how to prepare for msl interview presentation

Home > How to Prepare a Presentation for an MSL Interview with Kathy Gann

In this episode, my guest is Kathy Gann. Kathy is a former MSL director of Mallinckrodt and Syneos Health and we talk about how to prepare a presentation for an MSL interview. Great information so anyone preparing for an interview should check this out.

In this episode:

• Expect the unexpected
• Three types of presentation
• What are the interviewers listening for?
• How much practice is required to ensure a GOOD presentation?
• Advice for someone who gets a question they don’t have the answer
• Interesting interview stories of presentations gone bad
• Kathy’s advice for aspiring MSL candidates?

Kathy Gann’s LinkedIn

Testimonials

"The Carolan Group is second to none when identifying top Medical Science Liaison and Global Medical Affairs talent. They are my “go to agency” for recruiting MSL and GMA professionals. Working with Tom and his team is a pleasure! What I appreciate most is their approach...never pushy or over aggressive. They also partner closely with me during the lifetime of each search and present only the most qualified applicants. If a resume comes from The Carolan Group, I know it is someone we need to get in front of the hiring manager. They’re that good!"

How to Prepare a Presentation for an MSL Interview with Kathy Gann MSL Talk

In this episode, my guest is Kathy Gann. Kathy is a former MSL director of Mallinckrodt and Syneos Health and we talk about how to prepare a presentation for an MSL interview. Great information so anyone preparing for an interview should check this out.   In this episode: Expect the unexpected Three types of presentation What are the interviewers listening for? How much practice is required to ensure a GOOD presentation? Advice for someone who gets a question they don’t have the answer Interesting interview stories of presentations gone bad Kathy’s advice for aspiring MSL candidates?   Kathy Gann’s LinkedIn

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The Medical Science Liaison Presentation

• Tips & Tricks for Candidates
• January 4, 2022

Shine in Your Interview

During the face-to-face interview, a candidate for a Medical Science Liaison (MSL) position will be asked to give a presentation. The candidate may be asked to present material of their own, but most often, the candidate will be asked to give an MSL presentation based on a clinical paper provided by a hiring manager.

The MSL presentation serves multiple purposes:

• It allows the hiring manager and others in attendance to assess a candidate’s scientific knowledge. This includes evaluating a candidate’s ability to synthesize information and apply that information to the Company’s product(s).
• Beyond demonstrating what a candidate knows about the Company and its products, the presentation allows a candidate to demonstrate what he/she knows about a therapeutic area, a Company’s competitors, and the marketplace.
• The presentation also lets the audience know if a candidate is professional and relatable and how he/she performs under pressure, handles questions, and tends to their appearance.

The Company simulates a real-world experience, hence; the audience in a setting that is conducive to presenting material (e.g., conference room). If a candidate is free to present their own material, it’s recommended that the presentation is on a scientific/clinical topic that is relevant to the Company. If the candidate is given the topic and guidelines, it’s critical for the candidate to strictly adhere to what’s been provided.

Preparing for the MSL Presentation

• Periodically, a candidate is asked to give a presentation to one person (after the group presentation). This is to learn if you can handle impromptu requests.
• Practice, but do not memorize your slide deck. Be prepared to present your material out of sequence. Keep your presentation within the bounds given. Often, you’ll have 10 minutes to present and 5 minutes to answer questions.
• Have your presentation ready to digitally submit in a timely manner. The Company may ask for it before your arrival so they can set up the room. Make sure you’ve checked for spelling, grammar, typos, etc. before submitting the presentation. Have another person review your material before you hit “send.”
• Technology can fail. It’s advisable to print copies of your presentation. At a minimum, take 6 printed copies with you. If the audience is no more than 10, print 10 copies.
• You’ll want your presentation on your laptop and on a flash drive. Know how to hook up a projector. Additionally, take your own laser pointer.

Answering Questions During the MSL Presentation

• Members of the audience may interrupt you and ask questions during the presentation. Or someone may do something annoying like clicking their ballpoint pen. Remember, this is part of the “test.” Your audience wants to learn how you handle various situations.
• If you get a question for which you do not know the answer, it’s acceptable to say you do not have an answer, but that you will speak to the Medical Information Department or the Medical Director (others) to get the information. Promise delivery of the information within 24-48 hours. This will inform the inquisitor that you know how to navigate the Company to find answers.
• You may be asked a question in multiple ways. Be prepared to answer calmly. This process is often used to learn if you get frustrated.
• It’s okay for you ask questions of audience members.

Rocking the MSL Presentation

• Introduce yourself. Warm-up and engage the audience with a story that you can connect to the presentation material. If you know who is in the room, the introduction is a good time to acknowledge your audience (e.g., “It’s good to have legal, medical, and administration representatives in the audience today.”).
• Step your audience into each section of your presentation, for example: “For the next 5 minutes we will review…”
• Look at the audience, not at the screen. Have a few notecards, if you need prompts.
• Be humble, confident, and poised. This presentation can make or break you. This is not the time to be an egomaniac.
• Present facts, not conjecture. Your presentation must be evidence-based and fair and balanced. When you can relate information to safety and efficacy, do so.
• Engage your audience as much as possible. Figure out where you can have 2-3 interactions with the audience. It’s good to create a conversation.

Evaluating the MSL Presentation

Take some time after every presentation to review what you believe went well and what could be improved. If possible, ask the hiring manager/audience for their feedback. Also, let the recruiter you are working with know how the presentation went. The recruiter may have feedback from the hiring manager to provide you.

Good luck with your presentations. Remember practice makes perfect. Hopefully, these insights will help you knock the ball out of the park!

If you liked this article, you might also want to read Top 10 Job Search Tips for Medical Science Liaisons (MSLs) .

5. How to Prepare a Presentation for an MSL Interview with Kathy Gann

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Apr 21, 2020

In this episode, my guest is Kathy Gann. Kathy is a former MSL director of Mallinckrodt and Syneos Health and we talk about how to prepare a presentation for an MSL interview. Great information so anyone preparing for an interview should check this out.

In this episode:

• Expect the unexpected
• Three types of presentation
• What are the interviewers listening for?
• How much practice is required to ensure a GOOD presentation?
• Advice for someone who gets a question they don’t have the answer
• Interesting interview stories of presentations gone bad
• Kathy’s advice for aspiring MSL candidates?

Kathy Gann’s LinkedIn

About the Podcast

MSL Talk is a podcast hosted by Tom Caravela, MSL Recruiter and Founder of The Carolan Group, an Executive Search firm dedicated to the recruitment and placement of Medical Affairs professionals. The show will feature helpful information for current Medical Science Liaisons, job seekers looking to break into the pharmaceutical industry in their first MSL role and Medical Affairs leaders interested in hearing good industry conversation and medical affairs discussions. Topics will include helpful advice for aspiring MSLs, recruitment strategies, statistics and data, industry news, hiring and medical affairs trends as well as plenty of interview advice and career tips. The format is 30-60 minutes and mostly unscripted with the hope it is informative as all as inspiring!

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Journal of the MSL Society

Go Beyond Interview Tips- Deploy an MSL Interview Theme

March 27, 2020 Author(s): Ken Kupersmith

There are many interview and meeting tips such as start with a firm handshake and good eye contact, bring copies of your resume or even “Don’t forget to wear matching socks” my favorite from the movie “A Few Good Men”.  These types of tips can be valuable but they are one-offs, scattered across the interaction with no unifying principle or theme to align them together. Most roles do not lend themselves to a whole theme for your interview interactions.  Fortunately the Medical Science Liaison (MSL) role does and it is hiding in plain sight. Since MSLs are also scientists, cut from the Einstein cloth, why not create a unifying principle during your interviews? Not of space and time with a dash of gravity to curve the geometry but rather a theme lifted directly from the MSL role of meeting a stakeholder or KOL (key opinion leader) for the first time and developing a real relationship.

Tip 1:  Do not think of it as an interview, instead use the more familiar skill of an MSL meeting where you are prepared to successfully collaborate with an internal stakeholder/KOL!

I’m a recruiter, not a physicist, my apologies to all my scienced friends that I just “unified” in alienation to my Einstein junk science summation.  The point I am making and the interview theme that I am proposing is to treat your interviews as an MSL would approach an internal stakeholder or a KOL. Your interview theme starts with displacing the word “interview” and replacing it with the less stressful, more familiar work “meeting”.  If you are job searching you might have 5 interviews in a year, which is not enough at-bats in baseball to even have a meaningful average. Your familiarity with being interviewed is usually not a skill you have honed with enough repetitive practice so it is my assertion that those who are already doing it well are appropriating a skill they already have developed and applying it to the interview. That skill is using a work meeting to develop a meaningful relationship exchanging useful information, i.e. what MSLs do.

TIP 2:  Be prepared like an MSL – Research everyone you are meeting with and the products/pipeline of the company through multiple channels including LinkedIn, Google searches, publications/writings, reaching out to people you have in common, etc. to figure out how your upcoming “meeting” can bring value to them and in turn an actionable insight (job offer) to you.

Let’s discuss what attributes make for a really good MSL meeting.  MSLs are expected to bring customized value to their meetings with KOLs.  They do this by preparing for the meeting through research; they get to know what they can about the person they are meeting through proprietary databases, LinkedIn, Google searches/publications, talking to colleagues, etc.  They go into the meeting with the purpose of creating a lasting relationship by delivering value specific to the needs and likes of the person they are meeting. MSLs strive to bring value to their KOL meetings every single time they meet or talk on the phone to ensure that they are building a strong relationship that gets them back in the door on a regular basis.   MSLs seek to gather actionable insights that make the relationship even stronger. The MSL role requires both science skills and interpersonal skills.

Tip 3:  Your Scientific Presentation during the “meeting” is critical for demonstrating your MSL capabilities that combine your scientific acumen with your relationship building soft skills.

The number one determinative factor of interview outcomes for my MSL candidates is how they did on their scientific presentations.  The importance of the scientific presentation to an MSL candidate getting a job offer is exemplified by the MSL Society offering a three-day live workshop to improve this specific skill.  Dr. Samuel Dyer holds these workshops to go beyond the science and teach scientific presentation. MSL presentation skills are of course grounded in science but they come to life because the strong interpersonal soft skills of the MSL make them compelling must see TV.  The vast majority of MSL hiring processes require a scientific presentation. Do not think of this as a test or an interview, just an opportunity to build a relationship with your audience through science and demonstrating your most basic MSL role capabilities.

Tip 4:  Prepare 5+ Success Stories that demonstrate your experience and create a bonding opportunity with your audience. 

Did you ever have a child ask you to tell them a story?  Humans of all ages love a good story and a story well delivered is a bonding experience; prepare 5+ success stories for every “meeting” you have that you hope will end in a job offer.  I use the term Success Story to go beyond the STAR interview technique of answering questions. The STAR technique was designed to help you go beyond a potentially mundane list of tasks and responsibilities you might use to describe your work experience.  STAR stands for: Situation (a project or challenge faced), Task (your responsibilities/assignments), Action (your steps to solve the situation) and the Result of the action you took.  STAR components are like the raw data and science that goes into an MSL’s scientific presentation but the success story brings it to life in a bonding moment with your audience.  This is what MSLs need to do well; it will be how you get the job offer.

If the first question you are asked is to “Tell me about your background” start by thanking them for that question and roll right into your first Success Story.   Tell me about your background is the most typical first question, yet they have your resume in front of them, they already know your background. What they are really asking for is a story; this is your opportunity to deliver and bond.

Tip 5:  Prepare 3+ open ended questions to demonstrate your interest.  When asked if you have any questions, no is the wrong answer.

Having 3+ open ended questions at the ready demonstrates your interest and excitement in joining the team.  Try to keep your conversations flowing in both directions, you speaking in Success Stories and actively listening and drilling down on their responses.  Take the time while listening to recalibrate how the discussion is going and make adjustments such as directing the conversation to your strengths via Success Stories, if possible.

By creating a strategy of approaching the interview process as an MSL would engage a KOL or internal stakeholder you will be simulating your capabilities to function as an MSL.  The interview process will then allow you to demonstrate your MSL chops and hopefully hear one of the best movie quotes ever, “You had me at hello, you had me at hello” and get the job offer.

Ken Kupersmith is a specialized Executive Recruiter for BioPharma Medical Affairs/MSLs at Smith Hanley Associates, LLC  in placing Medical Science Liaisons (MSLs), Medical Directors, Medical Information, Medical Communications and Regulatory Affairs Top Talent nationwide concentrating in all Therapeutic Areas . 

Have an opinion on this article? Send a message to the editor.

How did Raygun qualify for the Olympics? Is she really the best Australia has to offer?

Since Australian breaker Rachael "Raygun" Gunn failed to score a single point in any of her Olympic bouts, many have asked how she qualified for the Games.

Fellow breaker and anthropologist Lucas Marie says she won her qualification "fair and square" last year, but African American man Malik Dixon has criticised the Olympic body for letting her in.

What's next?

Breaking will not be an event at the 2028 Los Angeles Olympic Games — a decision made before Raygun's performance.

The 2024 Paris Olympics marked breaking's debut as a sport at the global event, with 36-year-old lecturer and breaker Rachael "Raygun" Gunn representing Australia for the first time.

Having failed to win a single point in any of her Olympic bouts, Raygun quickly became a viral sensation.

The question on many people's minds now is: How did she even qualify?

Lucas Marie is a breaker who has competed, performed, taught and judged breaking competitions over the past 25 years. He's also an anthropologist who recently co-authored an article with Gunn.

He says the answer to that question is simple.

"There was an Oceania qualifier in which any B-boy or B-girl from Australia [or] New Zealand could enter, and that was in Sydney in October 2023," he told ABC News.

"And leading up to that, there were a lot of other events in which breakers were competing.

"She won those battles fair and square and won the qualification in Sydney.

"And it wasn't really a surprise to anyone. 

"She's been fairly consistent, winning or coming second or third at a lot of breaking events in Australia for the last five to 10 years."

Marie said there was nothing out of the ordinary about Raygun's performance.

"It's not like gymnastics where there's this kind of agreed-upon standard," he said.

"It's always had a rawness to it. It's always had an improvisational kind of quality. And I think looking different and trying different stuff has always been celebrated.

"And I think Raygun, in a way, was just expressing a core kind of hip hop trait in a way a lot of breakers do."

He described her efforts as bold.

"I thought — and this is how I judge a lot of breaking events — I thought, 'Oh, she's making some really interesting choices to mimic Australian animals.' And you can kind of see the choices that she's making in the moment."

Is she the best Australia has to offer?

Team Australia chef de mission Anna Meares insisted after Raygun's performance that she was the best breaker the country had to offer. But is this true?

"It's sometimes just who's performing better on the day," Marie said.

"And at the qualification event in which she won, and other events in which she's won, she performed better on that day and won the ticket.

"That doesn't mean she's the best. It doesn't really work like that.

"I think she's a great breaker. She won the qualification. She's won other events in the past, and she was a good representative for Australia at that competition."

Asked whether there were B-girls in Perth, regional Victoria or rural Brisbane who might have qualified but could not afford to travel to Sydney for the tryouts, Marie agreed this was possible.

"Of course, there's breakers all over the country that maybe should have been in that event, but they weren't."

Breaking will not carry over to the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles, a decision made before Raygun's battle.

Marie described this as sad.

"Maybe, based on the ratings, they'll reassess that and maybe allocate some medals to breaking," he said.

"I really hope that's the case, and I hope that for other breakers who want to compete in it as a dance sport."

Marie said that at the end of the day people should remember they were dealing with a human.

"As a friend of Rachael's, there's a human being who's getting a lot of negative attention," he said.

"I think people kind of miss that sometimes and forget the human aspect of all this."

'Toying with the culture'

Malik Dixon is an African American who has been living in Australia for more than a decade and is a Sydney University graduate.

He said Raygun made a total "mockery" out of breaking at the Olympics.

"She was dressed like a member of the cricket team or an Australian PE teacher, and from that point it just seemed like satire," Mr Dixon told ABC News.

"It just looked like somebody who was toying with the culture and didn't know how culturally significant it was being the first time in the Olympics and just how important it was to people who really cherish hip hop and one of the elements of hip hop, which is breakdancing.

"It made me think, was Borat her breakdancing coach?"

Mr Dixon said too many people felt entitled to African American culture.

"The African American space has been one where we've shared our community so much and without any restraints, any barriers, roadblocks, obstacles, any gatekeepers, that essentially what should have been African American cultural capital is just shared, which is cool," he said. 

"We like to share, right? 

"We shared 400 years of free labour.

"To see Rachael in her attempt to be a part of the culture just be grossly underwhelming made it seem like she didn't take it seriously."

Olympics body criticised for Raygun qualification

Mr Dixon criticised the body that qualified Raygun, saying she devalued breaking with her performance.

"Whatever governing body nominated her as Australia's entrant into the Olympics either did not understand the assignment or didn't really believe in the integrity or significance of breakdancing, because if they did they would just say, rather than disrespect the culture, we're just not ready to send an applicant this year."

He said Raygun was extremely audacious and not self-aware.

"You've got to know your role, know your position, know your limitation," he said. 

"And I think that part of privilege is saying that there are no limits to what I can do. 

"Part of privilege is having the authority to say that there are no limits and there are no requirements, there are no prerequisites to what I can do."

Raygun's degrees do not hold much water with Mr Dixon.

"Due to consumerism, this Foundational Black American product, which is hip hop, is global," he said.

"And even people who have no connection to any African Americans or any local or regional things that come out in these songs, they have become a part of the whole experience now.

"If I came in and said that I was an authority on Greek music and I was going against the grain of what the mainstream Greek musicians thought, or the school of thought, and I've said that I was the authority, people would check me on that.

"If I had a PhD in sprinting, does that qualify me to go against Noah Lyles? No, it doesn't."

He also doubts Raygun was the best breaker Australia had to offer.

"[There's] got to be somebody out here that's better than that! The kangaroo! The sprinkler! She did the sprinkler out there, man!" he said.

Should everybody just lighten up?

Should we lighten up? Mr Dixon does not believe so.

"Larrikinism is used as a get-out-of-jail-free card and to escape responsibility of how words or actions impact a hurt person," he said.

"But when the majority culture is offended, there's no playing around.

"This is a part of my culture, and I don't think Australians are in a place to tell me how I should feel about breakdancing being mocked on an international stage.

"People who don't have any or limited access to black people or hip hop culture now may see Rachael and her buffoonery as a representation of hip hop and black culture.

"People who were already side-eyeing breakdancing as an Olympic sport, Rachael Gunn has put the nail in that coffin.

"This might be the most viral clip of the whole Olympics. From a comedy standpoint, she's got it, but from an Olympics perspective, its regressive."

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Related Stories

'i absolutely love her courage': meares defends raygun after wave of online ridicule for paris performance.

In an Olympic sport that may be one and done, Australia's first breaker bows out in 'different' performance

'All about originality': Olympics breakdancing judge joins community backing Raygun amid online criticism

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MSL interview final presentation.

Hey everyone I’m a MD who’s got a interview for a MSL role, I have interviewed before for Medical Affairs roles but this would be my first MSL IV presentation. I was given a subject to make a presentation on “Oncology topic of my choice” and no further guidance. I’m lost in terms of presenting a topic I’m a clinician so in my mind it’s present disease , explain disease, current best practices , new research , implementation of said research, clinical need/efficacy of said new treatment, bio stats of disease, mortality of disease state in the usa, potential to become 1st like, impact on patient lives, key takeaways. Questions

Currently I am a consultant I often present to board members, clinical specialist, researchers and execs on high mortality conditions and health economics and possible new solutions.

Sorry typing while driving ! Not good I know !

Any insight google hasn’t been much help just vague podcasts so far.

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