Lauren Solano: Mapping Careers Beyond the Bench

This episode steps outside the usual GPCR research conversation to examine the career architecture around it. Lauren Solano, CEO and co-founder of Propel Careers, has spent more than a decade coaching PhDs and postdocs and recruiting for biotech and life sciences companies — a vantage point that makes her uncommonly clear about the gap between how scientists describe themselves and how the market reads them.

The discussion explores how to translate scientific training into career options that are often invisible to bench scientists, ranging from medical science liaison and clinical research roles to business development, scientific communications, venture capital, and consulting. Solano unpacks the specific transferable skills PhDs consistently undersell — collaboration, leadership, proactive ownership, communicating across technical audiences — and introduces concrete tools for self-assessment and exploration, including the "loved it, loathed it" exercise and a permission-granted approach to informational interviewing.

For Solano, the stakes are personal: she didn't know the career she now has was even possible in 2008, which is precisely why she maps the option space for the scientists she coaches today.

About the Guest

Lauren Solano is CEO and co-founder of Propel Careers, a Boston-based firm that coaches scientists and recruits for biotech and life sciences companies. She trained as a scientist and spent her first decade in preclinical and early clinical drug discovery before pursuing an MBA in 2007 and co-founding Propel in 2009. Her practice centers on helping PhDs and postdocs translate technical training into career paths they often don't realize are open to them. Each year she delivers roughly a hundred talks at universities and research institutions on resumes, negotiation, informational interviewing, and the mechanics of biotech hiring.

Scientific Themes of the Conversation

• The gap between scientific training and the career vocabulary scientists need

• Transferable skills in the PhD toolkit — and why they go unlisted

• Informational interviewing as a research method for career planning

• The limits and real signals of "company culture" in biotech

• COVID-era shifts in scientist hiring and career reflection

• Title-function mismatches in life sciences job descriptions

Key Insights from the Conversation

1. The "loved it, loathed it" exercise as a career compass Over any given week, note which tasks you enjoyed and which you dreaded. Separate that list from what you're good at — the overlap reveals which career functions, not titles, are worth exploring next.

2. Function over title Job titles in biotech are often creative and inconsistent — a medical science liaison might be called a "clinical information specialist." Scientists navigating a career change are better served mapping careers by tasks and functions first, and treating titles as secondary metadata.

3. PhDs consistently undersell their transferable skills After thousands of conversations with scientists, Solano has found that collaboration, leadership, proactive ownership, and translating technical content across audiences are not universal traits. PhDs tend to have them in unusual concentration — and tend to leave them off their resumes because they assume everyone else has them too.

4. Informational interviews are already permitted Graduate students and postdocs often feel uneasy reaching out to people in other careers, as if the exploration hasn't been earned. Solano reframes this directly: because training ends, career exploration is required, and most people will give fifteen minutes if asked well.

5. "Company culture" is meaningless until you can point at behaviors Every company claims a strong culture. What matters is whether office layout, mentorship practices, and daily behaviors support the claim. The sharper question is what the company does, not what it says.

6. Safety at work is a concrete culture signal Would an employee feel comfortable telling a manager their child is sick, or would they invent another reason? Whether people feel safe at work is a harder measure of culture than any mission statement.

7. Post-pandemic career decisions are about alignment, not just advancement Solano observes that many scientists are using the moment to ask whether their current work matches who they are — not to chase the next rung, but to reset toward impact.

Episode Timeline

• 00:00 Intro and Dr. GPCR Summit preview

• 01:30 Meet Lauren Solano and Propel Careers

• 03:11 The path from bench science to career coaching

• 07:56 Loved it, loathed it — the introspection exercise

• 10:29 Career options PhDs rarely consider

• 11:49 Transferable skills scientists undervalue

• 14:16 The informational interview — permission granted

• 23:57 The COVID shift in biotech hiring

• 26:14 Assessing real company culture

• 31:34 Master resumes and the title trap

Timestamps were generated using AI for readability.

Selected Quotes

About this episode

In this special Dr. GPCR podcast episode, we sat down to chat with Lauren Celano to talk about career options for Ph.D.’s. Working in a lab allows scientists to gain amazing hard and soft skills, which opens the doors to several great careers that many have not even considered, yet. Lauren has a science background and is passionate about helping talented scientists find their dream position. She is also a speaker, connector, recruiter, and coach.

Lauren Celano on the web

• LinkedIn

• Propel Careers

• Email: Lauren@propelcareers.com

• Dr. GPCR Ecosystem