Scientific Consulting

Consulting is a broad term used by many industries to describe the process of providing advice and recommendations to solve complex issues. Consultants are hired by organizations to strategize solutions to business, organizational, or industry specific problems. A consultant is often brought in to provide a fresh perspective, objectivity, and a specific knowledge base or expertise. They are often cost effective for a company to hire to provide time or personnel the client can’t spare but needs in order to accomplish necessary tasks seasonally or on a temporary basis.

As a consultant you will work with clients to define problems and then use your expertise to determine the best approach to solve the problem. The websites of the consulting firms have interactive cases that provide insight into the type of work you would engage in as a scientific consultant.

The job of a scientific consultant requires outstanding dedication but the reward is great personal development. Consulting is a great way to experience different environments while tackling ever-changing problems. Consultants often experience intense workloads and hours, though it can offer the opportunity for travel, work variety, high salaries, and bonuses. If you do not like to travel you should not consider a job in consulting. Consulting firms are typically located in urban locations such as New York City, Boston, Washington DC, Chicago, and San Francisco, which are often desirable places for recent graduates and business professionals. Large firms have multiple offices all over the globe so you could easily end up working in Hong Kong, New Delhi or Melbourne. The consulting industry can be greatly affected by the economy. Consultants may experience extreme highs and lows in the amount of projects in their workload. Temporary or permanent layoffs may occur when the project load is light.

Skills Required

Consulting firms look for exceptional ability and a track record of accomplishment. They are interested in innate qualities—problem-solving, personal impact, achieving, and leadership—that make a lasting difference. Candidates should demonstrate excellent communication skills and the ability to work in a multidisiplinary team. As an applicant, you will need to prove you can develop new ideas and have the energy and endurance to implement these ideas to create impact. The industry is most suitable for individuals wishing to make recommendations, rather than those wanting to become more engaged in business decisions. Competitive applicants typically have strong academic credentials, quantitative ability, leadership, and teamwork experience. The following is a list of skills most commonly used across all types of consulting:

Analytical and quantitative reasoning
Interpersonal communication skills (written and oral)
Problem solving and Troubleshooting
Project management
Flexibility
Networking abilities
Researching
Ability to multi-task in a fast paced environment

Breaking Into Consulting

Contact TIBBS for alumni and other contacts who currently have positions in consulting companies and who are willing to share their experiences and advice with you.

Suggestions by Hadass Sheffer, Extracted from The Chronicle of Higher Education, Chronicle Careers

All of the consultants recommend that new Ph.D.’s weave their pre-Ph.D. work and their academic activities into a seamless series of experiences that build on each other. Try to position your expertise in terms of abilities, not just content.
If you have organized an academic conference or lecture series on your campus, talk in your letter or interview about how you took the initiative, promoted the event, pulled it together. Work done on a committee or in student government could be used to reflect your ability to handle multiple agendas and personalities, as well as other organizational skills. Be sure to emphasize results.
Administrative work in a department or your experience selecting and managing a dissertation committee can be used to show how you gained an understanding of how universities work. This knowledge is crucial. You have to be able to figure out who are the relevant stakeholders, to identify who has the power to implement the suggestions you make. Otherwise your project might fail.
The sheer accomplishment of writing a dissertation demonstrates the ability to keep an eye on the longer-term big picture of a project while breaking that big picture down into a series of more immediate interim goals. It also demonstrates an ability to organize vast quantities of information — an essential skill in consulting work.
Highlight your written and verbal communication skills. Experience in speaking to academic audiences is particularly valuable.
Being a residential adviser in a dormitory, heading volunteer student organizations, or playing intramural and club sports can translate into teamwork experiences. Highlight any athletic acheivements that demonstrated sucess, drive and the experience of being part of a team.
Teaching is evidence of an ability to present complex matters to a variety of audiences. One of the things that proves unfailingly useful is the ability to stand in front of a group of often hostile people and tell them things they may not want to hear in such a way that most of them will at least listen — a skill developed as a TA.
Coaching other teaching assistants is a form of consulting that many graduate students already do, perhaps without even realizing it.

Consulting Firms

Consultants typically work in these types of settings:

Large consulting companies that provide consulting services to many industries
Small specialized firms that focus on a particular industry (e.g., energy)
Internal Consulting Groups within organizations where consultants are company employees that act as an impartial third party
Independent freelancing/contractor for organizations in a particular area of expertise

Rand Corporation
Arthur D Little
Booz Allen and Hamilton
McKinsey & Company
Boston Consulting Group
Accenture
Deloitte Consulting LP
Bain and Company
Monitor Group
Weinberg Group
Cambridge Healthcare and Biotech
MVS Solutions
PRTM

Most firms offer summer internships. This is a great way for you to learn about the consulting business while gaining invaluable experience. Summer programs are 10 to 16 weeks and you can simply apply on-line at the firm’s websites.

Firms often recruit on college campuses and host recruitment weekends. Announcements about these events will be highlighted on the TIBBS website and through our listserv.

The interview process often includes a case interview in which the candidate is asked to analyze a problem and provide a solution based on the information given. Case interviews are used to assess a candidate’s thought process and analytical skills; thus, interviewers are not focused on the candidate’s final answer to the case problem, but more interested in how the candidate determined the answer. You should practice answering case studies before any interview.

Resources

Ace Your Case! The Essential Management Consulting Case Workbook. From Wet Feet Press at 1-800-926-4JOB (349 Liberty Street, San Francisco, CA 94114-2953). Also try their web site at http://www.wetfeet.com.

Consultants and Consulting Organizations Directory, 2007, Gale Research, Detroit, MI, (800) 877-GALE (how-to).

Harvard Business School Career Guide: Management Consulting 1999. Available from Harvard Business School Publishing. Try their web site at http://www.hbsp.harvard.edu.

Management Consulting

Vault.com has numerous resources you can purchase that list the top 50 consulting firms and advice on landing a consulting position http://www.vault.com/index.jsp

Articles at AAAS New Wave Science Careers

Opportunities: The Accidental Consultant

Consulting–the Career Path Not (Oft) Taken

Mastering Your Ph.D.: A Career in Management Consulting

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