History PhD to Consulting

[eks933]

I study American business history in the latter half of the nineteenth century, and am in my second year. It goes without saying that the job market is a trashfire now and will be in five years when I finish. Thinking ahead, I would be grateful for any insight there is for those that have gone/know of someone who has gone from a history PhD to consulting. There are so many online resources for STEM to consulting, which is interesting to me because a humanities/social sciences PhD offers more in the way of transferable skills. 

[FruitLover]

I know of one person (not personally) who has gone from a top-5 History PhD program on to a high-paying consulting job. That was a couple of decades ago, but he still works in the consulting industry.

[history110]

There are organizations out there, such as the Historical Research Associates, that basically consulting firms that hire historians and archeologists. I plan to use my History MA as almost a professional degree, as I plan to either continue working in historical related nonprofits or in consulting firms. These organizations seem to hire both PhDs and MAs, so I'm sure a PhD would put you in a good position. They have their staff list online so perhaps one of them would be receptive to an email inquiry to chat about their career track/advice they have.

I'd also suggest reading this and perhaps even contacting some of these people, especially if they located in their area - https://ncph.org/history-at-work/tag/ask-a-consulting-historian/ The NCPH is in general, a great resource for learning about non-academia history related careers.  

Good luck! 

Edited March 15, 2020 by starshiphistory

[psstein]

8 hours ago, eks933 said:

I study American business history in the latter half of the nineteenth century, and am in my second year. It goes without saying that the job market is a trashfire now and will be in five years when I finish. Thinking ahead, I would be grateful for any insight there is for those that have gone/know of someone who has gone from a history PhD to consulting. There are so many online resources for STEM to consulting, which is interesting to me because a humanities/social sciences PhD offers more in the way of transferable skills. 

I know someone who did this. He finished a PhD and wrote an official history for a government agency, then jumped over to a major government-facing consulting firm. I asked him about it a few months back and his advice was a) network and b) be lucky. Even the STEM fields don't have the easiest time at many of the top firms; I actually watched a Versatile PhD presentation about this exact issue only a few months back. The presenter suggested networking (through alumni/department/whatever) and trying to sell your skills in the best way you can.

I think @Sigaba works around consulting?

[Sigaba]

I work as an analyst at a "boutique" engineering consultancy that's a big fish in a medium - sized but important pond in an obscure industry.  I am a generalist on a ten person team of specialists.  I would recommend  that graduate students in history who want to work in consulting do their outside fields in any of the following.

• Project management -- often, a project deliverable evolves from the time a firm gets the job, to the project kick off meeting, and as events unfold. And also, you will often have <x hours to perform tasks that nominally need 3x hours. 
• Technical writing -- the best, clearest, wittiest, writing you've done in the Ivory Tower can get blank stares, glares, and "huh"s from very smart people. Conversely, what may strike you as repetitive, simplistic writing is exactly what is needed. (Some of the best sentences written in your reports will be crafted using copy and paste. Passive verbal constructions will be used by you. Cringe worthy typos will often not mattress.)
• Data analysis --clients and stakeholders increasingly want to talk about "big data" without understanding (or caring) that many forms of consulting are both art and science.
• ArcGIS - or other software platforms that support the visual presentation of data

If you're going to work with non humanities types, you might profit from studying the cultural sensibilities of the dominant profession, especially if they're engineers.

If inclusion, social justice, and life/work balance are very important to you, you will want to do your research on potential employers very carefully. There's a generational divide in today's work place that employers are still trying to figure out. Some older firms led by (mostly) men who have worked their entire careers at one place don't understand the sensibilities of younger employees.

You will want to learn how to "pick your battles" or risk finding yourself on a career path with a lower ceiling. (Or so I've heard.) You will want to learn about opportunities for stock ownership. You will want to figure out ways to get questions answered about pay, benefits, and promotions with subtly and tact. (Qualified candidates have talked themselves out of job opportunities by asking questions with a tone of entitlement.)

At a consultancy you may have to "learn by doing," to roll with the punches, to take kicks to the head, and to drink extra strong cups of STFU in ways that are more challenging than the Ivory Tower.

Ultimately, working at a consultancy is about generating revenue by producing deliverables on time and under budget that exceed client's expectations (if not your own.)  Sometimes that means working sixty hours but billing only forty for months at a time. Sometimes, that means supporting a project approach that, while ethical, is uncomfortable. (As an example, audits and projects centered around advanced technology can lead to recommendations that cost people their jobs.)

The upside is that you can end up on a team with exceptionally smart and funny people with very kind souls. (And, alas, some butt heads.) You can find yourself doing policy-related work that checks a lot of boxes on your list of personal and political beliefs. And also, you can have a degree of intellectual and psychological distance from your work at a consultancy that's more sustainable than the work you do in the Ivory Tower.

In the event you want to do consulting that relies heavily on the historians' skill set, point set your Linkedin account to get the appropriate alerts. Job descriptions can provide clues as to out what skills you can develop as a graduate student.