Resources

• miLEAD Consulting Group
• U-M Innovation Partnerships
• How to Use the STAR Interview Response Technique (Indeed, Oct. 2, 2025)

Transcript

Anne-Sophie Bohrer

Hello everyone and welcome to ‘What’s up, Doc?’, an initiative developed by the University of Michigan Office of Postdoctoral Affairs. “What’s Up, Doc?’ is a professional development interview series created to support the career exploration efforts and professional development needs of current UM postdocs. You will hear from former UM postdocs discuss their own postdoc experience and share advice on their experience transitioning into their career of choice. We hope you will get the answers you want and need to make an informed decision about your own career. I am Anne-Sophie Bohrer.

Maurinne Bonnet

And I am Maurinne Bonnet.

Anne-Sophie Bohrer

Today we are joined by our guest, Doctor Emily Sherman. Emily obtained her Ph.D. in chemical biology from the University of Michigan in 2020 and completed her postdoc in the Michigan Medical School in 2021. After her postdoc Emily joined Takara as a territory manager, where she is now an accounts manager. Welcome, Emily, and thank you for joining us.

Emily Sherman

Thank you guys for having me. I’m excited to chat.

Maurinne Bonnet

Yeah. We’re so excited to have you here. So, Emily, like Anne-Sophie said, you are currently working at Takara. So I guess the first question would be, could you briefly tell us about your company? What are you guys doing there?

Emily Sherman

Yeah, for sure. So Takara Bio is a Japanese company, we have a wholly owned subsidiary in the U.S. called Takara Bio USA. So you know we think of like Thermo as kind of the Amazon of the life sciences reagents company. Takara is like a smaller vendor in that same space. So at the core, we’re an enzyme company, so a lot of people know us for things like polymerases, cloning, Next Gen. sequencing, but we’ve really expanded into a lot of other areas like cell and gene therapy. Kind of anything molecular biology we have reagents for so, we have thousands of products all across kind of the life sciences.

Anne-Sophie Bohrer

Great. So Emily, let’s go back to 2021. When you transition from a bench position to a sales role. So how did you choose to pursue this career and when did you make that choice?

Emily Sherman

Yeah. So you know what’s funny is sales was really not on my radar at all admittedly. When I was, you know, in my training for PhD and postdoc, I didn’t even really know that it was an option, to be honest with you, my, my only experience with sales reps in the lab would be like, you know, the pipette people, the gloves people, that kind of just come barging into the lab and (laugh) ask you who you’re getting your plastics from. And, you know, they leave a flyer or something and leave. So a recruiter actually reached out to me for my current role, and honestly, when she first called me and asked, you know, Iis this something you ever thought about as a career?” I was kind of like, uhm, no (laughs). Like honestly I was, I was not sure if I was interested and she was like “You know, just let me send you the the job descriptions, what kind of person Takara specifically was looking for.” And they were interested in, like, someone with a science background, a Ph.D. So, you know, it was, it was really tough times. Like, I defended my Ph.D. in 2020 and I I did a postdoc with my mentor kind of knowing he was just opening his first lab and he really knew the whole time that, you know, I was really just looking for my next position. Uhm, so I was kind of job searching, it was during the pandemic. It was just a really tough time to find jobs, much like it is now to be totally honest with you. So you know this recruiter reached out and I was like “You know, at least you know it would allow me to stay here in Michigan.” I was looking to move into industry and I did not want to move to the coast. So a lot of times, if you want a career in like R&D in biotech space, you kind of have to move to like San Diego, San Francisco, Boston, maybe New York. And I really wanted to stay here in the Midwest and it’s a lot of, like, small startups and it’s kind of tough to find positions in, you know, the Ann Arbor area specifically. So that’s why I was open to this recruiter when she talked to me and I looked through the job description. When I looked at the salary, quite honestly, uhm, all of those things I was like, you know, this sounds like something that I could could take a leap for and worst case scenario, you know, if I hate it, at least I can spend a year or so, like making some good progress, paying off my, my undergrad student loans. (laughs) So it was definitely a leap of faith and, like, not something that I was planning for, but it has worked out. I’ve been here for like four and a half years now and I’m really loving it so.

Maurinne Bonnet

That’s a very nice story. So it sounds for you it was not necessarily a whole plan about like transitioning into sales. But if somebody is listening right now and they already know they would like to transition into sales, how do you think they should navigate their transition? Are there any opportunities that you might be aware of that you can combine that with your current pos doc to be more ready and prepared for these type of roles if no recruiter is coming after you like in your case?

Emily Sherman

Yeah, you know, I will say I do feel like I got lucky with kind of the timing and having this recruiter reach out to me. Uhm, and I’ll just as a side note, I will say I remember, you know, being a postdoc and Ph.D. student listening to these kind of same kind of career panels and like every time the answer from the candidate was always like, it’s always very serendipitous how these people end up in their roles. And they’re like “Well, I don’t really know how I got here.” But, uhm, you know looking at other people, I guess that have these type of roles, the only other thing I would say that could potentially be useful, particularly if you’re really interested in like climbing the ladder so to speak, like the corporate ladder thinking of being like a VP or CEO or something like that, uhm, in this space, having an MBA or some sort of formal like business education could be helpful. Or maybe something along the lines of like I know the tech Transfer Office does some fellowships and training programs and things of that sort, so that could also be useful. miLead consulting, I know that’s something that some of my peers did. And that that could also be useful. I could see how that could help.

Maurinne Bonnet

Yeah, that’s great. Great idea. Thank you.

Anne-Sophie Bohrer

Great. So as I mentioned earlier, your role within the company evolved since you first started. So you initially started as territory manager. Can you explain what this role is, what it means? Uhm, but also, what was an average day in the job is or was like at the time, really right after you transitioned after your postdoc?

Emily Sherman

Yeah, for sure. Uhm, so for anyone who’s unfamiliar with these sales role type of positions, they can come under a variety of names. Some companies would call it a territory manager, some people call it an account manager, account executive, key account manager, maybe regional account manager. Something along those lines. Essentially what I do is I oversee a territory. I cover Michigan, Minnesota, Indiana and a small portion of Ohio, and so all of the institutions, of course, academics like University of Michigan, Michigan State and beyond, as well as like small biotech companies, government, biotech and pharma, hospitals, diagnostic companies, all different kinds of accounts, large and small in my territory are managed by me. And so what that means is I am their primary point of contact for just about anything that they may need from Takara. So that could look like anything from just sending someone a simple price quote. Uhm, it can look like managing contracts with the larger institutions and universities. On my day-to-day meetings with labs or individual customers, it could be like giving product recommendations, answering, you know, small questions like “Is X product compatible with my sample type?” or “Will this work for this experiment?” Just kind of connecting those dots and helping point people in the right direction. So really, you know, my responsibility is to kind of take care of all of these accounts, all of our customers at all these different accounts, uhm, as well as, you know, to be the expert on our products I guess I would say. So we have thousands of products, which is a lot, but, you know, my job is to kind of be familiar with all of them so that I can make the right recommendations and things like that for my customers. So it’s kind of like running your own little business, you could say like my territory is you know, it’s up to me what I want to do if I want to focus on certain account types, uhm, you know, targeting things for growth, that sort of thing. It’s it’s really up to me how I choose to do that and to grow my business, which is really fun, you know. It’s a it’s a challenge, but it’s a fun one and it’s fun to sort of work for yourself. Like, I do have a manager, and of course I work for Takara, but I also like work for me, which is fulfilling, I would say.

Anne-Sophie Bohrer

Cool. Thank you.

Maurinne Bonnet

So you you said that it sounds like very fun to to to do this type of job, but also kind of challenging and so I would like to follow up on that. I think we’re interested in knowing what would you say are the greatest challenges that you have faced in this position? And because it sounds also fun. What what are the biggest rewards of your job?

Emily Sherman

Yeah. So you know, it’s very different from bench work for sure. 

Maurinne Bonnet

I can imagine.

Emily Sherman

And I will say that was one of my biggest, uhm, hesitations with taking this job is like, you know, I’ve just spent so many years doing research. I had done all kinds of teaching like written grant done all this hard work over the years and I’m like, am I sort of throwing this away (laughs) by by switching over to, you know, a career in sales? There’s maybe like, a little bit of a stigma about going into sales, specifically. I feel like my brain is challenged every day, for sure. Uhm, and the, you know, some of the big differences would be like now I feel like when I was at the bench, one of the hardest parts was like keeping up with the literature, reading papers and keeping up with everything that’s going on in our field. I don’t really do that anymore. We do some journal clubs and things like that from time to time. But now it’s more like keeping up with our own products as well as like our competitors’ and like other companies in our space. So, first and foremost, I have to have at least a basic understanding of all those; the very popular products that are used a lot, I have to have a deep understanding of. As well as just being able to understand what’s kind of happening in the broader market space, like what other you know, systems and technologies our customers are using, what kind of problems they might be seeing. And just staying, like overall informed, I would say is a challenge because everyone’s always, you know, pushing the boundaries, launching new technologies, things like that, and it’s much like research, it’s a lot to keep up with. And the other thing is, you know, I manage a pretty big territory. So, you know, just talking about this role in general. If you are in this type of role for Thermo, you might just cover like University of Michigan. We’re more mid-sized, so I cover four states like I said, and then if you were to work for an even smaller company, there are other reps that I’ve met that cover like the whole country or half the country. So that’s kind of the range of what you could be working with. Uhm, and so my territory is somewhere in the middle but it still feels pretty large because I have about a hundred accounts and it’s just a lot. A lot of people, a lot of different customer types, anything from like a CEO level to like a graduate student doing all kinds of different projects and just switching your brain back and forth (laughs) in those ways can be, can be tough. So it’s a lot of quick learning and like staying, staying up to date on things.

Maurinne Bonnet

Yeah. Thanks for sharing all of that. That’s very interesting to learn more about your job. So I think for people in the audience now that you finally convinced them that, you know, a sales job is amazing, uhm, what, what would you say are the skills, either technical, transferable, interpersonal skills, that you did leverage from your graduate and postdoc trainings that help you to learn your first job, and that you think are like really essential to succeed in your career and you know, be comfortable in the job you’re doing?

Emily Sherman

Yeah. So something that a lot of people told me that I believe to be true is that really getting your Ph.D. and even part of your postdoc, you could say, although a postdoc is is a different level, but you’re really just learning to learn and it didn’t really click with me until, like, later, but it’s very true I think. You know, having a Ph.D. essentially means that you are able to, you know, come into a new project, a new lab, what have you, and you might not know how to get this project done on your first day, but you know by the end. And you know, you know what you know and what you don’t know. You know how to figure it out, what resources to use, things like that. And by the time you are done with your Ph.D., you should have that confidence that, you know, even if you don’t know everything you need to accomplish something, you can figure it out. That’s a huge part of the process, I think. And that is very applicable in my job today. Like there will be things that come up, new products or I might talk with a group who has questions about their project, and maybe I don’t fully understand what they’re doing the first time they tell me about it, but I know that with my background, I can figure it out and kind of connect the dots. So I think just having that general learning how to learn ability is very important because again, there’s just a lot to constantly be keeping up on in this role. The other thing I would say is just having good like time management, being organized. Again, it’s like a lot of different customers that we work with, a lot of accounts, a lot of products and it’s just a lot to keep track of. But again, in my Ph.D., like I was never just working on one project, you always have multiple things going on, uhm, and similarly, you just have to kind of stay organized, stay focused, make plans for yourself and like, use your time effectively to, to get it all done. So I would say those are, are the major skills. And then of course, you know the scientific background helps me every day. I will say compared to some of my colleagues who don’t come from an actual research background, it is much easier for me personally to like, make good progress with customers, understand what’s going on and like be able to problem solve having done a lot of these experiments myself, whereas someone who only has maybe a business background like the sales aspect might be easier for them, but you know the actual relating to those customers, understanding exactly what they’re looking for and what they’re doing is much harder to grasp without a science background. So that is one thing people asked me a lot is like “Do you think that your Ph.D. was necessary for your job?” and I say, hands down, absolutely. I don’t think I could do this, uhm, without it, and like, I don’t think I could work in sales for like some other industry that I wasn’t familiar with like, this is a very niche and specific area of sales and like I definitely lean heavy into the technical side of that.

Anne-Sophie Bohrer

Cool. Thank you. Uhm, so initially you mentioned that you were contacted by a recruiter during your postdoc, uhm, and so as we learn more about your job, your career in the sales field, can you talk about your experience with the application and the interview processes? Uhm, is there any advice that you know you can share with current postdocs who you know would like to pursue a some other career things they need to know about, but also from the standpoint of being contacted by a recruiter, in your opinion, did it make things easier or was it just a way for you to be aware of the position that you clearly would not have been aware of before?

Emily Sherman

Yeah, so it’s been four or five years since I was contacted for this role, but I still get contacted by recruiters on LinkedIn today and I kind of always follow this I guess my first piece of advice would be, you know, one if you’re job searching, you can turn on your open to work feature on LinkedIn, that helps people find you. But you know, it never hurts to take a call from a recruiter. The time that I was looking, I had plenty of recruiters reach out and I will say, definitely more than half of them, it was like not relevant, you know, they were looking for more of like a bachelor’s level, like maybe hiring for a technician position something that was not, not a fit for what I was looking for, and that’s OK. I think it never hurts to, you know, give recruiters the time of day because you never know when you will be looking for a position and to be connected with them, and having actually answered their message, at least, you know bodes well for you. And then ultimately, it’s up to you to decide, either once you’ve been through the interview process or once you’ve seen the full job description, whatever it may be, it’s up to you to decide if you’re interested or not, and if it’s a no, that’s totally fine. That’s exactly what I did with this role. You know, I did a phone screening essentially with that recruiter. And then as far as the interview process you asked, I believe I had three interviews with Takara folks. So the first one was with my current manager, the hiring manager. The second was with another manager on the sales team and then the last one was with our VP of sales, so my boss’s boss. Uhm, and then you know I received an offer after the third interview. And the recruiter’s advice to me, which I appreciate, was if you’re going to do the interviews, let’s do the interviews and you can decide at the end. You know, if you don’t want the job, if you’re too scared or it sounds like not your speed or whatever, you don’t have to say yes. But just get that offer in hand like it feels good to have options. Uhm, yeah, so that’s what I did. She was immensely helpful to me in preparing for interviews. Like, I’m still very grateful to this recruiter because no one has spent this much time with me, like, actually preparing me for interviews. We talked for each one, uhm, and a lot of her tips like I’ll never forget actually. Uhm, something that I recommend for anyone is like if you’ve heard of the STAR method for interviews, that’s a very good strategy. Like essentially the biggest lesson was to just like, be over prepared. You never want to be underprepared for an interview. It is like such a bad feeling to get in an interview and have someone ask you a question and you’re like “Oh crap, like I totally could have looked this up beforehand, but I didn’t”. So that’s my biggest advice is to just over prepare for every interview and when you’re in the interview process for any job, you know, treat it like it’s the job and you really want it. There’s, you know, you might be interviewing for multiple jobs, but to that hiring manager or whoever you’re with, like, this is the only job you’re super interested in, like you are all in until you get to the end and you get that offer.

Maurinne Bonnet

Always keep your options open.

Emily Sherman

Yeah.

Anne-Sophie Bohrer

Yes, especially in this economy.

Emily Sherman

Oh, I know it’s. I really feel for anyone job hunting right now because it is tough out there for sure.

Maurinne Bonnet

Actually, now you’re saying that, what would you like to tell your past postdoc self about the job search?

Emily Sherman

You know, I, I don’t know. I guess it would just be…

Maurinne Bonnet

Keep going, you got it!

Emily Sherman

Yeah. Exactly like I, I wouldn’t change a thing because you know, I took, I took some calls from recruiters, got some interview experience that, and I value it all and I, my only advice would be to just you know, take the leap of faith, I guess. And that’s what I did. And I really don’t regret it. I would say the biggest thing to myself or anyone is you can always change course. Like I remember every decision feeling just so permanent. Like choosing a lab, I’m going to be stuck here for many years. Choosing a job. I kind of have the same mindset of, like, well, this, this better workout for like the rest of my career. But that’s not actually true. Like you can always change course if you’re not happy, you can see what other options are out there. I’m sure if I wanted to go back to the lab, like I still feel like I could pick up a pipette like today and set up a PCR like I know I could still do it all. So, you know, if you decide something’s not for you or if your life circumstances change or what have you, you, it is never too late to, to change course so.

Maurinne Bonnet

I’m glad your experience with recruiter works out well, uhm, that’s not the experience I have, (laughs) but it sounds like you just need to find the good one.

Emily Sherman

Yeah, I mean, I will say too, I’ve also spoken to plenty of recruiters that like we’re not good or just were, you know, clearly didn’t do their homework, and I’m like “Why is this person even calling me because I’m so clearly not a fit for this” or whatever it may be, so they are not all gems but you know, taking five minutes to just find that out can never hurt, I guess.

Maurinne Bonnet

Yeah.

Anne-Sophie Bohrer

Yeah. Well, thank you. That was all really interesting, and honestly, like eye opening when it comes to big transitions like this. Uhm, and so now we’re really getting into the last minute of that interview, uhm, and so now it’s time for a fun thing that we call our rapid fire questions. So really the only rule is for you to give the first answer that comes to mind. So are you ready?

Emily Sherman

All right. Yeah, let’s do it.

Anne-Sophie Bohrer

OK, let’s go then. So what is a fun fact about yourself?

Speaker 3

So my fun fact is that I have sailed around the world on a ship. When I tell people that, their first question is always “Oh my God, did you sail the ship?” (laughs) No, I did not! I was just a passenger. But I did a semester at sea while I was in college, so in 2015. We did a, a semester long voyage that started on the West Coast of the U.S. So we boarded the ship in, well, in Mexico, actually, and we sailed to like Hawaii, Japan, all through southern Asia around the tip of Africa, and we ended in Southampton, London area of the UK. So it took a few months, and we visited, I think, 12 countries. But it was such a blast.

Maurinne Bonnet

That’s awesome.

Anne-Sophie Bohrer

I bet it was, what a, what an opportunity. Amazing!

Emily Sherman

Yeah, it was. It really was.

Anne-Sophie Bohrer

Next one. So are you more of a movies or TV shows person?

Emily Sherman

Oh, definitely TV shows. I can’t sit through a two-hour movie, but I can, (laughs) I can sit through 5 episodes of a series on Netflix.

Maurinne Bonnet

I can definitely relate.

Anne-Sophie Bohrer

So what would you say to someone who’s having a tough week at work?

Emily Sherman

Oh man. Well, today is Friday. (laughs) That’s what I would say is just, you know, put your head down, get to, get to Friday, unplug for the weekend and just, get ready for the next week.

Anne-Sophie Bohrer

What is your favorite season?

Emily Sherman

I would say Fall. Fall is my favorite.

Anne-Sophie Bohrer

Especially being in the Midwest!

Emily Sherman

Exactly. Best weather, best, you know, scenery. It’s football season. All the good, like, pumpkin food I like, I like Fall a lot.

Maurinne Bonnet

Good answer.

Anne-Sophie Bohrer

And finally, you already shared one, so maybe another one, but what is the best career advice you ever received?

Emily Sherman

See, I mean drawing off of what I already said, I guess the best advice I got was just, don’t be afraid to hear out any opportunity. Uhm, don’t be afraid to try something new. And I guess the other thing would be like, don’t be afraid to make career decisions, uhm, based on like, your, your life and your personal circumstances. What’s good for someone else might not be good for you. What’s good for you might not be good for someone else. Uhm, you know like, just using the academic track as an example, that’s what we learn a lot of as grad students and postdocs is kind of the, the traditional grad school-postdoc-faculty path, and I knew immediately that that was not for me. And so I’m fortunate to have had people that were supportive of that. And you know, it’s okay, different strokes for different folks. It’s okay to, to do what you actually want because we only get one life, so you have to be happy with yourself every day and it’s okay to, to do something different or non-traditional.

Anne-Sophie Bohrer

Yeah. Amen to that.

Maurinne Bonnet

Yeah.

Anne-Sophie Bohrer

And I think, and you touched on this too ,uhm, prior but it’s also the mindset of, you know, like previous generations that your one job was going to be your whole career and it’s not the case anymore and, you know, like you might have like three, four, five different careers in a lifetime. And so I fully agree that if an opportunity comes, don’t, you know, think it’s beneath you or you’re not good enough for it. Just go for it. Worst case, it doesn’t work out. Best case, it does work out and you learn a ton of things, so thanks for sharing this.

Emily Sherman

Yeah. And I’ll say too something, I think sometimes you have to really play out like your worst fears. When I was deciding to take this job, it’s like “Okay, what is the worst? How bad could this be? You know, like, what’s the absolute worst-case scenario?” And I’m like, well, the worst-case scenario is like I get a few months into this and I just hate it, but at least, you know, my life is not going to be in danger, I’m going to have a paycheck, I’m going to have, you know, like, everything is going to be okay. Plenty of people, you know, don’t want to be unhappy, but it happens. And if that’s the case, you can always change course, but uhm, sometimes you really have to, like play that out in your head, because sometimes we definitely suffer more in imagination than in reality, so.

Maurinne Bonnet

Yeah. And you don’t know if you’re going to like it before you actually try it.

Emily Sherman

Exactly.

Maurinne Bonnet

So it’s like you try it, you like it, you stay. You don’t like it, next.

Yeah. Uhm, again, thank you very much Emily, for being there with us today and sharing your journey from bench science to sales. Uhm, so just a reminder for our audience, please do not hesitate to connect with Emily to talk about sailing or with follow up questions about her career. And follow our LinkedIn page for more episodes. With that I say see you next time Anne-Sophie and, Emily, see you maybe in 10 years to see where you’re at. And thank you again.

Anne-Sophie Bohrer

Yeah. Thank you. Bye, everyone.

Emily Sherman

Thank you guys.

Maurinne Bonnet

Bye.