Preparing Yourself for a Career in Industry

According to recent AIP statistics, roughly half of physics PhD graduates go into the private sector or government labs, and 70{\%} of PhD graduates who are in a potentially permanent position work for the private sector. However, the majority of the training and advice graduate students receive during their PhD is aimed at helping them obtain academic positions, which is to be expected given that this is the typical career trajectory of the faculty members supervising graduate students. Furthermore, a promising candidate from the perspective of the private sector looks quite di?erent from a promising candidate for academia, and thus the manner in which graduate students should emphasize their skills and experience if they desire employment in the private sector is quite di?erent from academia. This session will bring together physicists from outside academia who will share their insight on how graduate students can prepare themselves for non-academic careers. The speakers will briefly introduce themselves and discuss their career paths to industry, leaving most of the session for addressing questions from the audience.