How To Become A Hospital Sales Representative: What It Is and Career Path

What is a hospital sales representative and how to become one

Updated January 8, 2025

3 min read

Quoted expert

Kevin Buckley

A hospital sales representative's primary responsibility is to promote, market, and distribute a certain pharmaceutical product to appropriate medical facilities. This isn't merely a retail profession. After all, a hospital sales representative's obligations are far more demanding than those of a drug dealer.

As a hospital sales representative, you're to visit doctors and hospital teams to deliver presentations to persuade them to utilize your products rather than those of competitors. The role of the medical sales representative involves networking, client service, and a thorough understanding of medical products.

You'll need to know a lot about pharmaceuticals, and you'll need to keep an eye on any competing "products" and market trends to work successfully as a hospital sales representative. You don't need a science degree to work as a hospital sales representative. It'll be a plus, however, if you have a background in pharmacy, medicine, or life sciences. As for salary, you can make an average of $34.32 per hour or $71,385 yearly.

What general advice would you give to a hospital sales representative?

Kevin Buckley

Professor of Practice, Sales & Marketing, University of Southern Mississippi

The biggest factor in earning potential is performance - salespeople get paid based on their ability to hit and exceed quotas through revenue generation. With a sales career, you have a lot of control over earnings. My advice is to be metrics-driven and have a plan to intentionally grow your sales skills through training, mentors, and personal development. Build a reputation for consistent over-achievement. It's also important to do research and understand typical compensation benchmarks. Some may offer higher base pay, while others offer more earnings leverage through aggressive commission/bonus structures.

ScoreHospital Sales RepresentativeUS Average

Salary

7.3

Avg. Salary $93,625

Avg. Salary $59,228

Stability level

7.6

Growth rate 4%

Growth rate 0.3%

Diversity

3.8

Race

American Indian and Alaska Native 0.23%

Asian 5.09%

Black or African American 3.79%

Hispanic or Latino 13.94%

Unknown 3.71%

White 73.24%

Gender

female 41.11%

male 58.89%

Age - 48

Race

American Indian and Alaska Native 3.00%

Asian 7.00%

Black or African American 14.00%

Hispanic or Latino 19.00%

White 57.00%

Gender

female 47.00%

male 53.00%

Age - 48

Stress level

7.6

Stress level is high

7.1 - high

Complexity level

8.8

Complexity level is advanced

7 - challenging

Work life balance

3.6

Work life balance is poor

6.4 - fair

Key steps to become a hospital sales representative

Explore hospital sales representative education requirements

Most common hospital sales representative degrees

Bachelor's

84.8 %

Master's

10.6 %

Associate

3.0 %

Start to develop specific hospital sales representative skills

Skills	Percentages
Patients	18.77%
Territory Sales	6.67%
Healthcare Professionals	6.02%
Medical Sales	6.01%
Sales Quota	5.67%

Complete relevant hospital sales representative training and internships

Accountants spend an average of 1-3 months on post-employment, on-the-job training. New hospital sales representatives learn the skills and techniques required for their job and employer during this time. The chart below shows how long it takes to gain competency as a hospital sales representative based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data and data from real hospital sales representative resumes.

Research hospital sales representative duties and responsibilities

Manage products in gastroenterology, cardiology, endocrinology, psychiatry, rheumatology, and OB-GYN categories.
Educate clinicians at top teaching institutions across the southeast on appropriate care and therapies for critically ill patients.
Promote Genoptix Oncology/Hematology diagnostic services in the private oncology clinic and hospital laboratory.
Trained/developed influential physician advocates for product lines, including top gastroenterology practices and recruiting top physicians as regional speakers.

Prepare your hospital sales representative resume

When your background is strong enough, you can start writing your hospital sales representative resume.

You can use Zippia's AI resume builder to make the resume writing process easier while also making sure that you include key information that hiring managers expect to see on a hospital sales representative resume. You'll find resume tips and examples of skills, responsibilities, and summaries, all provided by Zippi, your career sidekick.

Choose from 10+ customizable hospital sales representative resume templates

Build a professional hospital sales representative resume in minutes. Browse through our resume examples to identify the best way to word your resume. Then choose from 10+ resume templates to create your hospital sales representative resume.

Apply for hospital sales representative jobs

Now it's time to start searching for a hospital sales representative job. Consider the tips below for a successful job search:

Browse job boards for relevant postings
Consult your professional network
Reach out to companies you're interested in working for directly
Watch out for job scams

How do hospital sales representatives rate their job?

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Hospital sales representative reviews

A zippia user wrote a review on Feb 2019

Pros

Working with individuals in general. I'm a huge people person and love the relationships I have now as all of my referral sources are my close friends!