Advice > Consulting

How to write a great PhD consulting resume?

By Max Serrano on June 19, 2018 How we wrote this article
PhD consulting resume

Top consulting firms are hired to solve some of the toughest problems their clients face. For instance, the Dutch airline KLM recently hired BCG to help it run its airplane fleet more efficiently using artificial intelligence.

As a result, top firms are in need of strong problem solvers and have been intensifying their PhD and Postdoc recruiting efforts. McKinsey and BCG even run 3-day programmes to introduce advanced degree holders to consulting and convince them to apply.

But here is the thing, describing your research in a way that will impress a business person can be challenging. How much should you talk about your research? Do they care about all the papers you published? What skills are consulting firms looking for anyway?

We've helped a lot of PhD and Postdoc students get interviews with top consulting firms as part of our resume and cover letter review service. In this post we summarise some of the top tips we have learned in this process. So let's get started and help you craft an impressive consulting resume!

Click here for a resume review with an ex-MBB consultant

1. Use a consulting-specific structure

Consulting resumes are different to other resumes (you can download a sample above). They follow a pre-defined structure that your resume screener will expect you to respect. Here are the five areas we recommend using:

  1. Personal information
  2. Education
  3. Work experience
  4. Extra-curricular achievements
  5. Additional skills

As you have probably noticed, there are some important differences between what would be expected of a cv for a research position in academia and what's contained in a consulting resume. In summary, here are the main sections you should NOT include in your consulting resume:

  1. Publications
  2. Conferences attended
  3. Scholarships and awards

To be clear you SHOULD write about your publications, scholarships and awards, and the conferences you attended. But this should be directly blended into your Education and Work experience sections. You should not have separate sections for these elements. Here is an example of how you could describe your PhD:

PhD in Chemistry, Harvard University, US

Jan 2015 to Jan 2018

  • Dissertation: Development of cost effective identification method for Alzheimer’s disease biomarkers
  • Collaborated with Stanford University to adapt identification method to various patient profiles
  • Graduated with 1.5 / 6.0 (top 10% of my cohort) and published 5 articles in top 3 international journals in my field
  • Awarded a three-year Ph.D. scholarship from Harvard (5 to 10 scholarships available for ~1,000 applications)
  • Presented research at two prestigious conferences in the UK (250+ attendees) and Spain (100+ attendees)

Note how publications, awards and conferences attended are summarised in the 3rd, 4th and 5th bullet points. You don't need to go into more details than this in a PhD consulting resume.

2. Write result-oriented bullets

The second most important tip about your resume is that your bullet points should be result-oriented. The best way to achieve this is to:

  • Start your bullet points with action verbs
  • Focus your bullet points on the impact you had
  • Quantify the impact whenever possible

If you are not sure what action verbs are, you can check our consulting resume keywords article where we cover this in detail. Here is an example of what we mean by focusing on impact and trying to quantify it:

  • Wasted bullet point: "Tom, B., Fuster, R., & Gomis, K. (2018). Analysis of labor market dynamics in the gig economy. J Scientific Labor. PMID: 45987."
  • Boring bullet point: "I was part of a team that planned a research project on the gig economy. My main role was to do data analysis and presentations"
  • Result-oriented bullet point: "Led the development of a research collaboration on the gig economy, coordinating 20 scientists across 3 labs, resulting in 2 publications in the best journal in my field."

Note how the best bullet point starts with an action verb (i.e.: "Led the development"), how it focuses on your impact (i.e.: "coordinating", "resulting") and how it is quantified (i.e.: "20 scientists across 3 labs", "2 publications"). We encourage you to strive to achieve this for each of your bullet points. It takes a bit of time but will really make you stand out.

3. Explain your research to a Financial Times reader

Explaining your research simply is probably one of the hardest things about doing a PhD! But this is really important, especially when it comes to consulting applications. One of the main skills that sets management consultants apart is that they are able to summarise complicated situations extremely simply to executives and boards. You need to show you possess this skill too!

Some of the people who will read your resume won't have studied in your field since they left high school. You need to take that into account and dumb it down for them. This is particularly important if you did a very technical PhD in science, finance, economics, etc.

A good rule of thumb is that the average reader of the Financial Times or the New York Times should be able to broadly understand what you did just by reading your resume. You don't need to give them the details. They just need to understand the broad field in which you were operating in simple words. That's all they are asking for. So go ahead, open the FT or NYT, get a feel for how complicated topics are explained and see if adapt your PhD description based on what you learned!

4. Show off your soft skills

One of the main skills consulting firms look for in your resume is problem solving abilities. Fortunately, in our experience PhD resumes easily tick that box. Gathering data, structuring problems and summarising your findings are core parts of doing research and these skills will naturally come across when you write up your resume.

However, consulting firms are looking for candidates that can do more than just solve problems. Before hiring you they will want to make sure that you have the necessary soft skills to work with clients. And the main two soft skills they will want to see on your resume are: teamwork and communication.

Fortunately, there are two easy ways you can check these boxes in your document:

  • Teamwork: in our experience doing research involves collaborating with other student, professors and institutions on different projects. You should not hesitate to mention these initiatives, how many people they involved and the publications they led to. For instance, you could write something like: "Managed collaboration with 3 researchers from the University of Oxford which led to unprecedented findings in the field of cancer tumor imaging"
  • Communication: in our experience most PhD programmes also involve some form of teaching as well as presentations at conferences. Again, you should use these experiences to demonstrate your ability to communicate. For instance, you could write something like: "Presented research at two prestigious conferences in my field in the UK (250+ attendees) and Spain (100+ attendees)"

We really encourage you to take the time to craft bullet points that demonstrate your soft skills. Your ability to work with others and to communicate efficiently will put you well on your way for an interview.

Additional resources

The article above as well as our consulting resume and consulting cover letter guides should go a long way in helping you get an interview. But if after using them you still feel you need additional help, we have also put together a resume review service for you.

By signing up to this service, you can choose from a team of ex-MBB recruiters and interviewers, who will spend an hour going over your resume with you. You’ll get feedback on how to immediately improve your resume, including what experience to focus on, how to optimize your phrasing, formatting, etc.

Check it out, you'll be in good hands!

Related articles:

BCG consulting candidate
ConsultingNov 20, 2024
BCG Online Case Assessment/Casey Chatbot Guide
Complete guide to the BCG online case/Casey chatbot assessment. Learn all about the firm's online assessment, including its format, the question types you'll encounter, tips from our coaches, and a prep plan.
Read more
Phone and video case interviews at McKinsey, BCG and Bain
ConsultingMay 17, 2023
Phone and video case interviews at McKinsey, BCG, and Bain
Phone case interviews are used at McKinsey, BCG, and Bain to screen and assess candidates early in the recruiting process. We cover the main tips you need to remember to ace your phone case interview and make it to the next round.
Read more
Kearney case interview
ConsultingApr 20, 2023
Kearney Case Interview Guide (process, questions, prep)
The ultimate guide to Kearney case interviews. Learn about the Kearney interview process, what questions to expect, how to answer them and how to prepare. Essential reading for anyone applying to a consulting position at Kearney.
Read more
Dress code for consulting interview
ConsultingDec 20, 2022
Dress Code for Interviews at McKinsey, BCG, Bain, etc.
Everything you need to know about the dress code for consulting interviews at firms like McKinsey, Bain, and BCG, so you can avoid common pitfalls and ace your interview!
Read more
Consulting resume
ConsultingAug 01, 2024
Consulting Resume Guide (REAL McKinsey, BCG, Bain examples)
5 real consulting resume examples that got interviews and offers at McKinsey, BCG, and Bain. Plus, a step-by-step guide on how to write a consulting resume, a free consultant CV template, and pro tips.
Read more
Mutually Exclusive and Collectively Exhaustive (MECE)
ConsultingJun 27, 2023
MECE Framework (Meaning, Examples, McKinsey)
MECE stands for Mutually Exclusive and Collectively Exhaustive. McKinsey consultants use MECE frameworks all the time. In this short tutorial we teach you 3 simple secrets to make your own frameworks MECE in case interviews.
Read more
PWC (Strategy&) case interview
ConsultingApr 06, 2023
PwC (Strategy&) Case Interview (questions, process, prep)
The ultimate guide to PwC Consulting and Strategy& case interviews. Learn about the interview process, what questions to expect, how to answer them and how to prepare. Essential reading for anyone applying to a consulting position at PwC (Strategy&).
Read more
Case interview frameworks
ConsultingJun 09, 2022
Top 7 case interview frameworks (and how to create your own)
List of consulting frameworks, including explanations of each one. Plus a step-by-step guide for creating custom frameworks during case interviews.
Read more