Know-How Exchange : Student Questions

Dear jadejj11,

Your Ph.D? Pretty meaningless I'm afraid and the sooner you grasp this nettle the better. Here's why:

In the market place of life there are two commodities: features and benefits. Your Ph.D is a feature, but the knowledge it imparts is a benefit and when it comes to solving real world problems, benefits have value, features do not.

No one's buying your credentials, they're buying the value your vast experience will bring to their bottom line.

Your mission is to show your interviewers how your knowledge can help them—your knowledge, not your Ph.D—no one's buying your Ph.D, no one except you because you, like many academics, have been brainwashed into believing that the qualification is all powerful.

Nope. Wrong. It's a vehicle.

The Ph.D is the car that gets you to the picnic on the beach in the sheltered cove on the glorious day with your friends and loved ones where you'll take the pictures and create the memories that you'll treasure for a lifetime.

When you look back on that day you'll recall the day, the sand between your toes, the sound of the surf and all the great things you chatted about and so on. But the car? The Ph.D? It's just a box that gets you there ... wherever "there" is for you and for those that travel with you.

Your KNOWLEDGE is what people are buying, not your qualification. The difference between the two is subtle but NIGHT AND DAY.

The thing to offer is the VALUE you bring, not the credentials you've earned. Your Ph.D is a WHAT, but people don't buy "what's" they buy WHY's and the value you bring to the table is the why.

I hope this helps. Good luck with your career ... and which ever beach you wind up on, DO send me a postcard!

Gary Bloomer
The Direct Response Marketing Guy™
Wilmington DE, USA

You may want to focus on consulting firms that work with life sciences companies. I googled "consulting firms for life sciences companies" and there appear to be a few. The ones you have been aiming at are more general management ones, which likely won't value your education. But a consulting firm that specializes in working with biotech, pharma, etc. may value it.

many of these life sciences consulting firms may just be contract manufacturing, but others may do other areas. Look carefully for ones that may do what you are interested in doing.

Some links that may be useful:
- https://www.google.com/Top/Business/Biotechnology_and_Pharmaceuticals/Consu...
- https://www.biocareers.com/article/getting_started_with_consulting.html