Identify Potential Employers and Relevant Jobs

Another important step in the professional development of a scientist is the ability to identify potential employers and relevant jobs for which they are qualified. For example, in the case of a student working on the PhD, this step is ideally not left until the last year prior to graduation. Another way of putting this point is that the student should find out for himself or herself where he or she might be employed before studying for several years in an area with limited job prospects. The purpose of this chapter is to provide a preliminary list of types of jobs available in industry and government.

Finding Jobs

Consult the APS Career Center

Knock ‘em Dead 2007: The Ultimate Job Search Guide
ISBN: 1593377053

See the companies in the list below. Look at these sites to see job descriptions and required skills to see how well your skills match available job postings. Take action if you do not identify any available jobs for your skill set.

Academic Jobs

• Look at individual job postings on university and college websites
• Network at conferencesiii. Read the pages of each monthly issue of Physics Today

Industry Jobs (selected companies)

Read “Educating Physicists for Industry: The Rest of the Story,” by Kenneth C. Hass. http://www.physicstoday.org/pt/vol-55/iss-12/p54.html, Physics Today. Vol. 55, p. 54.

• Agere
• Applied Materials
• Google
• Hewlett Packard
• IBM
• IBM Research
• Intel
• Lucent
• Microsoft
• PPG
• Texas Instruments
• Yahoo

Official Job Site of the US Government

US Government Labs

• Argonne National Lab
• Brookhaven National Lab
• Fermi National Lab
• Idaho National Lab
• Jet Propulsion Lab
• Lawrence Berkeley Lab
• Lawrence Livermore Lab
• Los Alamos National Lab
• NASA
• NIST
• Oak Ridge National Lab
• Pacific Northwest National Lab
• Sandia National Lab

Be sure to know where you could be employed