Alternate Careers for PhDs: So You Think You Want to Be a Consultant?
Over the past year or so, more graduate students and postdoctoral fellows have been asking me about management consulting careers in the life sciences. I spent several years working as an independent management consultant and while it was a great experience the revenue stream was unreliable at best and the ability to work was highly contingent upon the economy. However, I can assure that my experiences as an independent management consultant were marketing different than those of consultants who work at the consulting firms like McKinsey or the Boston Consulting Group. For those of you interested in life style of a high-powered management consultant I highly recommend you visit their websites for more info.
I invited Susan Colilla, PhD, MPH, President of the consulting firm Integrative Epidemiology LLC describe her experiences about becoming a life sciences consultant so that BioJobBlog job readers (who may be considering this as a career option), might get an idea and appreciate what it takes to get into and be successful in this line of work.
My Life as a Life Sciences Management Consultant
by Susan Colilla
After doing a second postdoc at University of Pennsylvania as an Instructor (nebulous junior non-faculty type position) and becoming frustrated with all the extensive work requirements for a tenure-track position, I started searching for a job in pharmaceutical industry.
While searching for a position, a potential employer, who didn’t have an opening at the time, asked if I would be interested in consulting. As I was interested in this area, I started consulting for industry and realized that I enjoyed working on different projects in epidemiology and genetics, and loved that I could work from my home office and give up a commute.
The flexibility in consulting is great. I plan the work around my schedule, and the pay has been rewarding as well. Last year, I formally incorporated my business, Integrative Epidemiology, LLC. I offer services in literature reviews, study planning/design, data analysis and grant or manuscript writing in the areas of human genetics or epidemiology.
As I build my business, I have learned about how to run a business, bookkeeping/billing, taxes, legal issues/contracts, and marketing. Moving from academia to pharma/industry is tricky unless you have connections with those who hire in the industry. One of the biggest challenges for me as a self-employed consultant is dedicating a good proportion of my time to networking with others and marketing my services, rather than doing science-related work. It helps that I am very social by nature and enjoy meeting new people.
I am also fortunate to be married to someone who makes a good income and receives benefits as this helps support our family. There can be a sporadic flow of income with consulting, especially during a recession and new business slows down. I have also partnered up with another consulting group (Venebio, LLC, based in Richmond, VA) to expand the pool of potential clients and work with a group of scientists to offer a broader range of services.
For those of you who want to learn more about getting into the consultant business, Susan highly recommends an article that recently appeared in the Scientist. She shared with me that the article offers a great list of things to consider before starting a consultancy and that she “wished that she had seen it a couple years ago when I started out in this business!”
Until next time...
Good Luck and Good Job Hunting!!!!
