# Facilitating Non-HEP Career Transition

Sudhir Malik1 Aneliya Karadzhinova-Ferrer2,3 Julie Hogan4 Rachel Bray5 Rami
Kamalieddin6 Kevin Flood7 Amr El-Zant8 Guillermo Fidalgo1 David Bruhwiler9
Matt Bellis10 1Physics Department, University of Puerto Rico Mayagüez, PR
00682, USA  2Helsinki Institute of Physics, Finland  3Lappeenranta-Lahti
University of Technology, Finland  4Department of Physics and Engineering,
3900 Bethel Dr, St Paul, MN 55112, USA  5CERN, Switzerland  6AllianceBernstein
Investment Management,New York, NY  7Physics Department, University of Hawaii,
HI 96822, U.S.A; Nalu Scientific LLC  8Centre for Theoretical Physics, The
British University in Egypt, Cairo 11837, Egypt  9RadiaSoft LLC, Boulder,
Colorado, CO 80301, USA  10Siena College, 515 Loudon Road, Loudonville, NY
12211, USA<EMAIL_ADDRESS>
###### Abstract

About two-third of Physics PhDs establish careers outside of academia and the
national laboratories in areas like Software, Instrumentation, Data Science,
Finance, Healthcare, Journalism, Public Policy and Non-Governmental
Organization. Skills and knowledge developed during HEPA (High Energy Physics
and Astrophysics) research as an undergraduate, graduate or a postdoc level
(collectively called early career) have been long sought after in industry.
These skills are complex problem solving abilities, software programming, data
analysis, math, statistics and scientific writing, to name a few. Given that a
vast majority transition to the industry jobs, existing paths for such
transition should be strengthened and new ways of facilitating it be
identified and developed. A strong engagement between HEPA and its alumni
would be a pre-requisite for this. It might also lead to creative ways to
reverse the ”brain drain” by encouraging alumni to collaborate on HEPA
research projects or possibly come back full time to research. We motivate and
discuss below several actionable recommendations by which HEPA institutions as
well as HEPA faculty mentors can strengthen both ability to identify non-HEP
career opportunities for students and post-docs as well as help more fully
develop skills such as effective networking, resume building, project
management, risk assessment, budget planning, to name a few. This will help
prepare early career HEPA scientists for successfully transitioning from
academia to the diverse array of non-traditional careers available. HEPA
alumni can play a pivotal role by engaging in this process.

##  1 Introduction

HEPA research gives undergraduate or graduate (Masters or PhD) students or
postdocs a wide array of scientific and technical skills. There are a variety
of career paths available to physics degree holders beyond academia, where
these skills are in demand. The academic job market is such that faculty
positions and scientists in universities and other institutions is very
stable, meaning that not many new jobs are being created. According to AIP [1]
report [2] more than two-thirds of Physics PhD recipients accept permanent
jobs in industry. Not only does industry provide the highest number of jobs
[3, 4, 5] but also the highest salary. Early career physicists may exit
academia at different stages - post undergrad, masters or a PhD or postdoc or
even later. While the time spent in doing PhD in HEPA are typical compared to
the other fields, postdocs usually tend to spend 5-6 years, a bit on higher
side compared to other disciplines, before landing an academic job or leaving
for industry. Irrespective of stage of finding the first job, the evolution
from academic preparation to the first steps in career may not be easy to
predetermine. A smart planning, awareness of various possibilities in industry
for jobs, accompanied with career networking with alumni and colleagues, can
facilitate the process of industry job search at all stages.

There are efforts in the above direction by AIP [6] for all Physics
disciplines. However, networking events for industry careers targeted for HEPA
community were set off at CERN by the CMS Collaboration [7, 8] a decade ago
and later adopted by all CERN Experiments [9, 10]. It eventually led to the
creation of the CERN Alumni Network [11] and the CERN Career Fairs [12]. In
the USA there are some efforts in that direction; like those by the Fermilab
Student Postdoc Association [13]. But clearly a more organised effort is
required. The creation of targeted internships with national laboratory
partners in the areas of Accelerator Technology, Computer and Information
Science, Detector and Engineering Technology, Environmental Safety and Health
and Radiation Therapies is one way to facilitate the training process for a
career in industry. However, many postdocs and students are not based at
National labs where broad access to the above opportunities exists. Direct
involvement from supervisors and mentors in planning the career of their
mentees early on, based on the interest, is another important step towards
success. A commensurate effort in the job search process is also needed. A
centralised method of networking with HEPA alumni would strengthen the job
search, skill matching and hiring process. However, there is a continuing need
for new and innovative tools and portals to be developed and supported. A
robust association and collaboration with HEPA alumni on research projects
could also possibly lead to reversing of the “brain drain” from HEPA. Feedback
based on a survey performed in the HEPA community, described below, suggests
steps which can be taken to further develop pathways for efficient and
effective transition for HEP scientists, at all levels,leading to a successful
career in industry. The goal of this paper is twofold: first to motivate the
need for such improvements, and then to subsequently identify a variety of
mechanisms with which to achieve the above goals.

##  2 Survey findings/analysis, anecdotal experiences

The Snowmass Early Career [14] team prepared and conducted a survey between
June 28 and August 15, 2021 for the entire High Energy Physics and
Astrophysics (HEPA) community. The survey was designed to inform the survey
team on opinions, experiences, and outlook regarding several topics; including
careers, physics outlook, workplace culture, harassment, racism, visa
policies, the impacts of COVID-19, and demographics. The Community Engagement
Frontier (CEF) Working group (WG) on Career Pipeline and Development (CPD)
strategically planned and structured questions and contributed to this survey
to collect feedback related to its own goals. Some of the results of the
survey are discussed in the following sections. The CPD questions focused on
feedback from HEPA community with respect to preparedness for jobs and career
plans outside HEPA and the mentoring received. For HEPA alumini the questions
centered around the diverse occupation in industry, use of skills learned in
HEPA, resources in obtaining the job and possible collaborations. The feedback
from the survey informs on the measures that HEPA community should take to
prepare and facilitate the transition to industry jobs; as early planning,
organised networking, and mentoring, and building better relationships with
alumni for mutual benefit. The survey also tells us that most people try their
best to stay in HEPA as long as they can. More than 50% of the participants
are aged below 35 years and participants who declared their nationalities were
from 60 different countries. The survey findings presented here are those that
are most relevant to this paper. The feedback from survey results is divided
into two groups: from HEPA community and HEPA alumni, as discussed below.

###  2.1 Survey results from HEPA community

The survey participants from HEPA community were from Undergraduates, Masters
and PhD students, Postdocs, Engineers, Technicians, Teaching faculties,
Tenure-track faculties, Tenured faculties and Scientists or Senior scientists
from national lab and universities. Almost half of these survey participants
are considering leaving academia (Figure 1), making it essential to organise
and facilitate this transition. While the first preference obviously is
research jobs in academia (university faculty) or national labs (scientist),
the preference for being in business or being an entrepreneur is the least as
shown in Figure 2.

Figure 1:
Figure 2:

Most participants, being young, have accepted or plan to accept academic
positions that can constitute an intermediate step in an academic career
ladder; like going from PhD position to a postdoc, or from a postdoc to a
faculty position, as shown in Figure 3, which again indicates a strong
preference to stay in HEPA. The level of unpreparedness for non-HEPA jobs
(industry jobs, teaching positions) is overwhelming, as indicated in Figure 6.
To continue to attract students to research and provide the strongest possible
assurance of a secure and interesting career, we must as a community
facilitate the process of transition to positions in industry, as these form
the bulk of the job market available to (and suitable for) HEPA-trained
scientists. This would also provide a pipleline of talent to non-HEPA STEM
areas, both within or outside academia. A free-text response to a question
asking to pick a reason to apply for a future academic or industry job shows
the top word used in Figure 4 as ”research”. This implies that career
preference is to do research whether in acedemia or industry.

While it is true that not enough mentoring and preparedness exists, there is a
realisation among the HEPA community that it is important for supervisors and
mentors to prepare their students for career paths in industry, as shown from
the survey result in Figure 6. Among supervisors, there is also strong support
for their students and mentees to participate in HEPA-industry partnerships
and mobility programs that would prepare them well for industry jobs, as shown
in Figure 7. However, it is also shown that funding for such partnership
activities must come from a source separate from their core HEPA research
support. Further interesting feedback is shown in Figure 8, reflecting strong
support for collaboration between research and non-research/undergraduate
institutions. This is essential in building and broadening STEM opportunities
that would provide a pipeline of scientific talent to the broader workforce.
In general, physics skills are central to the landscape in industry,and offer
routes to productive employment in varied and rewarding careers.

Figure 3:
Figure 4:

Figure 5:

Figure 6:

Figure 7:
Figure 8:

###  2.2 Survey results from HEPA alumni

Feedback from HEPA alumni provides a sense of the challenges in transitioning
from HEPA, and the measures we can take to fix the current shortcomings.
Figure 9 (top left) shows that almost half of HEPA alumni attempted to find
direct employment in the field. Failing to stay in the field reflects the
shortage of permanent jobs in HEPA and, simultaneously, lucrative
opportunities in industry, particularly higher salaries. Figure 9 (bottom
right) shows the variety of sectors in industry that alumni currently work in,
with a majority of them in STEM-related fields. Figure 9 (bottom left) shows
the final involvement level with HEPA before exiting the field. Almost 50% of
responding alumni transitioned after the completion of Undergraduate, Masters
or PhD degrees or after postdoc position(s). Figure 9 (top right) shows that
the most important resource to obtain industry jobs were networking and co-
workers. Figure 10 shows that almost all HEPA skills are valuable in the
current industry jobs. Another stated goal in feedback from HEPA alumni was to
build synergy between HEPA and its alumni. While it might be challenging for
alumni to return to HEPA as indicated in Figure 11, a large fraction are
willing to participate in projects connecting HEPA and industry, as shown in
Figure 12, and many see value in doing so, as indicated in Figure 13.

(a)

(b)

(c)

(d)

Figure 9:
Figure 10:
Figure 11:  Figure 12:  Figure 13:

##  3 Career transition points

A career in HEPA is highly desired by early career scientists. However,
academic jobs are scarce. It is difficult to predict the availabilities and
the possibility of obtaining a permanent position in a research institute, lab
or university. HEPA researchers and physics degree holders are often forced to
transition to non-HEPA careers at different career stages and due to various
reasons, as is evident from Figure 9 (bottom left). Career decisions are
guided by long-term priorities in life; such as, e.g., aspirations, interests,
values, economic situation, financial security and personal situations among
many others. Reasons to pursue a degree or particular area of research may
evolve over the course of a degree at the undergraduate, graduate
(Masters/PhD), postdoc or even more senior levels. On the other hand, physics
degree holders typically have numerous job and career opportunities available
that apply their skills outside the field. Indeed, new job openings are
continually driven by factors such as e.g. technological advances, automation
of manufacturing industries, IT and internet revolution, environmental
challenges requiring soil conservation and precision agriculture, to name a
few examples. Hence, physics degree holders have a greater than ever
opportunity to build a career in industry, and the challenge is building
bridges between those seeking jobs — for whatever reason and whatever level of
seniority — and careers in non-traditional HEPA areas. References [15] and
[16] list, by U.S. state, the employers and fields of Physics bachelors and
their employment sectors, respectively. Reference [17] shows a flowchart of
possible career paths for Physics students with Bachelors, Masters and PhD
degrees. Figure 1 from our Snowmass survey shows that around half of people in
our community consider leaving academia and that half of those (Figure 9 top
left) who leave academia try to obtain a job in academia prior to exiting the
traditional field.

Students with an Undergrad or Masters degree in physics may transition
directly to non-research teaching or industry jobs, or to a different field of
specialisation, and then from there move on to an academic or industry
position. At this level of transition, research may not be a significant
experience for the majority. Hence, a HEPA and/or non-HEPA physics research
skill set would not be a significant part of their CV or resume, which
typically would contain only educational attainments in the core physics
degree program. Physics students getting jobs after Undergrad or Master levels
might not be committed to pursuing research due to economic, financial and/or
personal reasons as contributing factors. Even if Masters alumni may have some
advantage over Undergrads with more research experience, arising from an
academic curriculum requiring a thesis in a research topic(s).

A PhD or postdoctoral experience in HEPA or any other physics research area
typically features a significant research component. It is also designed to
develop critical research, analytical and writing skills, as well as the
ability to effectively work both independently and in collaboration with other
researchers. This puts those with such experience at a significant higher
pedestal of skill set when it comes to seeking jobs in industry or academia.
The reasons for PhD students and postdocs to go for non-HEPA or industry jobs
could largely be the same as for students who exit after an Undergraduate or a
Masters degree, but those decisions may not be very easy to take after
investing years into research,especially after a postdoc.

During the course of working in the Snowmass CPD-WG meetings over the past
several months we had presentations and direct discussions with several HEPA-
alumni. Most of them exited the field after a PhD degree or postdoc and some
of their experiences are presented here [18, 19, 20]. The most important step
was the difficult decision to make up their mind to leave academia at such
relatively late stages, which also connects to personal matters for many. A
professorship comes with its lifetime of studying science, and with a very
strong appeal of a comfortable intellectual life devoted to understanding
nature at its most fundamental level. However, the path to a professorship
comes with many challenges and uncertainties in terms of work/life balance,
pressure to publish, competition with scientists across the globe for a
limited number of jobs, limited choice of geographic location, pressure to
secure grants, and lesser material compensation compared to the industry. At
the same time, many fulfilling career paths exist for physicists who are
willing to embrace a transition to industry. For some, what is sought is an
industry job that is sufficiently interesting and exciting, so as to allow the
use of current skill set in a creative way, as well as challenging enough to
foster the development of new skills and allow contributions to have a
positive impact in the world. Quote from the presentations says - Even though
for the industry transition it may be hard to get ”out of the box” but the
only way to make sense out of ”change” is to plunge into it, move with it, and
join the ”dance”. This applies to exiting the field at any level. Though rare
but not uncommon for HEPA physicists to work with non-profit organisations or
as science writers [21, 22] or other academic and scholarship activities; for
example, [23] when personal passion is a big driving factor. Though even more
rare, but even faculty members (tenured or nontenured) may also seek industry
jobs for personal or other reasons.

##  4 Intersections with other Snowmass groups

As already mentioned, skills developed in HEPA are in demand in industry. The
Snowmass WGs mentioned below highlight how these skills learnt in experiments
are not only valuable for future of HEPA but also serve as basis for future
innovation in HEPA and industry. There are several careers in industry tied to
these skills as described here.

AF1: Beam Physics and Accelerator Education [24]: Some of the trained particle
physicists go into full time accelerator physics careers that maintains unique
capabilities and develop new technologies for accelerators. A worldwide
exchange of scientists and young researchers between accelerator institutions
can play an invaluable role in training the next generation of accelerator
physicists and engineers, who can then work work towards developing
accelerators for the future HEP. They can also benefit society in fulfilling
the demand for trained accelerator physicists in the development of high-
quality beams and energy-efficient technologies for medicine. Applications of
accelerator science in Medical therapies, photon and particle probes in
industry, material science, chemistry, biology, pharmaceutical development and
applied nuclear science will continue to stimulate demand for the expertise of
well-trained specialists in accelerator science and technology and accelerator
related software.
NF05/10: Neutrino properties and Neutrino Detectors [25]: Small scale
experiments, like in neutrino or nuclear physics community, can provide a
healthy breeding and training ground for careers of PhD and postdoc
researchers, by providing a unique set of diverse opportunities. It can serve
as a bridge to a gateway of career options in academia or industry. Due to the
typical short span of such experiments young members can take ownership of
significant aspects of a project throughout their tenure, and productively
contribute to multiple aspects like the design, construction, operations, and
data analysis. This enables early career scientists from these experiments to
enter the job market with a strong and transparent portfolio, in terms of
publications and contributions that may tend to get obscure in big
experiments, especially when applying for jobs within or outside HEPA.
IF/AF6 and CommF3: Instrumentation Frontier [26], Advanced Accelerator
Concepts [27] and Machine Learning [28]: Training in Detector and
Instrumentation Technologies and engagement with the industry in applications
and technology transfers from the particle physics community can greatly
enhance career transition to a related industry. Schools like ISOTDAQ [29],
EDIT [30] and ESHEP [31] and the CERN/FNAL Collider Schools [32] can stimulate
young careers that can fuel innovation not only in HEPA but also in industry.
Application of Machine Learning in all aspect of HEPA wherever vast data and
its pattern need to be understood to discover physics or monitor data quality
from detector and instrumentation has a great demand in data science in
industry.

##  5 Existing programs

Many resources currently exist for finding industry jobs, and resuming
building and identifying career paths for physics degree holders; e.g., [6,
33, 34, 35]. However, one element that is missing is a platform for
networking. As Figure 9 (top right) indicates, networking and coworkers
constitute the most significant factor when it comes to finding industry jobs.
For the past four years, networking events for industry careers have been
regularly organised by CERN and have proven to be a big draw. It is obvious
that this is one area where we need to focus more. CERN conducted a survey in
2020 within its alumni community concerning their expectations of the Alumni
Network. It confirmed that early career community in HEPA have little to no
support for moving out of academia and the idea of working in industry is
completely alien to them. Subsequently, the CERN office for alumni
relations[11] discovered an abundance of goodwill and enthusiasm on the part
of CERN alumni to ’give back’ and share their experience with a ’younger
version of themselves’. A candid conversation, highlighting career
trajectories out of academia to other sectors and focusing on challenges and
hurdles through the interviews, has been much appreciated by the soon-to-be
CERN alumni. It is worth pointing out that the initial seeds of CERN alumni
were sown by the CMS Collaboration [7, 8, 36] around 2013 and, given its
subsequent success, it was adopted by all CERN Experiments [9, 10] and grew
into the official CERN alumni network. The CERN Alumni program now has over
7500 active members, 85% of whom are alumni or soon-to-be alumni. Having an
annual budget of 35 - 50K Swiss Franks (most of which is allocated for the
alumni.cern platform). To achieve one of its goals to support those in their
early careers, it focuses on the following:

  * •

Experience sharing by alumni on moving out of Academia at events organised by
CERN, spotlights on CERN Alumni focuses on career transitions and experience.

  * •

Jobs board where alumni and companies post job opportunities. The Office for
Alumni Relations piggybacks on HR career fairs, where companies can hope to
recruit from within the CERN alumni talent pool.

  * •

Virtual Company showrooms where companies having posted job opportunities can
take part in 1 hour events, 30 mins presentation and 30 mins Q & A sessions.

  * •

Mentoring module, giving a short video summary of HEPA alumni experience in
getting an industry job.

The Fermilab Student and Postdoc Association (FSPA) [13], among other
activities, organises Career Panel discussions and talks regularly. It also
has a linkedin group for networking with its alumni. In this context, one can
exchange job information, share interesting ideas, and build ones own network.
FSPA represents the community of early career researchers at Fermilab,
including all students, postdocs, summer students, and interns.

The HEP national labs represent a quite wide community, encompassing thousands
of users from hundreds of universities and several countries. As demonstrated
above, it can serve as a very strong hub for career networking. We do not
discuss here any existing career programs at academic
institutional/universities, such as job fairs or targeted campus visits by
business/trade group, as they are of more general nature. Nonetheless these
are still useful to the community members who happen to be at those
institutions.

##  6 Methods to strengthen existing programs

Getting a tenure track or a scientist position or a job in industry is a
process that needs right preparation. Being in HEPA one may be easily aware of
the process of getting a tenure track or a scientist position. It is also is
easy to find mentors who can be helpful for that purpose, being surrounded by
established scientists, including one’s own supervisor. However, when it comes
to an industry job in STEM or otherwise, it is an uncharted territory for
many, as HEPA alumni who move to industry are not accessible for guidance due
to lack of organised networking or communications. In fact, HEPA alumni rarely
have channels or motivation to connect with their alma mater.

The existing programs, though few, can be broadly divided into networking and
skill building. HEPA and industry relationship has always been synergistic
where sharing and benefiting from technological advances and know-how pushes
the envelope of knowledge. However, when it comes to building relationships
with industry in terms of networking, transition to industry jobs and
collaborations with alumni on projects of mutual interest, the realisation and
progress is just beginning. It is clear that there are very few existing
programs like at CERN that are fairly mature in establishing networking
structure for industry jobs. Elsewhere, the efforts are nascent to non-
existent and need to be developed and strengthened. One huge advantage in
pursuing these efforts at the national labs is that they serve as the hub of
HEPA community and can have structural as well possible financial resources
for this common good. Clearly, there is also a role for U.S. funding agencies
to support efforts at career-building through targeted supplemental funding.
The survey results clearly show a need and desire to do so. Seeking funding to
support and strengthen HEPA-industry alumni relations would be a big boost to
early career transition to the industry.

HEP labs technology public-private partnerships [37, 38] with industry exist
in Accelerator Technologies, Computers Information Science, Detector and
Engineering Technologies and also Environment Safety. This can be leveraged to
create experience for resident students and early career scientists and build
connections for a future industry career. Internships in instrumentation and
accelerator know-how can strengthen careers in medical science and industry.
As an example, partnership of University College London’s Centre for Doctoral
Training in Data Intensive Science [39] with the high-tech computing sector is
greatly facilitating the transition to employment in this sector for those who
desire it. There, even HEP and cosmology theorists get internships in industry
during their PhD. Such internships can be beneficial for enhancing hiring
pools at HEP labs and within particular industries.

Besides networking and skill building, there are several other factors that
determine finding jobs in industry and those need to be strengthened too.
These are described in the following section.

##  7 New ideas, new partners

HEPA young careers, while pursuing research, acquire several skills like
computing, software, detector design, logical thinking, publishing, presenting
professional work at conferences, statistical analysis, simulation, and
hardware development. This makes them highly employable within and outside
academia. Such skills can also serve as attractors for students who may not
want to pursue a PhD in HEP or a career in acedemia but use them as a
springboard to other STEM careers in industry. This makes it very important to
expand our nascent ongoing efforts to engage early career HEPA scientists with
more senior scientists and facilitate the process of transition to industry
jobs. We must scale up and have a model to sustain these programs. The
experience, survey feedback and efforts described above strongly indicate that
HEPA alumni are more than willing and happy to respond and engage. However,
within HEPA we need to be more motivated and creative on how to realise this
engagement.

###  7.1 Engagement of HEPA supervisors and mentors

Attempting to transition from a completely academic work role to an industry
job is a daunting task. It is not a well-defined path and one needs to take
initiative and explore many options. First and foremost is the direct
involvement of HEPA supervisors and mentors in the process. This is important
as HEPA supervisors may not themselves be knowledgeable to advise or mentor to
help pave paths towards industry jobs, and a reluctance to be involved in the
process may also arise from research commitments and related priorities. But
their involvement will create comfortable and supportive environment. They
must be sensitised and trained to guide and be be proactive to support early
career scientist’s participation in opportunities that prepare for careers
outside HEPA. They must allow a certain fraction of time to pursue
opportunities and preparation activities for a possible industry career.
Indeed, there is overwhelming desire for this, as shown in Figure 6, Workshops
training supervisors to understand the needs of their mentees and ways to
improve methods for job preparation are thus called for.

###  7.2 Networking

The value of networking and making connections is always high for any job
search, and all the more so for industry jobs. Highly sought after skills like
computing, software, detector design, logical thinking, statistical analysis,
simulation, and hardware development are not the only factors in this process.
Networking is an additional personal skill that contributes to social well-
being, exchange of ideas, meeting people at professional levels and boosting
one’s professional confidence. The best career opportunities often come from
the connections such as former classmates and co-workers. Nowadays, companies
are increasingly looking towards universities for fresh talent, and are eager
to meet students who are looking for a career in industry. In addition,
reaching out to professors, alumni and other students to get advice and
information about career opportunities puts one at an advantage. We need to
develop technical tools to improve networking. Tools like [11] are required to
serve our community of early career and alumni for jobs as well as mutual
connections. Just like CERN experiments, US based HEP community is also very
big, varied and interlinked; for example, in neutrino and dark matter
detections experimental collaborations, and links to astrophysics and related
fields like nuclear and gravitational physics, with common learnt skills.
Hosting a dedicated platform in the US to connect and engage HEPA with its
alumni is required, just like at CERN [11]. This would not only enable an
organised framework, and serve as a hub to facilitate this process, but
several other actions in this direction can be planned and executed on that
basis. A DOE lab would be an ideal place to host it, like Fermilab, which is a
hub for US particle physics. However, this would need a small amount of
investment to create a database of alumni and need technical and personnel
support to develop and maintain it.

###  7.3 Job search process

Many fulfilling career paths exist for physicists who are willing to prepare
for, and embrace, a transition to industry. However, translating HEPA
abilities and adapting skills to an industry job can require special
preparation and many find themselves unfamiliar with this process. Preparing
an industry tailored resume is one such important thing. For example, very few
industry job requisitions come with “PhD Physicist” requirement in the title,
and one should consider roles with Engineer, Data Scientist, Algorithm
Developer, Quantitative Analyst, Research Scientist in the title, and convert
CV to a resume suitable for each target industry like finance, defense, tech,
software etc. Focusing on skills that generalize and core competencies that
are relevant to the job search are of far more use; physics jargon tied to
previous research, like “Searched for New Physics or Higgs Properties”, should
be strictly avoided. Emphasize research publications via a link to SPIRES (not
enumerating scores of publications and articles), ability to work in multi-
disciplinary team environment and highlighting any distinctions, awards, major
accomplishments in generic terms is essential to be understood by industry
hiring panel. Careful attention must be paid to studying the company profile,
past hires, culture of embracing STEM graduates and PhDs and chances of career
advancement. HEPA alumni can be a big boon in helping out with this
preparation, career advice and sharing their own experience.

###  7.4 Projects and Internships

While there are many examples of internships sponsored by the National Labs
and funding agencies, like DOE and NSF, at the labs or universities, there are
significantly fewer internship opportunities for HEPA early career scientists
or students in industry. Industry internships can serve as a very good
opportunity to experience industry culture and environment and apply HEPA
skills. The biggest impediment for these internships would be a time off from
core research to allow a period of time to focus on industry internship. We
must look for mechanism to integrate this in core research curriculum. Most
HEPA research is funded by federal grants and having time-off from research
would require change in funding rules and regulations and above all, change in
mindset of supervisors. While industry internships for students in general
exist, internships for more senior researchers at PhD or postdoc level may not
be desired, or hard to fund, by industry. However, naturally, any industry
experience would be very valuable for industry job and career.

Tailoring an academic experience for a position in industry will help prepare
early career HEP scientists for industry jobs. While industry internships
funded by industry may be harder at PhD or postdoc level, it would be easier
for HEPA to create its own focused opportunities at all levels to train its
people for industry jobs. While skills like software are in common use in
HEPA, how they are used and applied in a goal and profit oriented industry
setting, with time bound targets and deliverables, requires dedicated training
opportunity. Job prospects in the medical field, like working with particle
accelerators for radiation therapy for cancer treatment and similar
applications, might benefit from dedicated experienced with experimental
apparatus like particle detectors and accelerators. Working with detectors
leads to a rich experience in electronics and instrumentation, but the
duration of time spent may be short as the end goal is always to produce
physics results which take significant time of a researcher and not relevant
for an industry job. Training for industry jobs by HEPA needs careful planning
and should not dilute the focus on core research goals, but at the same time
it should prepare those who wish to transition and are willing to go extra
mile to find a proper opportunity.

###  7.5 Collaborations

Alumni are relatively a low cost but a very valuable asset with an abundance
of experience of transitioning from HEPA. Their goodwill to contribute and
strengthen ties with HEPA can be tapped to facilitate industry job transition.
Figure 12 and Figure 13 indicate that HEPA alumni are interested in
participating in projects that connect HEPA with industry in case it is
beneficial to their careers as well. Hence, one attractive way to encourage
and engage alumni is to be proactive and creative in collaborating with them
on HEPA projects. While several private companies and enterprises may have
legal restrictions against allowing individual level alumni participation, in
cases where it is allowed we must provide opportunities to collaborate. In
this way alumni will feel welcome to their alma mater in a more constructive
way than to be just industry job facilitators. This individual collaboration
can be extended to the company of the alumni itself and this can strengthen
knowledge transfer from labs and universities and vice versa; and Work done by
HEPA research can benefit companies and vice versa. A recent example has been
the use of Amazon Web Service (AWS) with the CMS experiment workload through
HEP Cloud project [40]. HEP experiments require massive computing resources in
irregular cycles and using commercial clouds is an important ingredient in
this, where resources can expand or contract on demand.These collaborations
might also lead to first steps towards reversing the brain drain from industry
to HEPA. Survey result Figure 11 indicates a significant interest in alumni to
return full time to HEPA, especially if the compensation match as well as work
part-time.

##  8 Conclusions

A majority of HEPA early career scientists will inevitably transition out of
traditional HEPA careers, due simply to the structural disparity between the
relatively few traditional HEPA career positions available in any given year
and the much larger number of available HEPA early career scientists desiring
to fill those positions. Personal factors, such as the larger salaries
potentially available in industry and negative factors such as burnout, can
also contribute to the desire of early career scientists in transitioning out
of traditional HEPA roles in academia and the national laboratories. Whatever
the reason, the HEPA community has both a pragmatic need and an ethical
obligation to connect early career HEPA job seekers with the resources and
relationships which will allow them to identify interesting careers and obtain
stable positions that will allow them to advance professionally as well as
personally.

Each major milestone along the path from undergraduate to post-doctoral
researcher represents a potential transition point where a young HEPA
physicist would ideally be empowered with the information they need to develop
an informed and realistic perspective on the full breadth of opportunity
available to them, within both traditional HEPA as well as non-traditional
careers. Many HEPA students and young scientists arguably continue to pursue
an entirely academic career path out of inertia and lack of awareness of the
broader world of opportunities avaiable outside of traditional HEP because of
the relative dearth of resources connecting non-traditional HEPA industries
and employers to the pool of highly skilled HEPA physicists entering the job
market in any given year.

Above, we have identified, through surveys of early career HEPA scientists,
networking and mentoring relationships with earlier generations of HEPA
physicists as the single most effective tool in communicating career
opportunities to junior scientists. Very clearly and self-evidently, this is a
highly effective strategy given that nearly every physics student, when
approaching a career transition point such as graduation or the end of a post-
doctoral term, seeks to emulate their direct supervisor and immediate
colleagues by tenaciously pursuing a traditional HEPA career to the exclusion
of all else. We have shown above that it is possible to break out of this
self-reinforcing dynamic through a variety of mechanisms which can nurture and
develop bonds and help establish more broad communities of interest between
mid- and late-career HEPA scientists in non-traditional careers than has been
the case throughout much of the history of HEPA in the United States.
Mechanisms such as e.g. alumni networks and opportunities for internships in
non-traditional HEPA settings have achieved great success in structurally
connecting early career job seekers with both the information and the
opportunities which they need in order to effectively pursue a career that is
ultimately both professionally and personally rewarding. In addition, private
employers reap the significant economic benefits of employing HEP physicists
skilled in both STEM disciplines and related skills such as technical writing
and collaborative working, while the wider society benefits from the diffusion
of highly talented physics professionals from academia into the overall
economy, strengthening both society at large as well as improving quality of
life for each individual.

While organizations such as the APS and national lab user groups can tailor
and offer programs that meet their specific goals, it is clear that a more
broad and systematic approach to the marketing of career opportunities to
early career physicists is needed beyond the efforts of such organizations if
optimal outcomes at both the structural and personal levels are to be achieved
for HEP physics as well as the wider society. However, establishing and
institutionalizing these approaches, as well as socializing them with members
of the HEPA community from the most junior to the most senior levels, will
require both dedicated effort from the community along with relatively modest
funding in order to bring early and mid-to-late career scientists together in
environments and settings conducive to formal and informal networking and the
building of relationships that will last a lifetime.

## References

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