Great products, great approach to sales - Professional Sales Representative Merck Employee Review

3.0
Aug 30, 2013
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Great sales strategies, Marketing gave us (sales) great resources to utilize to sell our products. Solid pipeline and joint ventures made SP feel like a cutting edge company to represent. Salary was good.

Cons

Very disorganized administratively for sales force. Paperwork, Expenses, exams/ training materials, Periodic reports not due in an organized or scheduled manner, making them easy to miss deadlines...it felt like deadlines were all over the place. It was made very obvious that the sales force was meant to stay in the field, and it is extremely difficult to advance out of the field. Any aspiration to move into corporate is akin to climbing Everest. I can honestly say that I was expected to be in the field (calling on doctors) from 8:30-5:00 with no lunch hour (and that usually went through to dinner if that was when I could see the doctor in his office) and then come home to do an hour and a half of work--at the very least. I was expected to do work on the weekends as well. Much of this could be attributed to my manager, but this was the culture of the company at the time. I pulled 60-70 hour weeks (working time) all the time and was physically exhausted. We went to work in the snow, ice, hurricanes, you name it-it didn't matter if the "schools were closed." Is it snowing/dangerous in your zone? Make calls in Susie's zone today, she won't mind (btw-yes she did--I trampled on her calls.)

Explore other reviews about Merck

5.0
Jul 12, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Work Life Balance, Benefits, Remote Work

Cons

Easy to stagnate if not being proactive about building skills and networking

4.0
Jun 30, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Great benefits like medical/dentist/vision, pension, stock option, 401k match. Co workers are excellent, pretty good on site symposiums, lot of diversity clubs/activities. Innovation is extremely welcomed. Diversity in research portfolio. AI/ML is heavily invested to make databases more efficient.

Cons

Micro managing, especially within the biologics department, potentially others. Promotions are limited, and pay bump is poor. Company invests too much in buying companies rather than keeping talent - lay offs let go of great talented people. Merck is afraid of investing into exploratory biology and doesn’t take risk - they even admit they would rather see other companies clinical data or R&D data rather than taking a risk. Although it’s slow going in building new software, current databases are slow and needs much improvement. Extremely poor work/life balance.

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