How One Summer of Door‑to‑Door Pest Control Helped Me Land a Job at Stryker

My name’s Logan. The summer after my senior year I did something off the beaten path: I moved states to sell pest control door to door.

That first summer I sold just over $220,000 in revenue as a rookie.

A year later, I got a job with Stryker, one of the top medical device sales companies in the world.

This is how that first year on the doors actually went, and how it helped me beat out people with “better” resumes for my job.

Why I Chose Door‑to‑Door Instead of an Internship in an Office

Most of my friends were chasing safe internships: unpaid roles, spreadsheets, coffee runs.

I wanted three things:

-To make real money

-To learn how to sell

-To have something on my resume that didn’t sound like everyone else’s

-I knew Stryker and other med device companies look for people who can grind, handle rejection, and hit a goal. Door‑to‑door felt like a direct way to prove that.

What My First Summer Actually Looked Like

Schedule, nearly every day:

-Morning training: product, objection handling, roleplay

-Early afternoon: drive to area, first door by around 1 p.m.

-1 p.m. to dark: straight knocking, neighborhood after neighborhood

-I was awful my first week. I second‑guessed my pitch, sped through the script, and took rejection personally.

But I stuck to the process. By the end of the summer:

Total revenue sold: ~$220,000

Total accounts: 240

Biggest day: 10

Income: more than I’d ever made in my life up to that point

I wasn’t the top rep in the company, but I was one of the top rookies.

The Skills I Didn’t Realize I Was Building

In the moment, it just felt like grind. Looking back, here’s what actually translated to getting hired at Stryker:

-Resilience on command
-Getting told “no” 40–50 times a day and still knocking the next door is the same muscle as hearing “no” from a surgeon and going back again.

-Asking direct questions
-You can’t be vague on a porch. You have to ask for the sale. That made it way easier to handle tough questions in interviews.

-Owning a number
-I had a clear goal for revenue and accounts every week. I learned to reverse‑engineer: doors → demos → closes. Exactly how sales leaders think.

-Companies like Stryker spend a lot of money on hiring and training new reps. They want to see proof that you won’t waste those resources by quitting the first day a doctor says ‘no.’

How I Used This Summer To Stand Out With Stryker

On my resume, that one line stood out:

“Generated $121,000 in new pest control revenue in 12 weeks as a first‑year rep.”

Every interviewer asked about it.

Instead of talking about “team projects” like everyone else, I talked about:

-Moving away from home to sell 100 percent commission

-Days I went 0 for 50 and still stayed on the doors

-What I did to turn around a slow week

One hiring manager literally said, “If you can do that, you can handle getting beat up in the OR.”

The internship didn’t just “look good.” It gave me specific, brutal stories that proved I wasn’t guessing about hard work.

Would I Do It Again?

Yes.

Was it fun every day?

No. Some days were miserable. Some days I felt on top of the world. But that one summer:

-Paid well

-Proved to me I could do hard things

-Became the single biggest reason I had a shot at Stryker as a new grad

If you’re considering it, don’t just ask, “How much can I make this summer?” Ask, “Who will I get to become, and where could that take me next year?”