Hiring a rep from a competitor is common in our industry. It can work very well.
It can also go wrong in a way that hurts everyone, including the rep.
What transfers is real and valuable. Call skills. Therapy knowledge. An understanding of how clinics and hospitals actually work. The trust individual doctors have in that person.
What does not transfer matters just as much.
- The old company's messages and claims. They were approved for a different product.
- The promise that "my doctors will follow me". Doctors decide based on patients, not on who visits.
- The old company's information. Doctor lists, targeting files, sales data, plans. None of it comes. Not on a laptop, not on a phone, not from memory in a meeting.
I say this clearly at the interview and again on the first day: bring your skills, leave their data.
And I never ask a candidate what a competitor is planning or who its key doctors are. A rep who would share that with me today would share my plans with the next employer tomorrow. More importantly, it is simply wrong.
The best competitor hires I have seen started fresh. They built their own call plan with the team's own targeting, and their skill did the rest.
“Hire the person's skill. Never their old employer's information.”
Lesson 4 of 12 in Step 7: Hiring and onboarding, with the full guide and a checklist for this week.