‘The key is that you are not selling your subject knowledge, you’re selling your methodology.’
– Pierbruno Ricci, author of From Science to Consulting
Whenever I talk to PhD researchers one-on-one about career options (which is, well, a LOT of the time…), I often ask them to tell me if they’ve looked at any options already. In their answers, I often hear:
I’ve read heard about/ read about consulting, BUT…
- I don’t really know at it involves
- I’m not sure if it’s something I can do
- I don’t know if it would be something for me.
So, I thought it was high time to sit down with someone who could help us lift the veil on these questions and demystify consulting as a career option post-PhD.
Enter Pierbruno Ricci: Pierbruno completed a master’s degree in molecular and industrial biotechnology in Italy before moving to Paris for a lab-based internship at the Institute Pasteur. He then went on to complete a PhD at the Sorbonne in Paris, which he later complemented with a year of study in ESCP Business School. After several years in strategy consulting, he now works in corporate strategy at a biotech company with a focus on life-threatening diseases. Whilst working in consulting, he advised clients across pharma, biotech, and healthcare investment, and mentored others considering a similar career move.
Now, even if you’re a PhD with neither a STEM background nor any experience studying in a Business School, read on, as I specifically ask Pierbruno about where people with humanities and social sciences backgrounds might also find a home in consulting.
So, let’s dive in to picking Pierbruno’s brains, starting with the big question…
What IS consulting…?!?
I’ll break this down in three ways, Pier explained. First, I’ll talk generally about what consultants do (with a focus on strategy consulting), then what’s involved day-to-day, then finally I’ll give you an example to bring it all together.
Sounds brill! Go for it.
1) Overview
Ultimately, Pierbruno began, consultants bring an external, unbiased point of view to a client’s questions or problems.
Your client can be… anyone, really. Usually though, they will likely be a company or other organisation with a question or problem which they want someone to approach in an agnostic way. As well as bringing this impartial perspective, your job as a consultant is also to accelerate the problem-solving process for your client(s). A company might grapple a question for months, even years. Should we do this, or should we do that? Should we buy out company A, or company B? How can we improve sales effectiveness? A consultant’s job is to help them devise solutions to such questions quicker than they can on their own. Many clients have similar questions, so once you’ve worked on solving a specific type of problem for one company, you can draw on that best practice to help others, too.
2) The day-to-day
So, what does this problem-solving work look like on the ground, then?
One of the first things you need to do, Pierbruno explains, is lots of research.
Ok, I’m interested…!
Primary research might involve interviewing experts. Imagine your client has questions relating to a rare disease, and to solve their problem you need to find someone that can answer these questions. You will also do secondary research: reading papers, searching online, using generative AI tools to find some insight. Then, you often need to synthesise all your research into Excel modelling and PowerPoint presentations. Every one to two weeks, you’ll usually have a meeting with the client to update them, so a lot of emails and setting up meetings. However, the part I like most is pure brainstorming with brilliant colleagues: discussing, being creative, and leveraging collective intelligence to develop a methodology to find a solution.
3) Example projects
In five years, I did 30 projects, Pierbruno explains. Every a few months you change project and switch topics.
He outlined one project he’d worked on for an investment fund who already invested in telemedicine in Spain and now wanted to do the same in Italy. Our job was to work out which would be the best telemedicine business for them to acquire, and at what price. For this, we interviewed lots of people to assess the size of the market in telemedicine, assess the expertise of the target companies (their management structure, focus, etc.) and based on this gave them a recommendation of which was the best company to buy out. Basically, any kind of question that a company manager or director may have can form a project for strategy consulting.
Is consulting something PhDs can definitely do…?
I could already see where PhD skills (synthesising information, using that to form a conclusion/ solution, etc.) could come in handy here, so I posed the question: how can PhDs be especially useful in consulting professions? Pierbruno’s answer was definitive:
The key here is that you are not selling your subject knowledge, you’re selling your methodology.
Tell us more!
In consulting, employers and clients are most interested in your ability to approach and solve problems. Clients want people who can bring a methodological approach to answering their questions in a short timeframe.
This sounded encouraging, but reminded me of a common reservation I’ve heard amongst PhD researchers about consulting: how do you present yourself to clients as an expert, when you’re advising on something that you don’t feel like an expert in?! Pierbruno had some reassurance here:
In the beginning, you can feel a bit lost. Over time though, you come to understand the value you add. You are someone who asks the right questions and suggests ways to answer them, with sound training in problem solving and a wide network of experts. You are not an imposter, but it can take a few projects to come round to this! For me, consulting is a constant intellectual challenge; you’re solving real problems with smart colleagues.
Pier explains that even in types of consulting that draw on subject knowledge, like life sciences consulting for example, your subject expertise isn’t the be all and end all. One day you could be working on a specific antibody, the next day on breast prostheses. Clients appreciate the fact that strategy consultants can’t be experts in every single field: if you need expertise, you can always interview experts.
Whilst many PhD skills are transferable to consulting then – things like being able to understand complex and explain complex topics, public speaking, and having humility in the face of tough problems – Pierbruno was also keen to emphasise that adapting from academia to consulting can be a steep learning curve.
The main leap for me was in the way of working. In academia, you have the luxury of going deep into a topic to understand everything. You cannot do that in consulting. You need to be 80:20: do 20% of the effort to get 80% of the answer. You need to accept that you can’t reach a perfect solution, which can be especially difficult for scientists who have that drive for the ‘right answer.’
Now, I’m always keen to explore where people from non-STEM subjects might stand with career options like consulting, so what Pierbruno seemed to be saying here was interesting. In humanities research, there is often no perfect answer – we have to collate evidence and make a case as to why our conclusion is credible and valid. Could such experience be an asset in consulting? I asked Pierbruno to unpack this.
Absolutely, there is space for people from the humanities and social sciences in consulting. I’ve worked with consultants who had PhDs in anthropology, literature, and other fields. It just means that if this is something you want to do, you’ll likely need to go in as a generalist.
Pierbruno explained that in consulting, you might work for a large firm with clients across many different industries, or in a more ‘boutique’ firm with clients in one or a few industries, like his case in life sciences. In the former, your initial application may therefore be as a ‘generalist’ and not attached to a specific department or business area. That said, Pierbruno outlined that employers like to make the most of your expertise, so even if you apply initially as a generalist, it is in their interest to place you on projects that will use your existing knowledge.
Applying as a generalist not a disadvantage, Pierbruno clarified. It means you get a lot of variety and exposure to all kinds of industries: One month, you might be working for a sports brand, the next for a healthcare startup, and the next for a luxury goods firm.
How do I know if it’s for me?
Having heard all of this, what are the next steps if you think consulting could be a move for you? Pierbruno’s advice was clear: start early and prepare seriously. He mentioned how attending insight events held by consulting firms helped to confirm it was an option for him, whilst trying out some ‘case studies’ early on could help you understand whether or not you enjoy using your brain in the ways that consulting requires.
Consulting interviews aren’t like academic interviews, he warned. They often include a case study element; I’d say you need to practise at least 20 live case studies before you’re ready. You need to learn how to think aloud, stay calm under pressure, and structure your answers clearly.
To help practise and build confidence, he recommended resources like PrepLounge, My Consulting Coach, and his own book Science to Consulting, co-authored with Gunjan Pandey. Case studies test how you think, he explained. So, they could ask you to estimate something, like ‘how many windows do we have in London?’ or ‘How many grains of sand are on a beach in California?’ Or, it could be directly business related; for example, ‘our company is losing 5% of revenue – how to we address this?’
But preparation isn’t just about case studies. It’s also about researching firms, understanding their values, and figuring out where – if anywhere – you’d thrive. You can be brilliant at solving cases, but if you don’t know why you want to work for that specific firm, you won’t pass the interview.
Ultimately, for Pierbruno, consulting wasn’t about abandoning his identity as a researcher: it was about translating it into a new context. And it’s something he believes more PhDs, from all kinds of disciplines, can do. If you think you might be one of them, then:
- Start researching the field early. The prep needed for getting to grips with case studies and online tests in recruitment processes is considerable, so the earlier you start, the more incrementally you can take things, setting a bit of time aside on a regular basis to prep rather than trying to balance test and interview prep with a hectic final PhD year.
- As part of that prep, make sure you do due diligence on the firms to which you are applying: be able to clearly say what it is that stands out to you about each one, and be as specific as you can.
- Don’t focus on your research outputs, focus on your research PROCESS… be ready to talk about (and show) how you can break down a problem and devise a solution in a methodical way, rather than the papers you’ve published, academic awards you’ve won, or conferences you’ve addressed.