There comes a time in the lives of many PhD students and young scholars when they go out and get short-term jobs with people outside the university - consulting, in other words. For some people consulting seems glamorous, for others tawdry. For me, it’s just work - my PhD is not funded, and given the choice, I’d rather work less for more money.
Key to successful consulting, though, are its business aspects - how much work you do, what you get paid for it, and when you get paid. Because of my experience doing a lot of professional consulting before my PhD, I’ve actually received training in this kind of thing! That’s what this post is about - hopefully it’ll be handy for others.
So, here’s a true story: one of my PhD colleagues was asked by a senior professor in her field to do some consulting work on a project in her field. The assignment was to interview a series of people around the south-east of England and write a report on her findings. The professor offered a lump sum of money, I think about £2500. She was torn - she wanted to do the research and work with the professor, and she could use the money, but she also wanted the time for her PhD. She asked me what I thought about it, and I asked her how much work she thought it was.
STEP ONE: prepare a short work plan for yourself, in half-days
In this case, there were 20 interviews. Those of you who have worked with interview data know that it’s not just an hour spent face-to-face with your interviewee. It also means setting up the interview, travelling to the place, and transcribing the interview afterwards, not to mention setting up the interview guide beforehand and potentially (let’s say in the case of grounded theory) doing analysis along the way. In this case the professor wasn’t willing to pay for a transciptionist, but would do all the interview setup. So I figure, half a day for interview and travel, another half-day for transcription. That’s 20 days.
Now comes the coding and analysis. This is harder to quantify but if it is a report rather than a nuanced theoretical analysis it’s a bit quicker. Say two weeks - 10 days.
Finally the meetings and presentation of results. The professor wanted her to travel out of London to the city where he was for three meetings during this time. Half day each - 1 1/2 days. Plus be available to answer email - another 1/2 day, probably. 2 days on project administration. Creating the presentation to go with the report document, 1 day. Total 3 days on meetings and administration.
So, our work plan says we need 33 days for this project. Personally, I always add a bit of contingency as project can, and do, spiral out of control. Say 35 days.
STEP TWO - work out your daily rate.
At £2,500 for 35 days, my friend was going to make £71.42 a day, or £8.92 an hour. To me, this is not an acceptable wage for a professional person with years of education and experience behind them. Not to mention she misses a month of work on her PhD. I advised her that if she really wanted to work with the professor, she should negotiate. She should aim to get AT LEAST £200 a day. When I was working professionally, I was often charged out to clients at £1,200 by my agency (not that I saw that kind of cash, but the point is clients are used to paying for services). I currently charge my clients around £500 a day. But how does a poor PhD student get those kind of rates?
STEP 3: Negotiate
Having assessed the amount of work and your rate, you need to think about your bottom line, what the negotiation specialists call the BATNA (best alternative to a negotiated agreement). For example, my friend decided that if the professor wouldn’t negotiate, she would not take the job. In other cases the answer might be different. She decided she would take the job if her rate came up to £120 a day. Now there are several steps to this:
1) say that the work sounds very interesting and you’re sure you could do an excellent job for the client, seeing as you are experienced in these research techniques and this subject area, but that you’re concerned about the money;
2) take the client through the work plan and get them to agree that your estimate of the work involved is reasonable. For example, if the professor had said that indeed, the transciption work was paid for somewhere else, then that could take 10 days off your estimate. During this process, emphasise your skills and expertise.
3) say the amount you would ordinarily charge for this service. For example, “My usual day rate is £200 a day, so ordinarily a project of this size would be £7,000.” Don’t be ashamed of your rate. Don’t be put off by the fact that the client may say they don’t have the money. This indeed might be true, but on the other hand you should be able to charge a fair price for your services, which they also should acknowledge. Remember, you are not a burger-flipper, you are a highly skilled researcher with years of training.
4) explain again how much work this is, and how specialised and skilled it is. Boring, but effective.
5) now, negotiate the amount of work. Let’s say the professor actually really doesn’t mind who does the interviewing, but really wants you, with your skills and expertise, to write the report. Now you’re talking 15 days of work (admin and presentation are still present) for £2500 - result! Equivalent of £166 per day. Perhaps you don’t have to travel to the meetings but can do them on the phone, apart from the last one. Result! by shaving things this way you might turn this into a lovely piece of work.
6) if the client still baulks, explain again how much work and how skilled this is.
7) finally, but ONLY AFTER you have tried to reduce the amount of work, cut your prices. But only grudgingly. And in exchange for something else - like, can your work be paid in advance? Or, will this lead to a publication with your name on it? Or, can you use some of the data in your own research? It’s important not to just drop the price.
In the case of my friend, she ended up declining the work as stated (in accordance with her BATNA). However, some months later the professor called her up and offered her a much more lucrative position on a more interesting project. This happens quite a lot, actually.
Anyway hope this is helpful.
