How to hire a senior research consultant

How to hire a senior research consultant, step by step

Here's a step-by-step senior research consultant hiring guide:

• Step 1: Identify your hiring needs
• Step 2: Create an ideal candidate profile
• Step 3: Make a budget
• Step 4: Write a senior research consultant job description
• Step 5: Post your job
• Step 6: Interview candidates
• Step 7: Send a job offer and onboard your new senior research consultant
• Step 8: Go through the hiring process checklist

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1. Identify your hiring needs

   First, determine the employments status of the senior research consultant you need to hire. Certain senior research consultant roles might require a full-time employee, whereas others can be done by part-time workers or contractors.

   Determine employee vs contractor status

   Is the person you're thinking of hiring a US citizen or green card holder?

   Yes

   No

   You should also consider the ideal background you'd like them a senior research consultant to have before you start to hire. For example, what industry or field would you like them to have experience in, what level of seniority or education does the job require, and how much it'll cost to hire a senior research consultant that fits the bill.

   This list presents senior research consultant salaries for various positions.

   Type of Senior Research Consultant	Description	Hourly rate
   Senior Research Consultant	Market research analysts study market conditions to examine potential sales of a product or service. They help companies understand what products people want, who will buy them, and at what price.	$30-73
   Marketing Department Internship	A marketing department internship is a marketing degree program requirement in most colleges. This is the work experience period where interns get to apply the knowledge they acquire in the real world... Show more	$12-18
   Marketing Internship	Marketing interns are usually marketing students or fresh graduates who are interested in getting actual work experiences before taking on a full-time job. They usually have an interest or academic background related to marketing... Show more	$11-18

   Show more

2. Create an ideal candidate profile

   Common skills:

   • SAS
   • Java
   • Data Analysis
   • Visualization
   • R
   • Business Development
   • Product Development
   • Research Findings
   • MATLAB
   • IRB
   • Regression
   • Market Research
   • Primary Research
   • Literature Reviews

   Check all skills

   Responsibilities:

   • Attain and practice medical insurance information rapidly and correctly; including main carriers and Medicaid.
   • Present to clients on: new products, private-label, Rx-to-OTC switches, and FDA rulings.
   • Perform drug accountability according to FDA requirements and guidelines.
   • Conduct power analysis and sample size calculation, ANOVA, non-linear regression modeling, repeat measure analysis, and longitudinal analysis.
   • Spearhead ROI movement instituting a marketing mix modeling program.

   More senior research consultant duties

3. Make a budget

   Including a salary range in your senior research consultant job description helps attract top candidates to the position. A senior research consultant salary can be affected by several factors, such as geography, experience, seniority, certifications, and the prestige of the hiring company.

   For example, the average salary for a senior research consultant in Kansas may be lower than in New Jersey, and an entry-level senior research consultant usually earns less than a senior-level senior research consultant. Additionally, a senior research consultant with certifications may command a higher salary, and working for a well-known company or start-up may also impact an employee's pay.

   Average senior research consultant salary

   $99,069yearly

   $47.63 hourly rate

   ---

   Entry-level senior research consultant salary

   $64,000 yearly salary

   Updated December 18, 2025

   Average senior research consultant salary by state

   Rank	State	Avg. salary	Hourly rate
   1	California	$140,460	$68
   2	New Jersey	$127,371	$61
   3	Washington	$126,407	$61
   4	District of Columbia	$121,215	$58
   5	New York	$118,425	$57
   6	Virginia	$107,501	$52
   7	Maryland	$107,179	$52
   8	Massachusetts	$96,071	$46
   9	Connecticut	$93,646	$45
   10	Pennsylvania	$92,761	$45
   11	Texas	$92,442	$44
   12	Georgia	$91,747	$44
   13	Illinois	$90,603	$44
   14	Colorado	$90,093	$43
   15	Minnesota	$88,461	$43
   16	Rhode Island	$86,818	$42
   17	Michigan	$81,683	$39
   18	Arizona	$80,081	$39
   19	Florida	$78,634	$38
   20	Ohio	$77,491	$37

   Average senior research consultant salary by company

   Company

   Rank	Company	Average salary	Hourly rate	Job openings
   1	Twitter	$173,319	$83.33	1
   2	Google	$172,623	$82.99	147
   3	VMware	$163,954	$78.82
   4	The Walt Disney Company	$152,944	$73.53	19
   5	State Street	$152,898	$73.51	1
   6	Exxon Mobil	$152,837	$73.48	6
   7	Microsoft	$151,538	$72.85	246
   8	Intuitive Surgical	$150,096	$72.16	7
   9	Vicarious	$148,153	$71.23
   10	Remitly	$145,742	$70.07
   11	Cisco	$140,181	$67.39	23
   12	Veeva Systems	$135,651	$65.22	34
   13	Chime	$133,086	$63.98	8
   14	Medidata	$132,765	$63.83
   15	Bank of America	$132,094	$63.51	10
   16	AbbVie	$129,221	$62.13	54
   17	Control Risks	$129,138	$62.09
   18	Nokia	$128,279	$61.67	24
   19	USG	$123,984	$59.61	1
   20	General Motors	$123,042	$59.15	20

4. Writing a senior research consultant job description

   A job description for a senior research consultant role includes a summary of the job's main responsibilities, required skills, and preferred background experience. Including a salary range can also go a long way in attracting more candidates to apply, and showing the first name of the hiring manager can also make applicants more comfortable. As an example, here's a senior research consultant job description:

   Senior research consultant job description example

   You’ll work on the Frontline Technology Strategy User Experience (UX) team which is responsible for conceptualizing and designing UX for employee-facing software applications. You’ll partner with other units to build complicated banking systems impacting 5,000+ employees who use these systems daily. You’ll lead projects, delivering an excellent end-user experience by executing user-centred design thinking and methodologies while integrating corporate brand standards as well as international accessibility guidelines. Whether fixing a defect or building new functionality, you’ll present design recommendations to your agile pod members and stakeholders and sometimes to senior management for sponsorship support.

   How You’ll Succeed

   · Research Design – Work with stakeholders, designers, scrum masters to pick the right type of study to support projects, taking into account timing of deliverables, information/tools available, project importance/sensitivity, budget, and impact. You can explain the strengths and weaknesses of different research methods to project teams.

   · Collaborate - You’ll work closely with a multidisciplinary team and use a mixed-method approach to research and design to develop experiences for our clients and employees. You’ll build strong relationships with stakeholders to help them set a vision for projects, including framing the problems to be solved and defining criteria for project success. You’ll work effectively within constraints, understanding the broader organizational context but also being ready to challenge it when necessary.

   · Research and Present – Plan and execute research studies, develop Personas, facilitate discovery sessions, run design thinking workshops, conduct interviews and analyze qualitative and quantitative data. You’ll analyze and translate research data into meaningful insights and powerful stories using artifacts such as customer journey maps, videos and storyboards, executive memos, compelling reports, and townhall presentations that explain unmet needs and present opportunities for change.

   • Teamwork– Promote both user-centred and client-centred designs to project peers in a collaborative way. Establish and build healthy working relations and partnerships with stakeholders, Tech partners, vendors and peers to drive research-led design process.

   · Leadership - Articulate business value of design research to stakeholders. Provide thought leadership to other UX members and agile pod teams.

   Who You Are

   · You have a minimum of 8+ years of UX design with at least 4+ on hands-with UX research experience Team or project Lead experience is ideal.

   · You have a degree/diploma in design and research such as Behavioural Science, Inclusive Design, Data Science Industrial Design, Business, Information Studies, Cognitive Psychology, Product Design or related fields.

   · You're digitally savvy. You seek out innovative solutions and embrace evolving technologies. You can easily adapt to new tools and trends.

   · You're driven by collective success. You know that collaboration can transform a good idea into a great one. You understand the power of an inclusive team that enjoys working together to bring a shared vision to life.

   · You embrace and champion change. You'll continuously evolve your thinking and the way you work in order to deliver your best.

   · Values matter to you . You bring your real self to work and you live our values - trust, teamwork, and accountability.

   Copy this example

   

5. Post your job

   There are a few common ways to find senior research consultants for your business:

   • Promoting internally or recruiting from your existing workforce.
   • Ask for referrals from friends, family members, and current employees.
   • Attend job fairs at local colleges to meet candidates with the right educational background.
   • Use social media platforms like LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter to recruit passive job-seekers.

   To find senior research consultant candidates, you can consider the following options:

   • Post your job opening on Zippia or other job search websites.
   • Use niche websites that focus on engineering and technology jobs, such as swipe files, exit five, marketinghire, american marketing association.
   • Post your job on free job posting websites.

6. Interview candidates

   During your first interview to recruit senior research consultants, engage with candidates to learn about their interest in the role and experience in the field. During the following interview, you'll be able to go into more detail about the company, the position, and the responsibilities.

   It's also good to ask about candidates' unique skills and talents. You can move on to the technical interview if a candidate is good enough for the next step.

   The right interview questions can help you assess a candidate's hard skills, behavioral intelligence, and soft skills.

7. Send a job offer and onboard your new senior research consultant

   Once you've selected the best senior research consultant candidate for the job, it's time to write an offer letter. In addition to salary, this letter should include details about the benefits and perks you offer the candidate. Ensuring that your offer is competitive is essential, as qualified candidates may be considering other job opportunities. The candidate may wish to negotiate the terms of the offer, and you should be open to discussion. After you reach an agreement, the final step is formalizing the agreement with a contract.

   It's also important to follow up with applicants who do not get the job with an email letting them know that the position is filled.

   Once that's done, you can draft an onboarding schedule for the new senior research consultant. Human Resources should complete Employee Action Forms and ensure that onboarding paperwork is completed, including I-9s, benefits enrollment, federal and state tax forms, etc. They should also ensure that new employee files are created for internal recordkeeping.

8. Go through the hiring process checklist

   • Determine employee type (full-time, part-time, contractor, etc.)
   • Submit a job requisition form to the HR department
   • Define job responsibilities and requirements
   • Establish budget and timeline
   • Determine hiring decision makers for the role
   • Write job description
   • Post job on job boards, company website, etc.
   • Promote the job internally
   • Process applications through applicant tracking system
   • Review resumes and cover letters
   • Shortlist candidates for screening
   • Hold phone/virtual interview screening with first round of candidates
   • Conduct in-person interviews with top candidates from first round
   • Score candidates based on weighted criteria (e.g., experience, education, background, cultural fit, skill set, etc.)
   • Conduct background checks on top candidates
   • Check references of top candidates
   • Consult with HR and hiring decision makers on job offer specifics
   • Extend offer to top candidate(s)
   • Receive formal job offer acceptance and signed employment contract
   • Inform other candidates that the position has been filled
   • Set and communicate onboarding schedule to new hire(s)
   • Complete new hire paperwork (i9, benefits enrollment, tax forms, etc.)

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