Pharmaceutical companies hiring ex-cheerleaders as salespeople

As an ambitious college student, Cassie Napier had all the right moves -- flips, tumbles, an ever-flashing America's sweetheart smile -- to prepare for her job after graduation. She became a drug saleswoman.

Napier, 26, was a star cheerleader at the University of Kentucky. She now visits doctors' offices, selling the antacid Prevacid for TAP Pharmaceutical Products.

Anyone who has seen the parade of sales representatives going through a doctor's waiting room probably noticed that they are frequently female and invariably good-looking. Less recognized is the fact that many are recruited from cheerleading ranks.

In a crowded field of 90,000 drug representatives, who better than cheerleaders to sway the hearts of the nation's doctors, still mostly men?

But many cheerleaders, and their proponents, say they bring attributes beyond good looks to the job -- so much so that their success has led to a recruiting pipeline that fuels the country's pharmaceutical sales force. T. Lynn Williamson, Napier's cheering adviser at Kentucky, says he regularly gets calls from recruiters, mainly from pharmaceutical companies. "They watch to see who's graduating," he said.

"They don't ask what the major is," Williamson said. Proven cheerleading skills suffice. "Exaggerated motions, exaggerated smiles, exaggerated enthusiasm -- they learn those things, and they can get people to do what they want."

While there are no statistics on how many drug representatives are former or current cheerleaders, demand for them led to the formation of an employment firm, Spirited Sales Leaders. The company, in Memphis, Tenn., maintains a database of thousands of potential candidates.

Federal law bans employment discrimination based on factors such as race and gender, but it omits appearance from the list.

"Generally, discriminating in favor of attractive people is not against the law in the United States," said James J. McDonald Jr., a lawyer with Fisher & Phillips. But that might be changing, he said, citing the decision by the California Supreme Court to hear an employment lawsuit brought by a former L'Oreal manager who ignored a supervisor's order to fire a cosmetics saleswoman and hire someone more attractive.

But pharmaceutical companies deny that sex appeal has any bearing on hiring. "Obviously, people hired for the work have to be extroverts, a good conversationalist, a pleasant person to talk to. But that has nothing to do with looks, it's the personality," said Lamberto Andreotti, president of worldwide pharmaceuticals for Bristol-Myers Squibb.