I was contacted by Michael Page’s Dubai office regarding a Medical Manager role for a pharmaceutical company specializing in rare diseases. The process started smoothly enough, with a quick screening followed by what was described as the “real” interview. Unfortunately, the experience quickly revealed a significant mismatch between the interviewer’s understanding of the role and the industry she was recruiting for. Throughout the conversation, she commented on my professional achievements with what could only be described as thinly veiled condescension — “Oh, you enrolled 3 patients? 6 for that one? 80 here? Wow, 300, that’s a killer.” It was clear she had little grasp of the fundamental difference between mass-market pharmaceuticals and the orphan drug landscape. The comparisons she made to candidates “selling 200k boxes per month” were particularly enlightening — it’s a bit like comparing someone selling Toyota Corollas to someone overseeing Rolls-Royce distribution and wondering why the volume differs. For context, those “few hundred” rare-disease patients I enrolled represented a program with a $120 million budget allocation — but nuance, it seems, was not on the agenda that day. Ironically, the company she was recruiting for was one I had already collaborated with through their regional distributor. I was, quite literally, the only person who successfully enrolled patients on their drug since its launch in 2016 — after numerous “highly qualified” managers had tried and failed. In other words, I would have required neither onboarding nor training to assume the role effectively. Nevertheless, that didn’t seem to resonate. It felt very much like speaking to a wall — polite, polished, but ultimately immovable. A few days later, I received a rejection email. I reached out on LinkedIn, simply requesting to remain on the shortlist being sent to the company — given that the team there already knew me well. Her response was: “Give me a couple of days and I’ll update you.” That was several weeks, multiple follow-up emails, and a few unanswered calls ago. The silence continues to speak volumes.