Career Outcomes
Through close collaboration with top-tier faculty, Research Associates position themselves for future success in graduate school, industry, or research roles.
A Research Associate position at Harvard Business School is an exceptional training ground for building a successful career. RAs work proactively and independently while collaborating with leading experts, honing their abilities to manage projects and think critically about complex problems. Because these skills are required across industries, working as an RA can build a highly transferrable professional foundation. This role has helped past employees succeed in roles such as lawyers, data scientists, entrepreneurs, consultants, project managers, and more.
We often hear from previous employees that enhancing their abilities in researching, writing, interviewing, analyzing data, and managing projects created pathways to a wide range of careers. In addition, they cite the close working relationships with faculty as one of the greatest advantages of a Research Associate position at Harvard Business School.
Many of our opportunities are ideal for aspiring doctoral students. Although these positions are not affiliated with the School’s doctoral program, they offer a wide variety of faculty-driven research challenges—from data construction and analysis to academic publication writing and research. With the added bonus of a generous tuition assistance program (TAP) benefit, RAs can complement their on-the-job training with for-credit courses.
Professional development put into practice.
"In college, you might have one group project with a few people. Here, I’ve had six projects going at once—each with multiple co-authors, often on completely different subjects. That kind of coordination has taught me strong project and people management skills that I don’t think I could’ve learned anywhere else. So beyond the research skills, this role gave me practical, industry-ready experience that I know will translate directly to the kind of work I want to do next."
— Kristian Blais
