At some point in your physics career you
will be slapped in the face with reality
which is what are you supposed to do
with your degree how we use clothes to
find the job maybe you love science but
you're having a really hard time finding
a career that's right for you there are
a lot of hard truths about a career in
physics and today we're going to meet up
with Andrew to give you 9 lessons that
we learned the hard way. Hi everyone! My
name is Jena Meinecke and I'm a Junior
Research Fellow at Christ Church College
at the University of Oxford but prior to
this I also did a postdoc position at
Stanford. I am Andrew Princep. I am the
Keeley-Rutherford Junior Research Fellow at
both Wadman College Oxford and the
Rutherford Appleton Laboratory. So our
very first tip is to be flexible with
your career plans pursuing a career in
physics is not a linear process there
are some people who make it look really
easy where they go from point A to point
B and you just think wow they have life
figured out but in reality their
trajectory was probably all over the
place and all you see is point a and
point B but nothing in between you're
going to need to be very flexible with
the type of research topics that you do
but also where you're going to be
conducting research so for instance in
our group one of our most recent
postdocs has a background in particle
acceleration but now she's doing
research on laboratory astrophysics
which is a pretty different topic but
they're still very closely related under
the umbrella of plasma physics and so as
a result in my opinion she's becoming an
even more appealing candidate for jobs
because she has a huge distribution of
skills that she's building up our second
tip is to seize any opportunity which is
available a lot of positions can be
quite short-term I've had positions as
short as five months long I've also had
positions as long as three and a half
years so this can lead to a really
stressful situation regarding your
security it is also really important to
think about your job security your
personal financial security more than it
is to think about the convenience of the
people who currently employee so if you
find yourself on a short-term contract
maybe you're in the halfway through a
one-year position and you get the
opportunity to immediately move into a
three-year position or a permanent
position go you should leave it is
important to think about your or put
yourself first tip number three is to
develop meaningful relationships with
the people you work with and a positive
reputation when you buy a house a
realtor will tell you it's all about
location location location as a
physicist it's all about reputation
reputation reputation your reputation
whether it's good or bad will always
precede you when you're looking at
careers in physics and there are two
different aspects that you need to think
about the first is what is the quality
of science that you're putting out into
the world if you're a great quality
scientist you do great work you publish
great papers that will precede you
people will know that you're a wonderful
scientist and they will want to have you
at their company the other thing that a
lot of people underestimate is how
important it is to be a great scientist
to work with and so if even if you're a
brilliant scientist if you're really
difficult to work with people are going
to be less inclined to employ you
because they want to create an
atmosphere that's going to allow for
scientists to thrive so the bottom line
here is develop meaningful relationships
with the people that you work with at
every stage in your career tip number
four is identifying jobs which amant for
somebody who isn't you so you start
reading a job application and you see
that it wants somebody who's published a
certain number of papers in a certain
set of journals and they have to be
experienced in a certain type of light
machine and you think like wow they have
some like really serious project in mind
but actually what they have in mind is a
really seriously specific person
basically what you've encountered is a
job where
they want to hire a particular person
and so they have crafted masterfully a
job advertisement which is specifically
targeted to filter out anybody who is
not that person is it worth applying for
a job that you know is going to someone
else yes absolutely yes because the act
of applying for a job is work it teaches
you a lot about yourself your goals your
research interests when you write a job
application tip number five recognize
the difference between success and
success rates one of the downfalls of
social media is that you often see the
highlights of someone's career you see
someone post oh they got this wonderful
lectureship and you think they're so
successful and lucky why can't I have
that
I keep getting rejections left and right
and I can't do anything right
it might be the case that they applied
to ten or more other jobs all the voice
except the one rejected them maybe they
didn't even get shortlisted for an
interview for those jobs so it's
important to look at the success rate
instead of just the success because on
in terms of rates I would say on average
most physicists will have a success rate
of less than 50% which means that more
often than not you're having people tell
you no so how do you deal with getting
rejected often the most important thing
is do not take it personally maybe go
have some ice cream make yourself feel
better if for a few hours and then move
on to the next application rejection
will make you a better scientist if
you're able to look at it as a
constructive process tip number six is
to not put all of your eggs in one
basket
the circumstances of your funding or
your personal situation can change quite
rapidly so say that you've applied for a
job in a different country and you meet
the love of your life or more likely
you're denied a visa these things can
really impact your ability to be mobile
it can be very important to cultivate a
lot of options when it comes to
for jobs and this is why just because
you don't necessarily want a job you
shouldn't not apply for it it's much
better to choose between two or three
jobs than to just take the one that you
were off it the financial implications
of this are pretty significant as well
you can choose the job which is most
financially secure or inconvenient or if
you get multiple job offers you can to
some extent play them off against each
other a little bit so number seven is to
believe wholeheartedly in yourself
imposter syndrome can kill your career I
fall victim to this all the time so for
instance I have a junior research
fellowship a jerath at Oxford and I was
told by a number of people who I
consider to be peers and I I didn't
really even have a snowball's chance and
getting these fellowships on because
they're just they're so prestigious that
only the elite you can get them and it
was really discouraging and there was a
there was a part of me inside that
thought that they were right and so I
didn't plan to apply for the jrf at
Oxford and then one day one of my best
friends and this is why she's my best
one of my best friends told me that you
know someone has to get the position
they have to fill the position someone
will get it why not you she said you
know you're an amazing candidate you're
great scientists you have nothing to
lose by applying and I think that that
piece of advice is something that has
resonated with me and I take with me and
every single stage of my career now
whenever I'm looking at a job
application
I tell myself somebody has to get this
position why not me why not me tip
number eight is to try new things
it's too often easy to kind of follow
the path of least resistance and
arguably we've all already done it
when we go straight from a an
undergraduate degree in physics to a
graduate degree in physics and then
we're already thinking about postdocs
because that's just what scientists do
right they just roll along that train
all the way to Professor apparently
because there's
many professorships available it's
important to recognize that science
isn't so much a pyramid in terms of how
many jobs are available but it's more
like a trapezoid with a tiny little
professor hat on top you have to think
like how much does a career in physics
or science or academia really mean to me
because it's very difficult to pursue
the number that really stuck with me is
that someone has the exact same chance
of going from Little League soccer to
playing in the World Cup as they do from
studying physics in high school to being
a professor of physics you absolutely
shouldn't be afraid to try something
which is different or which is radically
different lots and lots of the PhD
students who I've worked with over the
years have gone into careers which I
didn't even know we're possible but now
I advertise as widely as possible so
they've become patent lawyers they've
gone to work for Google writing software
they do data analysis for leading
companies around the world sometimes
working on problems like how to manage
the homeless problem in London for
example using big data it's also
important to really internalize the
message that in doing that in going into
industry into the wider world outside of
Academy the Academy you have not made a
mistake you have not settled for second
best you have not failed as an academic
the job that you do the work that you do
the achievements that you make outside
of academia are as valuable if not more
in many cases much more valuable than
any research that will be done
fundamentally by anyone so few people in
academia make a contribution that
changes the world
lots of people in industry change lives
on a daily basis and our last tip tip
number nine is that it is okay to take
career breaks in physics in physics
there's this common misconception that
you cannot take career breaks and that
if you do science is going to move on
without you and you're gonna be left
thinking well now I don't have a career
anymore but that's anything other than
true so from a personal point of view um
I took many weeks out a few years ago
just for health reasons I just needed to
have some space and to make sure that I
took care of me for a while and I
thought honestly that by leaving for a
few weeks all my experiments would get
taken over by other people and that I
would lose ownership of a lot of my
publications and to my surprise when I
came back literally everything was
exactly the same all of the emails were
exactly the same no one had moved
forward on any of the work which was
perfect because then I could just pick
up where I left off
and if you want to take an even bigger
break - for instance work on a family or
work on your health or whatever you want
to do take those kinds of breaks if you
need it do what's right for you because
I think into the day it's just a job and
yes it's a job that we care about that
we value but also value yourself more
than anything else
value your health your well-being
because all those things play a huge
factor in your career as a physicist if
you are happy with who you are then that
will show in the research that you do we
hope you found this advice helpful and
if you have anything you want to add
please feel free to leave it in the
comments below remember a career in
physics isn't always easy and linear you
are not alone stay confident and believe
in yourself there is a perfect career
out there for you and we really hope you
can find it
