Why should we hire you?

I'm finishing a PhD in chemistry, and I think there are two reasons to hire me. The first is that I'm used to getting to an answer when the data is messy and nobody knows the right approach. My thesis project failed for 14 months. I had to find the cause myself in the data. The second is that I can explain technical things to people who aren't technical. Part of my research was funded by a manufacturer, and I presented to their managers every quarter. The first time, I showed 30 slides of spectra and their operations head asked, "So should we buy the new oven or not?" After that I opened every update with the decision and the cost. I also know what I'm signing up for. I've done some consulting projects on campus and enjoyed them. I know I have a lot to learn on the business side. But picking up a new field quickly is what I've done for five years.

I'm finishing a PhD in chemistry, and I think there are two reasons to hire me. The first is that I'm used to getting to an answer when the data is messy and nobody knows the right approach. My thesis project failed for 14 months. The coating I was developing kept cracking, and the fix came from going back through 200 failed runs and noticing that humidity on the day predicted the cracks better than anything I'd been controlling. The second is that I can explain technical things to people who aren't technical. Part of my research was funded by a manufacturer, and I presented to their managers every quarter. The first time, I showed 30 slides of spectra and their operations head asked, "So should we buy the new oven or not?" After that I opened every update with the decision and the cost. They've since put my process on one of their lines. I also know what I'm signing up for. I did two projects with our graduate consulting club, one of them on pricing for a lab equipment startup, and I liked the eight-week pace more than the five-year one. What I don't have is business experience, and I won't pretend otherwise. I've never read an income statement for a living. I know I have a lot to learn on the business side. But picking up a new field quickly is what I've done for five years. I'd expect to be slow on finance for the first few months and useful on the hard analytical problems from the start.