Interview with the employers of recent graduates

This is one in a series of interviews with employers that have recently (in the last 5 years) hired staff who have completed a 3 or 4 year or Honours level undergraduate degree with a Physics major or a Physics-based multidisciplinary major. We’d like to gauge your opinions on the value of an undergraduate Physics major as demonstrated by your employee(s).

Could you please provide the following information?

We would like you to think about physics graduates who have worked for you in the last few years. Please try to separate physics graduates early in their employment from those who have worked with you for some time. We would also like to concentrate on graduates with a basic (not postgraduate) degree with a Physics major.

Are there special knowledge, skills and approaches that these Physics graduates have?

• Highly analytical

• Results driven

• Goal orientated

• Structure approach to problem solving

Please comment on their ability to learn and adapt.

• Learn quickly

• Constantly query the process & develop improvements

• Open to change

How could Physics graduates be better? Do fresh graduates from other disciplines meet these expectations? Is it reasonable to expect university graduates to come with these attributes or are they better learnt/developed at work?

Expectation is that a graduate will have learnt to ask relevant questions and participate in constant process improvements within the business. The learning is continued in the workplace but the habits are formed within the education system.

After a couple of years of employment, are Physics graduates different from those from other disciplines? If yes, in what way?

Insufficient comparison available to respond.

Would you employ a Physics graduate in preference to those from other disciplines? If so why?

No preference given to any discipline.

Graduate attributes table

Please fill in the first four columns of the following table by ticking the box that represents the level to which your employee(s) with a Physics education demonstrated a particular attribute, as gauged at the start of their employment with you, i.e. the attributes they have.

Please say if there was another valuable attribute.

Could you now please fill in the last column, this time indicating whether a particular attribute should be present to a greater or lesser extent at the start of their employment, or whether it is about what you require (OK)?