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.

My experience with Physics graduates is limited to only 2: one (some years ago) who came with several years experience in a related field, and X who has about 2 years experience in physics-related employment.

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

X came with no computer skills, did a crash course at the start of his employment here, picked it up very quickly and is now addicted. His data skills were in experimental analysis. These were transferred very quickly to data analysis of surveys.

Please comment on their ability to learn and adapt.

His ability to learn and adapt is outstanding. This experience would encourage me to consider employing another physics graduate.

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?

Maths and physics graduates are both excellent in the field. The ideal employee would have mathematical programming skills and also business skills (including budgeting and project management) and the right personality.

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

My sample is too small to comment.

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

I would add physics to the list of preferred backgrounds. I am planning to advertise for students to enrol in postgraduate courses in Psychometry, and intend to advertise in maths and engineering; I would now add physics to that list.

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.

Mathematics - a lot - OK

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)?