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Overview of Physics Careers and Career Readiness

C2C Workshop - Student Day 2 Block 1

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What you’ll learn

Career pathways for physics graduates
What Becoming Career Ready means and why it is important
How enhancing your Competencies will benefit you now and, in the future
How to go about enhancing your Competencies while at college

Time	Day 2 - Activity
8:00 - 9:00 am	Gathering
9:00 - 10:15 am	1: (S) career readiness (I) overview of VPT
10:15 - 10:45 am	Break
10:45 - 12:00 pm	2: Shared discussion
12:00 - 2:00 pm	Lunch
2:00 - 3:15 pm	3: (S) STEM career panel (I) ODS panel
3:15 - 3:45 pm	Break
3:45 - 5:00 pm	4: (S) SPS Careers Toolkit (I) Return to VPT

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Career Pathways for Physics Graduates

About half of physics bachelor’s degree recipients enroll in graduate programs, either in physics or related fields.
The remaining graduates enter the workforce directly, with 60% of these individuals working in the private sector, primarily in engineering, computer systems, and research fields.
Among students who earned a bachelor's degree in physics, half had secured employment by the winter season immediately following their graduation year.

AIP Statistics, 2025

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What is Career Readiness and why is it important?

Career Readiness is the on-going process of preparing yourself for success in the workplace both in the short-term and the long-term.
It is achieved through the attainment and demonstration of the 8 Core Career Readiness Competencies (also known as transferable skills), identified by the National Association of Colleges & Employers (NACE) as key predictors of career success.

Career Readiness is the on-going process of preparing yourself for success in the workplace both in the short-term and the long-term

It is achieved through the attainment and demonstration of the 8 Core Career Readiness Competencies (also known as transferable skills), identified by the National Association of Colleges & Employers (NACE) as key predictors of career success.

You may not realize it but every time you are completing a class assignment, meeting with members of your student organization, participating in an on-campus activity, or working a job, you are taking one more step towards becoming career ready. Aside from the knowledge, insights, and experience that you are gaining through your participation in these various activities, you are also practicing and further enhancing your career readiness competencies in real time.

Though Competencies are key to your success in the workplace and your future career, they are also essential to your success as a student both at the undergraduate and graduate level. Taking advantage of every opportunity, both in and out of the classroom, to demonstrate and enhance your Career Competencies as a student, will allow you to fully benefit from your undergraduate experience and help you create solid foundations for a successful and productive post-graduation career.

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Competencies for a Career-Ready Workforce

There are eight career readiness competencies, each of which can be demonstrated in a variety of ways.

https://www.naceweb.org/career-readiness/competencies/career-readiness-defined/#competencies

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How enhancing your Competencies will benefit you now and, in the future

Enhancing your Competencies not only prepares you for career success but also equips you with the mindset and transferable skills to become more productive and effective in your current daily activities both in and out of the classroom.

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Career Competencies

https://www.naceweb.org/career-readiness/competencies/career-readiness-defined/#competencies

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Career and Self-Development

Proactively preparing yourself for post-graduation life though continual personal and professional learning and development.

Will help you…

Develop awareness of your strengths and weaknesses
Set goals, create a plan, and put that plan into action
Adopt a growth mindset, making the pursuit of lifelong learning a priority

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Career and Self-Development:

Discuss

Pair-up and discuss the following questions:

What are some ways you’ve already worked on your personal or professional growth—inside or outside of school?

What’s one area you’d like to improve, and how might you start?

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Communication

Clearly and effectively exchange information, ideas, facts, and perspectives with persons inside and outside of an organization.

Will help you:

Collaborate effectively with others
Successfully adapt your communication style to diverse audiences and circumstances
Enhance your ability to effectively inform, influence, and persuade others.

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Communication: Discuss

Pair-up and discuss the following questions:

Can anyone give me an example of ways in which you think communication skills will impact you on while doing your job?

How would you currently rate your verbal, writing, active listening, and nonverbal communication skills?

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Critical Thinking

Identify and respond to needs based upon an understanding of situational context and logical analysis of relevant information.

Will help you:

Problem-solve and make informed decisions, using inclusive reasoning and judgment
Effectively prioritize work tasks based on urgency and importance
Innovate new ideas, and ways of doing things

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Critical Thinking: Discuss

Pair-up and discuss the following questions:

Can you think of a time when you had to solve a problem or make a tough decision?

What steps did you take to figure out the best solution—and would you do anything differently now?

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Equity and Inclusion

Demonstrate the awareness, attitude, knowledge, and skills required to equitably engage and include people from different local and global cultures. Engage in anti-oppressive practices that actively challenge the systems, structures, and policies of racism and inequity.

Will help you:

Create and sustain a group, community, classroom and workplace culture that values equity and inclusion
Consider and respect the diverse perspectives of others regardless of their background and affiliation
Collaborate with diverse individuals and teams and be open to challenging your own assumptions and perceptions

In the classroom, you and your classmates share a common learning objective. However, your backgrounds and lived experiences are diverse and can potentially impact your learning needs. For this reason, we, as instructors, work hard to create an equitable learning environment where every student has unrestricted access to the resources and support that they need to be successful in the classroom, regardless of their individual circumstances and learning needs. we try to create an inclusive environment where all students feel a sense of belonging and are empowered to express their opinions and make meaningful contributions.

Whether you are in a classroom or working a job, you too are expected to actively contribute to creating and sustaining a classroom and workplace culture that values equity and inclusion. Equity and inclusion are not only critical from a moral standpoint but can also significantly enhance your own productivity, efficiency, and adaptability, as well as that of your classmates and colleagues.

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Equity and Inclusion: Discuss

Pair-up and discuss the following questions:

Can you think of any experiences you have had in which you have helped make things more equitable or inclusive?

What helped or hurt the sense of inclusion in that situation? What might you do differently next time?

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Leadership

Recognize and capitalize on personal and team strengths to achieve organizational goals.

Will help you:

Adopt a growth mindset that can help you develop strong foundations as a future leader of others
Enhance your ability to motivate and inspire self and others to work towards a shared vision
Maintain a positive mindset when facing change, challenges, and adversity

Some people may think that leadership is a competency that you are born with. However, leadership skills can be developed over time by engaging in various activities both in and out of the classroom. You have most likely already applied your leadership skills in some context during your time in college or even before that. For example, think about a group of people or an initiative that you have led in the recent past. Consider the times where you have helped guide, inspire, or influence others to achieve a goal. These are all examples of leadership.

Leadership is not about being the loudest, smartest, or strongest person in the room. It’s not even about having the formal authority to lead. Instead, leadership is about your ability to inspire, encourage, motivate, influence and guide others to achieve shared goals.

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Leadership: Discuss

Pair-up and discuss the following question:

What are some of the characteristics of the best leaders you have been around that you would like to work on replicating?

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Professionalism

Knowing work environments differ greatly, understand and demonstrate effective work habits, and act in the interest of the larger community and workplace.

Will help you:

Take ownership of your work and be accountable for its quality and impact
Adhere to mandated standards, regulations, policies and procedures
Take accountability for and learn from your mistakes

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Professionalism: Discuss

Pair-up and discuss the following questions:

Think of a time when you had to take responsibility for a task or project. What did you learn from that experience, especially if things didn’t go as planned?

How do you show professionalism in your school, job, or volunteer work?

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Teamwork

Build and maintain collaborative relationships to work effectively toward common goals, while appreciating diverse viewpoints and shared responsibilities.

Will help you:

Achieve common goals more effectively, as each team member adds to the collective thinking by sharing their own creativity, unique perspectives, and insights
Acquire new knowledge and skills that you will learn from others on your team
Collaborate effectively with diverse personalities and be open to different ways of doing things

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Teamwork: Discuss

Pair-up and discuss the following questions:

What helps a team work well together and what tends to cause problems?

What’s something you can do to support a positive, collaborative team environment?

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Technology

Understand and leverage technologies ethically to enhance efficiencies, complete tasks, and accomplish goals.

Will help you:

Prepare for the digital workplace
Accomplish your goals faster and more efficiently
Greatly facilitate communication and collaboration
Make more informed decisions

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Technology: Discuss

Pair-up and discuss the following questions:

What is the most recent technology that you had to learn and effectively utilize?

What was the learning process like for you?

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How to enhance your Career Competencies

Your college experiences and beyond offer many opportunities to develop and enhance the 8 NACE Career Competencies
These include participation in classroom projects and assignments, internships, co-ops, assistantships, research, on-campus involvement, work experience, and other on- or off-campus endeavors.
The idea is to build a well-rounded set of competencies that will help you meet your post-graduation career goals.

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The Career Competencies are everywhere. You just need to know how to recognize them.

So what is the point of all of this? Why is it so important to think about and intentionally develop your career competencies?

Because the Career Competencies are everywhere...

It’s unlikely that you’ll see a job description that specifically lists some of the career competencies as required qualifications, or that you’ll be asked a question like, “can you tell me about your Equity & Inclusion and Teamwork competencies?” in an interview. But if you know what the competencies are, you’ll realize that they are asking for the competencies indirectly throughout that job description. And you’ll recognize that when you are asked a question like, “can you tell us about a time when you worked on a team with people from different backgrounds?” they are essentially asking, “can you tell us about your Equity & Inclusion and Teamwork competencies?”

Let’s take a look at how you can work towards recognizing the competencies.

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Can you identify some of the Career Competencies?

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Software Developer - Sample Job Description

Use software engineering skill sets to drive meaningful business impact by looking at problems through an operational lens
Develop business cases to support new and improved processes for consumers, businesses, and partners that leverage our products, pushing the boundaries and thinking of what the future for this area of the business may look like
Lead and complete concurrent complex projects, providing guidance to other members of the team on their projects
Communicate and collaborate with cross-functional partners to align priorities with stakeholders across WhatsApp, influencing organizational roadmaps
Effectively contribute in decision-making meetings with other managers and team leads through providing thoughtful ideas and proposals on matters of importance while building trust in high pressure situations
Independently gather and analyze information based on data to identify specific trends/opportunities, making appropriate recommendations through anticipating future business needs that improve the overall support experience, sharing knowledge across the team
Think through end-to-end execution, using judgement to understand how actions may impact other stakeholders and communicate in advance
Demonstrate thought-leadership to help drive strategic decisions that promote growth within a diverse team, organization, and cross-functional teams
Consistently deliver constructive feedback to peers in a way that strengthens relationships and enables projects to advance more quickly while motivating and uniting the team to achieve common goals

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Software Developer

{Use software engineering skill sets} to [drive meaningful business impact] by (looking at problems through an operational lens)
Develop business cases to support new and improved processes for consumers, businesses, and partners that leverage our products, “pushing the boundaries and thinking of what the future for this area of the business may look like”
Lead and complete concurrent complex projects, \providing guidance to other members of the team\ on their projects
‘Communicate’ and |collaborate| with cross-functional partners to align priorities with stakeholders across WhatsApp, influencing organizational roadmaps
Effectively |contribute in decision-making meetings with other managers and team leads| through [providing thoughtful ideas and proposals] on matters of importance while building trust in high pressure situations
Independently gather and analyze information based on data to identify specific trends/opportunities, making appropriate (recommendations) through anticipating future business needs that improve the overall support experience, sharing knowledge across the team
(Think through end-to-end execution), using judgement to understand how actions may impact other stakeholders and ‘communicate in advance’
\Demonstrate thought-leadership\ to help drive strategic decisions that promote growth within a <diverse> |team|, organization, and cross-functional teams
Consistently ‘deliver constructive feedback’ to peers in a way that strengthens relationships and enables projects to advance more quickly while \motivating and uniting the team to achieve common goals\

“Career and Self-Development”

‘Communication’

(Critical Thinking)

\Leadership\

[Professionalism]

|Teamwork|

{Technology}

You’ll see that the competencies are everywhere within these responsibilities. We have color-coordinated and highlighted words and phrases to correspond with a particular competency. For instance, we see phrases like “looking at problems through an operational lens” and “think through end-to-end execution” which directly relate to Critical Thinking. We see “providing guidance”, “demonstrate thought-leadership”, and “motivating and uniting the team to achieve common goals”, which are all part of what the leadership competency is. If you take the time to read through what is being asked of the person in this position, you realize that someone who has developed their eight core competencies would be very well qualified to handle much of what this software developer role is asking for.

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What competencies were highlighted?

Career and Self-Development

Pushing the boundaries and thinking of what the future for this area of the business may look like

Communication

Communicate
Communicate in advance
Deliver constructive feedback

Critical Thinking

Looking at problems through an operational lens
Making appropriate recommendations
Think through end-to-end execution

Equity & Inclusion

Diverse team

Leadership

Providing guidance to other members of the team
Demonstrate thought-leadership
Motivating and uniting the team to achieve common goals

Professionalism

Drive meaningful business impact
Providing thoughtful ideas and proposals

Teamwork

Collaborate
Contribute in decision-making meetings with other managers and team leads
Team

Technology

Use software engineering skill sets
WhatsApp

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What are your next steps?

Check the website of the career center of your school to see the provided resources and activity opportunities.
(if available) schedule an appointment with a career consultant to discuss how to articulate your NACE Career Competencies in your resume, cover letter and job interviews.