Academic scientists develop deep topic knowledge in highly specialized niches. However, they also develop extensive skills used to carry out advanced research in their fields. The literature has typically focused on a generalist-specialist distinction in topic knowledge when seeking to understand how firms benefit from hiring scientists from academia. In this paper, I propose an alternative distinction between two dimensions of scientific human capital: topic knowledge and scientific research skills. I build on prior literature on scientific careers and the logic of scientific inquiry to analyze how each dimension can provide value to firms in corporate research. I argue that, relative to academia, firms will value flexibility in applying scientists’ human capital and eschew projects with greater potential divergence in commercial and scientific value. This, in turn, will shape the relative returns to topic knowledge and scientific research skills in firms’ human capital strategies. I test my arguments empirically using longitudinal data on U.S. scientists working in stem cell research. I show that academic scientists transitioning to industry employment have more conceptually diverse subsequent research output. This is consistent with industry placing a higher value on the scientific research skills of academic hires in their human capital strategies. It contrasts with a view in which firms hire experienced scientists with the primary intention of exploiting their highly specialized, but narrow, topic knowledge for commercial purposes. I also use my findings to draw implications on how the division of scientific labor between industry and academia affects knowledge accumulation in ‘Pasteur’s Quadrant’ where basic science and use-inspired research overlap.