not specifically looking for effort.

Now, it’s good if you have some.

But they are not looking for effort.

They cannot see your effort before you show up to the table.

And if you cannot communicate whatever you’ve done, they cannot see your effort at all.

What they can see and what they are looking for is evidence.

Evidence that you understand the specific industry you have put your name on, applied to, and successfully gotten in front of.

Evidence that you can sell.

That you can put enough together to make a compelling argument, just selling yourself, as to why you should be the person with that position.

Because if you can do that, then there is something there that communicates you can sell.

Evidence that you’re coachable.

Not arrogant.

Not cocky.

Not weird and off-putting.

But actually coachable.

Evidence that you’re serious and capable of contributing to a team, because almost all of medical sales has some element of a team in it.

Evidence that you’re not going to wash out in six months because your quota is too high, or because you have to see too many clinics, or be in too many procedures, or work too many hours, or no one is entertaining anything you have to say and they close the doors in your face, and you’re tired of being told no.

Evidence that when the pressure I just described gets real, because it will get real, you will show up the very next day, bells and whistles, with a smile on your face, ready to do it all over again.

Many people trying to break into medical sales have never built that kind of evidence.

They’ve been working incredibly hard inside a broken strategy that was not designed to showcase any evidence.

And the longer they work that strategy, the more invisible they actually become.

In fact, they can become toxic.

Think about that candidate who sent their resume out to 40 positions in the same company.

Those names actually get remembered.

A bad resume does too.

And everyone says, “Oh gosh, that person again? Get rid of it.”

That has actually shot people in the foot, and they don’t even know it is happening.

Because activity without evidence is not accumulating.

It is literally just noise.

The second thing I see consistently from people who have been trying to get into medical sales on their own is a fundamental misunderstanding of what networking actually is in this industry.

Most candidates approach networking like this.

They find someone on LinkedIn who works in medical sales.

They send a connection request.

Maybe they send a message.

The message says something like, “I would love to learn more about your company and any opportunities on your team.”

Or, “I’m trying to break into medical sales and was wondering if I could pick your brain.”

Some people are even bold enough to say, “Could you refer me or put me in the right direction?”

Then they wonder why nobody responds.

What’s funny is that medical sales reps are very kind people.

A lot of them actually do respond.

Not all, but a number of them do.

That’s because medical sales is not easy to get into.

I think the secret is out.

It’s a very challenging industry to get into.

That medical sales rep who is a medical sales rep today might have been there before.

So they know what it feels like.

But you have to remember there’s a whole other side to this.

On the other side of that message, there’s an individual who, whether they have their own liability to take care of or an entire family, is a busy medical sales professional.

They have a quota they better meet quarterly.

They have a territory they better keep in check.

It’s truly like owning a business.

They have a manager who is literally waking up every day hoping they perform at their best and then doing whatever they can within their power to inspire and incentivize that rep to be at their best.

Then they have accounts to cover.

They have cases to support.

They have relationships they better maintain.

And you are a stranger who just slid into their inbox asking them to do work.

Find an opportunity.

Make a referral.

Open a door for someone they have never met and have no reason to trust from Eve or Adam.

It doesn’t even add up.

Listen to that for a second.

Play it again.

Rewind me 10 seconds and play it again.

It does not add up.

And for the reps who just have it in their heart to stop what they’re doing and entertain whatever you’re saying, you better bring it.

You better be the business.

You better understand everything there is to know about the business.

Because if the rep has the audacity to take you to their manager and you’re just some person who doesn’t understand anything, now the manager is saying, “Oh my gosh. Next time Jack brings me something, I’m going to have to make sure that doesn’t happen again.”

Now this rep is digging a hole.

Real networking in medical sales looks completely different.

And the difference is not just a scripting technique or a better opening line.

Now yes, certain scripting techniques and certain lines do catch attention and work.

But it’s more about the intent.

The people who break in through their network are not trying to extract an opportunity.

They are trying to become memorable.

Think about what memorable looks like in this context.

It’s a candidate who reaches out to a rep and, instead of asking for help, asks an intelligent, tailored, specific question about the territory, the product, the specialty, or challenges commonly faced by that type of rep.

It’s a candidate who follows up on a conversation three weeks later with something highly relevant they found.

An article.

A development in the space.

A new innovation.

Or something that shows they were really paying attention.

Or even the candidate who targets the hiring manager and sends something so cohesive, insightful, and impressive that the hiring manager says, “Oh my goodness. I at least have to interview this person because this is interesting.”

In every interaction this person has, they show up with energy, curiosity, preparation, and the word desperation is nowhere near anything they do.

When you become that person, you stop being a stranger asking for a favor.

You start being someone a rep, hiring manager, or recruiter actually remembers.

Someone they think about when a position opens up on their team, or adjacent to their team, or in a different space on someone else’s team.

Someone they mention to their manager completely unprompted because the interactions have been so consistently impressive.

And here’s the irony that I see from my end over and over.

Candidates who stop trying to get something from every network interaction are the ones who start getting the most from their network.

I know it sounds cliche, but it’s not.

The reality is relationships in this industry, like relationships everywhere, move toward people who give before they ask.

Of course, you’ve heard that a thousand times, but it’s real.

People who are genuinely curious and genuinely prepared get further.

People who make the other person feel like the conversation was worth their time get further.

That shift from extracting to intentionally trying to build a relationship is one of the most important things a candidate can learn.

And most people never figure it out, or they figure it out way later when they could have figured it out two or three years before.

One question I get, especially from someone trying to get in or from someone who is new in the program, is, “Okay, I got a connection. It worked. Oh my gosh, the line worked. What you guys said worked. Now I got them, and they want to talk. We had an amazing conversation. It was wonderful. Now what do I say next?”

It’s so funny when I hear that because I truly believe the mindset of someone thinking, “Okay, now what do I say next?” is still the mindset of trying to get something from this.

And of course you are, right?

You’re trying to get into a medical sales role.

But you have to think bigger than that.

You have to think, how can I truly develop a relationship with someone?

When you’re trying to develop a relationship with somebody, you’re not thinking, “Okay, what do I have to say next to get?”

You’re thinking, “Okay, what did I hear? What are they interested in? What would be of value to them? You know what? I’m going to bring this up. I’m going to bring that up.”

That is what moves the needle.

And it’s a good practice to develop even before you get the job.

Because when you get the job and you’re actually in medical sales, relationships are literally everything.

If you can’t build rapport with a stranger, lock them in, develop some kind of relationship, and keep that going for the long haul, you will struggle as a medical sales professional.

So why not get good now?

I want to tell you something hiring managers will almost never say to a candidate directly because it’s a bit uncomfortable.

But I’m going to say it because this is the Medical Sales Podcast, and we talk about those things.

I think you need to hear it.

Desperation is visible.

And most of you listening to this right now who have had interviews and are not in a position are showing desperation, and you don’t know you’re showing it.

I hope you’re enjoying today’s episode.

And I want to let you know our programs cover the entire career of a medical sales professional, from getting into the medical sales industry, to training on how to be a top performer in the medical sales industry, to masterfully navigating your career to executive-level leadership.

These programs are personalized and customized for your specific career and background, and trained by over 50 experts, including surgeons.

Our results speak for ourselves, and we’re landing positions for our candidates in less than 120 days in top medical technology companies like Stryker, Medtronic, Merck, Abbott, you name it.

Would you run an Ironman race without training and a strategy?

You wouldn’t.

So why are you trying to do the same with a medical sales position?

You need training.

You need a strategy.

And you need to visit EvolveYourSuccess.com, fill out the application, schedule some time with one of our account executives, and let’s get you into the position you’ve always dreamed of.

This is one of the most consistent patterns I see in candidates who have been trying to break in for a very long time.

They’ve been at it long enough that the desire to get in has become the loudest thing in the room.

And it shows up everywhere.

In interviews.

In networking conversations.

In the way they describe themselves and their goals.

And it sounds like this.

“I will take anything.”

“I just want to get into medical sales.”

“I’m willing to do whatever it takes.”

“I’m open to any specialty, any location, any role.”

And I understand why candidates say these things.

I get it.

They think they’re signaling some super commitment.

They think, “I’m committed. I’m the one who will do whatever it takes.”

They think they’re showing flexibility and coachability by saying, “Just throw me in anywhere.”

And they think they’re making it easy for hiring managers to say yes.

But here’s what hiring managers actually hear when a candidate says those things.

Number one, they hear uncertainty.

Number two, they hear someone who has not done the work to understand where they actually belong.

And more importantly, what they actually want.

Number three, they hear someone who is so focused on getting in that they have not seriously thought about what happens after they get in.

Number four, they hear risk.

They literally hear liability.

The candidate who will take anything is also the candidate who might leave anything.

I have to say that again.

The candidate who will take anything is also the candidate who might leave anything.

Those are the people who will struggle when the reality of the role doesn’t match the fantasy of what getting in told them.

And literally, those are the ones who wash out in year one when the quota pressure builds and the grind is real.

I think one thing no one talks about enough is the number of reps who quit after six months.

Now, I personally believe that most of that is because a rep hears of a space.

“I want to be an ortho rep.”

“I want to be a trauma rep.”

“I want to be a spine rep.”

And because they don’t know what medical sales actually is, they don’t understand what the hours look like.

They don’t understand the rigor of the job.

They don’t understand the specificity of the detail.

They don’t understand the reality of making relationships.

They don’t understand the reality that in the room with all these people, you are the lowest on the totem pole, but somehow you still have to be a conductor of the room.

They don’t understand those dynamics.

They jump into it.

It’s not even aligned with who they are, and they wash out and say, “This is crazy. What was I thinking?”

I honestly think that’s largely because people don’t know the space they’re supposed to be in.

That’s why we say we have to get you into the right specialty before we consider doing anything else.

But the other side of that is this.

The strongest candidates, the ones who get hired quickly and get hired with an amazing starting salary and compensation package, are not the ones who are the most flexible.

They are the ones who are the most specific.

They know, clearly understand, and can communicate powerfully why they want medical sales.

They know which specialty fits their background, their strengths, their goals, and everything they believe in and want to work for.

They know the value they bring.

They can articulate it clearly and confidently without blinking.

And because they know all these things, they walk into every interaction with a groundedness that just screams, “I am a very confident person, and I am most likely going to be the real deal if you put me on your team.”

And that kind of confidence, real confidence, not performed confidence, not fake arrogance, is one of the most attractive qualities a hiring manager can encounter in a candidate.

Because it signals something important.

It signals that this person has probably done the work.

They most likely understand the industry.

They understand where they belong in it.

And they are not going to be surprised by the reality of what this industry is going to throw at them when they get into this role.

That kind of confidence comes from clarity.

Clarity comes from preparation.

And preparation is what removes the desperation from the room before you walk into it.

The fourth thing I want to address, and this one surprises people most when I name it because it is obvious once you see it, but nobody really sees it until you show them, is this.

Most candidates do not actually know where they belong in medical sales.

It’s just a fact.

I might even say that’s my opinion, but that is a fact.

When someone tells me they want to get into medical sales, I always ask, “Which part?”

Almost every time, the answer is medical device spine, medical device ortho, pharmaceutical sales, or just, “I just want to get into medical sales.”

But as any subscriber of this podcast knows, medical sales is not one thing.

It’s literally dozens upon dozens of things.

Medical device procedural.

Medical device invasive.

Medical device non-invasive.

Surgical.

Orthopedic.

Spine.

Capital equipment.

Diagnostics.

Lab.

Biotechnology.

Pharmaceutical.

Wound care.

Women’s health.

Cardiovascular.

Neurology.

We can go on and on.

I could make a song about this at this point.

Each one has completely different daily realities, different customers, different sales cycles, different skill requirements, different personality types that thrive, and different definitions of success.

Most candidates have never taken the time to truly understand what happens inside the specialty they’re applying to.

They don’t know what the rep actually does day to day.

They’re clueless.

They don’t know how the products are used.

They don’t know what problems are being solved.

They don’t know the patient.

They don’t even know what skills matter the most or what type of person tends to succeed in that space.

So when a hiring manager asks, “Out of all the specialties you could get into, why do you want to be in this one?” they give a broad, hyper-generic answer.

Something about being passionate about healthcare and saving people’s lives.

Or something about wanting to make an impact.

Or something about being drawn to the clinical side of the business.

And look, those answers are not wrong.

They are not even bad answers.

They are not wrong.

But they are not specific.

And in such a competitive industry where one application can garner, and I’m not making this up, 1,000 people applying, hiring managers are evaluating multiple strong candidates.

Generic answers are just forgettable.

That’s it.

They’re forgettable.

And in this space, how can you be forgettable?

How will it serve you to be forgettable?

If you’re forgettable, how in the world are you going to be the last person standing?

And then when the hiring manager asks the harder question, “So why do you think you’ll be successful in this specific type of role?” the candidate struggles even more because they cannot connect their background to the actual needs of the position.

They haven’t done the work to understand the position deeply enough to make the connection at all.

Then it’s not just a confidence problem.

It’s a preparation problem.

The cool thing is the preparation problem is fixable.

Because here’s what changes when a candidate does the work.

When they understand what happens in a specific space, why that space fits their strengths, and how their experience translates to the needs of that customer in that sales environment, everything about how they present themselves changes.

They are no longer saying, “I want to be in medical sales.”

They are saying, “Here’s why my background aligns specifically with this type of role, this customer base, and this sales environment. And here’s what I’m going to do with it.”

This is a completely different conversation.

Hiring managers feel that difference immediately.

Not just in the answer, but in the entire energy of the interaction.

Because the candidate who can have that conversation is not hoping to be chosen.

They are literally giving the hiring manager reasons to choose them.

Everything I’ve described in this episode, the activity without evidence, the networking that extracts instead of builds, the desperation that shows up uninvited, the lack of clarity about where you actually belong, all of these things point to the same root cause.

Most candidates are approaching this with the wrong identity.

They are showing up as someone who is trying to get into medical sales.

And that identity, however unintentional, is shaping everything.

It shapes how they write their LinkedIn profile.

It shapes how they reach out to people in the industry.

It shapes how they answer interview questions.

It shapes how they follow up after those interview questions.

It shapes how they carry themselves in every single interaction.

The person trying to get in is always in a position of asking.

Asking for a chance.

Asking to be considered.

Asking someone to take a risk on them.

That asking energy, even when it’s subtle, even when the candidate does not realize they’re doing it, is what hiring managers feel in every interaction.

Now compare that to a different identity.

The candidate who has made a decision not just about wanting to be in medical sales, but about how and who they are in relation to the industry.

They are already a sales professional in their mind, whether they have sales experience or not.

They are already someone who understands the space they want to be in, has done the work to know they belong in it, and has built the evidence that demonstrates their seriousness and capability.

They are not trying to convince anyone they belong.

They are showing up as someone who already knows they belong.

That shift changes everything.

Literally everything.

Their LinkedIn stops looking like a job seeker profile.

It starts looking like a professional positioning themselves for a specific next step.

Their networking stops feeling like they’re asking and starts feeling like they are actually building.

Their interviews stop being performances where they hope to say the right thing and start becoming natural conversations, true dialogue, where they demonstrate they already know who they are.

And their follow-up stops being anxious and starts feeling confident.

Here’s what I’ve watched happen consistently over years of working with people in this industry.

The hire almost never happens immediately after someone learns a new interview answer or improves their resume.

It happens after they become someone a hiring manager can already envision on their team.

After the shift from trying to get into the industry turns into, “I am someone who can operate in a very specific way that is completely aligned to what you need.”

And that hiring manager can literally see that.

That is the moment when the entire process starts to accelerate.

Not because the market changed.

Not because they got lucky.

But because they changed.

And the industry responded to who they had become.

So if you’ve been listening to this and you’re recognizing yourself in any of what I described, the activity without evidence, the networking that is not landing, the lack of clarity about where you actually belong, I want you to know something critically important.

None of that is permanent.

Every single thing I described today is fixable.

That’s the beauty of this whole thing.

Every single thing I described today is fixable.

Not through more applications.

Not through more connections or connection requests.

But through a structured approach that builds the evidence, the positioning, the clarity, and the identity that hiring managers are actually looking for.

That is exactly what we built the Medical Sales Career Builder to do.

Not just give you information about the industry, but build the proof that you belong in it.

The credibility.

The positioning.

The clarity about where you fit and why you will succeed if you’re there.

The identity shift that changes how hiring managers see you, and more importantly, how you see yourself.

Because that has to win first.

If you’re serious about breaking into medical sales and you are done trying to figure it out alone, there’s an application below.

Fill it out.

If it looks like we can help you, someone from our team will have a real conversation with you about where you are, what’s not working, and what the path forward actually looks like.

The conversation is free, and it might be the most important one you’ll have on this journey.

Thank you for listening to the Medical Sales Podcast, and make sure you tune in to another episode next week.

I hope you enjoyed today’s episode.

And remember, I have a customized and personalized program that gets you into the medical technology industry as a sales professional, or any type of role for that matter.

Become a top performer in your position and masterfully navigate your career to executive-level leadership.

Check out these programs and learn more by visiting our site.

Fill out an application, schedule some time with one of our account executives, and allow us to get you where you need to be.

Stay tuned for more awesome content with amazing interviews on the Medical Sales Podcast.