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CAREER DEVELOPMENT Best foot forward Whether you’re a student, a researcher in an early stage of your professional journey, or an established scientist looking for a change, the American Physical Societ y has a wide variet y of resources to help you plan out your career. Tushna Commissariat explores A P S The main event At tendees at the APS March Meeting 2023 in Las Vegas, Nevada. A degree in physics opens up so many different career routes that it can sometimes be diff icult to know which path to choose once you graduate. If you are about to graduate and are on the look-out for your f irst job, or are an early-career scientist looking to explore a new avenue, the American Physical Society’s careers team has a number of different resources and guidance to offer. Indeed, according to Crystal Bailey, APS’s head of careers, the f irst step that she recommends students make when deciding their career path is one of self-ref lection. That means working out not only what interests you in terms of subject matter—and what skills you have already or would like to develop —but also taking stock of what a successful career looks like for you in terms of your values. “Students really should be thinking about what’s important to them,” Bailey explains. “Maybe it’s important to them that they don’t work 90 hours a week. Maybe it’s important to them that they have f lexible schedules, or space to balance family, or hobbies, or passions, or pursuits with the work that t h e y’r e d o i n g .” Bailey adds that “it’s not often enough that we actually ask students what they need to be healthy or happy or encourage them to take those things into consideration when they’re thinking about their career path”. In other words, Bailey’s advice is that you “need to sor t of know what makes you tick, what itches do you really need to have scratched with your career?” In fact, this is so fundamental, the APS has star ted their Career Navigator guidebook with such a selfassessment. The tool also links to prof iles of 60 physicists with different backgrounds and in different sectors to show what specif ic career paths might look like so students can assess whether they would be a good f it for them. It also includes advice on networking, resume writing, job applications and inter view tips. One piece of advice that APS senior careers program manager Midhat Farooq likes to give students is to keep a t rack of your self-assessment in a notebook or journal, alongside a r unning inventory of the skills you have acquired. “When you’re networking and doing informational interviews, write down the connections that you’re making and the information you’re lear ning,” she suggests. 6 APS   Careers 2024 in partnership with Physics World
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Then, if you take up an inter nship and decide it isn’t the best f it, you can consult the notes and use that to guide you to other opportunities by tapping into your network. Do your homework The next step, Bailey adds, is to do the research to explore what’s out there. “We do have a lot of resources and we create a lot of opportunities for students to lear n about career pathways, but absolutely nothing can replace going out and actually speaking to as many people as possible who are working in the world.” To this end, students can schedule “information interviews”: short chats with someone who’s in a company, industry or position that seems of interest. These conversations can help you not only get a better understanding of a particular f ield or company but also let you add people to your professional network who might be helpful when you come to actually look for a job. “We have great resources in the Career Navigator to tell you exactly how to set up an informational interview,” Bailey notes, while cautioning that these things take time, and are best not left until three months before you graduate. “I encourage students to get this process star ted a couple of years before they graduate,” she say. “That way it can be a casual, organic process. It doesn’t have to be stressful!” Stephanie Hervey—the APS’s industry program manager—says that the society’s industry mentorship program can not only be a source of guidance, but also a great window for networking. “I’ve heard many different stories where people have actually gotten a job offer or had an opportunity to connect for job prospects during that mentorship opportunity,” she explains. “The people that are in the f ield, they’re the ones that know what it’s like. They’re the ones who can say: ‘Oh this company would be a good f it for you’, or ‘this school is doing research on this topic’ ”. When it comes to providing men- A P S Career consultants Midhat Farooq (right), senior careers program manager at APS chats with a career mentoring fellow at the APS March Meeting. toring services, the APS has a number of initiatives, including the “Industry Mentoring for Physicists” (IMPact) program, which connects students and early career scientists to industry professionals. There’s also “National Mentoring Community” (NMC), which supports Black/African, Latinx, and Indigenous undergraduate physics students. Also, if you are an established physicist—working in industry, government, or academia— and are interested in mentoring undergraduate and graduate students, as well as early-career scientists, then you may want to sign up for IMPact, NMC, or consider becoming a careermentoring (CM) fellow yourself. Hi, my name is… Bailey is keen to dispel the notion that networking is some awkward, formal, performative thing involving painfully fake schmoozing and martini glasses. “Anytime you build a relationship with somebody, you have that connection. You’re networking with them,” she explains. “It’s just about relationships between people, and if you are capable of having relationships with people, you are capable of networking.” That said, networking is a skill that you can practice and polish to ensure you’re best describing who you are and what you want. “When I was in grad school, I would’ve said: ‘My name is Crystal Bailey. I’m a graduate student at Indiana University and I’m interested in Physics Education Research (PER).’ That would have been my line.” In fact, Bailey recommends that students formulate similar intro ductions—writing them down and coming up with versions of different lengths and details for different settings and audiences. For example, you may have a more technical introduction for other physicists, and a more accessible version that might be better for pitching, say, to the CEO of a company you might be interested in working for. And for those wanting to ref ine these skills, Farooq provides workshops each year at the APS March Meeting (which also doubles as a job fair, and includes a day focused on industry careers) and at some of the Conferences for Undergraduate Women in Physics. The workshops allow participants a safe space to practice networking, before going out and applying what they’ve learnt at the wider event. The APS also puts on workshops on how to use LinkedIn to build your network, which can help expand your reach and tap into useful contacts. Other roads As industry program manager, Hervey is keen to remind students that there are rich and varied career options beyond the academic bubble in which students are typically immersed. “You’re so engulfed in that culture that you almost forget that there’s another path for you,” she says, APS   Careers 2024 in partnership with Physics World 7

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Then, if you take up an inter nship and decide it isn’t the best f it, you can consult the notes and use that to guide you to other opportunities by tapping into your network. Do your homework The next step, Bailey adds, is to do the research to explore what’s out there. “We do have a lot of resources and we create a lot of opportunities for students to lear n about career pathways, but absolutely nothing can replace going out and actually speaking to as many people as possible who are working in the world.”

To this end, students can schedule “information interviews”: short chats with someone who’s in a company, industry or position that seems of interest. These conversations can help you not only get a better understanding of a particular f ield or company but also let you add people to your professional network who might be helpful when you come to actually look for a job.

“We have great resources in the Career Navigator to tell you exactly how to set up an informational interview,” Bailey notes, while cautioning that these things take time, and are best not left until three months before you graduate. “I encourage students to get this process star ted a couple of years before they graduate,” she say. “That way it can be a casual, organic process. It doesn’t have to be stressful!”

Stephanie Hervey—the APS’s industry program manager—says that the society’s industry mentorship program can not only be a source of guidance, but also a great window for networking. “I’ve heard many different stories where people have actually gotten a job offer or had an opportunity to connect for job prospects during that mentorship opportunity,” she explains. “The people that are in the f ield, they’re the ones that know what it’s like. They’re the ones who can say: ‘Oh this company would be a good f it for you’, or ‘this school is doing research on this topic’ ”. When it comes to providing men-

A P S

Career consultants Midhat Farooq (right), senior careers program manager at APS chats with a career mentoring fellow at the APS March Meeting.

toring services, the APS has a number of initiatives, including the “Industry Mentoring for Physicists” (IMPact) program, which connects students and early career scientists to industry professionals. There’s also “National Mentoring Community” (NMC), which supports Black/African, Latinx, and Indigenous undergraduate physics students. Also, if you are an established physicist—working in industry, government, or academia— and are interested in mentoring undergraduate and graduate students, as well as early-career scientists, then you may want to sign up for IMPact, NMC, or consider becoming a careermentoring (CM) fellow yourself. Hi, my name is… Bailey is keen to dispel the notion that networking is some awkward, formal, performative thing involving painfully fake schmoozing and martini glasses. “Anytime you build a relationship with somebody, you have that connection. You’re networking with them,” she explains. “It’s just about relationships between people, and if you are capable of having relationships with people, you are capable of networking.”

That said, networking is a skill that you can practice and polish to ensure you’re best describing who you are and what you want. “When I was in grad school, I would’ve said: ‘My name is Crystal Bailey. I’m a graduate student at Indiana University and I’m interested in Physics Education

Research (PER).’ That would have been my line.”

In fact, Bailey recommends that students formulate similar intro ductions—writing them down and coming up with versions of different lengths and details for different settings and audiences. For example, you may have a more technical introduction for other physicists, and a more accessible version that might be better for pitching, say, to the CEO of a company you might be interested in working for.

And for those wanting to ref ine these skills, Farooq provides workshops each year at the APS March Meeting (which also doubles as a job fair, and includes a day focused on industry careers) and at some of the Conferences for Undergraduate Women in Physics. The workshops allow participants a safe space to practice networking, before going out and applying what they’ve learnt at the wider event.

The APS also puts on workshops on how to use LinkedIn to build your network, which can help expand your reach and tap into useful contacts. Other roads As industry program manager, Hervey is keen to remind students that there are rich and varied career options beyond the academic bubble in which students are typically immersed. “You’re so engulfed in that culture that you almost forget that there’s another path for you,” she says,

APS   Careers 2024 in partnership with Physics World

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