Nate:
Great question. The short answer is that it depends upon the complexity of the item being sold and the relative familiarity of the client/buyer/customer with the subject matter. Pharmaceutical detailers are not, in my opinion, truly salespeople. Not that they are bad people (the few that I've spoken to are very nice) but they are legally constrained by the FDA as to what they are allowed to tell the MDs - thus, they tend to be more scripted than one would expect of a true salesperson. They are basically promoters, sample dispensers and order takers. MSLs exist because their interaction with a physician is considered to be more of a peer-to-peer interactions, and they can discuss drugs and issues such as side effects at a much deeper level than a detailer.
In fact, the potential for detailers to overstep their bounds is so great that I have heard that some companies are backing off the detail force and moving primarily to MSLs.
In the case of the biosafety testing company, many of our tests involved a custom component, and our contacts at the client company were typically heads of QA/QC or high-level R&D/product development executives. The sales process often involved educating the client on the latest FDA regulations (they were in flux at that time) and helping to develop a suite of testing protocols that met the client's needs. (Of course, this often meant helping the client identify what those needs were.) This process required the salespeople to understand exactly what the client was doing and why. Because of the intensely technical nature of the sale, our HR department was instructed not to bother me with resumes of pharmaceutical detailers - the vast majority of them just did not have the technical background to be successful.
When you meet with the VP of Sales, a topic of discussion will almost certainly be how you can help the sales force. Please beware of the "off-label" trap. To the best of my knowledge, MSLs are not allowed to discuss off-label uses, although there are certain ways in which both the MSLs and detailers can distribute peer-reviewed articles discussing off-label uses. Check out these two articles:
http://www.pharmexec.com/marketing-professionals-msls-label-promotionhttp://site.blueskybroadcast.com/Client/RAPS/0308/pdf/Monitoring%20the%20Practice%20of%20Medicine%20and%20Off-%20Label%20Uses.pdfThere are probably a host of others that are more recent than these.
Looking at the first article, it is clear that many executives believe that MSLs
can promote off-label uses and discuss them with the MDs; this does not appear to be the case, and you would be well advised to understand what MSLs can and cannot do prior to the interview, as this is likely to come up.
Hope this is useful to you. Good luck on the interview.
Dick