How I Became a Pfizer Med Rep Trainee

I heard about Pfizer's job hiring activity from my friend Alexis who was informed by his close friend and our schoolmate Doyle. Doyle is already working as a professional health care representative or simply, "med rep" in Pfizer, the number one pharmaceutical company worldwide.


Pfizer's job hiring was done in different areas like Manila, Cebu and Davao. In my case, I went to Cebu with my friends, Alexis, Arwin, and JunV to try our luck. The venue of the activity was in Cebu Parklane Hotel. We thought that the said activity will only last for a day so we readily bought tickets going back to Iloilo at the very same day of our arrival in Cebu. We arrived at Cebu on Monday, April 14, 2009 at around 8:00 am and our ticket going back to Iloilo is at 6pm.

As it turned out, things happened the least that we expected them to be. The flow of the job hiring activity was as follows:

1. one on one interview.
2. exam (good for 6 hours)
3. panel interview
4. final interview.
5. orientation

To be able to proceed to the 4th step, you need to pass all the initial steps. It was already 6pm and I haven't been interviewed yet. There were about 80 applicants. Most of them were around 24-30 years old and already have several working experiences. There were those people who were really intimidating because they speak English fluently as if it’s their primary language and they were oozing with confidence. Still to graduate, I and my friends felt like we were the obvious underdogs among all the applicants.

It was 7pm when I’m done with the interview and I immediately took the exam. We went home at around 12 midnight and I still have one subject left to answer the very next day. It was really a grueling day. Our ticket going to Iloilo should be re-scheduled.

The next day, we arrived at the hotel around 9 am. After I finished my exam, I waited along with my friends for our names to be called for the panel interview. I was interviewed around 2pm. Two personnel interviewed me, a guy and a lady. I forgot the guy’s name but the lady was Ms. Angelina. They asked me questions like, “Describe yourself, Do you have experience in sales, what are your strengths, why should we hire you.” Stuffs like that and other situational questions which required confidence and wit to answer. After the interview, we were informed that we will just be contacted the very night about whether we passed and return for the final interview. We went to SM Cebu at around 5pm and re-scheduled our tickets.

That night at around 11pm, I received a message telling that I passed the 4 stages and that I was scheduled for the final interview the very next day. So, I went to the hotel the next day and found out that out of the 80 applicants, there were only 25 left. Me, and my friend JunV were among the remaining applicants. Nang Pie and nang Myer, both also came from UP but ahead of us by 2 years also made it. I did not saw those people who made me fell intimidated during the initial screening. It turned out, I was smarter in answering the questions and presenting myself to the interviewers than them. Out of the 25 remaining applicants, 20 made it to the orientation. Others did not make it because of different reasons. One applicant has a 2 year old child and the interviewer said that the said applicant cannot perform well because she has to give attention to her child. Another applicant has her husband working in Glaxo, a competitor of Pfizer. On the other hand, another applicant was told that she was not ready for a sudden shift in career.

Out of the 20 applicants who made it in the orientation, 6 are fresh grads if JunV and I will be considered to belong in the said category. It was a great privilege to be selected out of 80 aspiring applicants. It means a lot.

But challenges are yet to come. We still have our training in Manila starting May 11 and will last for about a month. We should get a grade of 90% in every exam that we’ll going to take during the training period or else we will be eliminated. Other than this, we should also past the driving test to be done during the training or else we will also be out. The problem is, I still don’t know how to drive. All I got is about 2 weeks to be fully ready.

But before this, we were scheduled to undergo field exposure wherein we will accompany a Med Rep and get to feel what it is like to be in such a job by being in the real situation.