Near the End of A PhD and Have No Job

Astro_Dude

Ugh. I've been completely slowed down due to this job I had to take to keep my head above water as I'm looking. Long days, and I'm absolutely wiped most every night.

Quote by jk

I have found that sending resumes at random is highly ineffective. I have been in working in industry for 15 years and have only had that work twice and one of those times was during the dot com boom when they were taking anyone with a pulse.
I graduated with a BS Physics in 95 and have been working as a programmer since. I've worked for all kinds of companies from tiny mom and pop shop that needed someone to do networking and some data analysis, to oil and gas, large law firm (~2k employees), dot com, major financial company and government contractor.

The most effective methods for job hunting that I have found are (in decreasing order of effectiveness):
1. Networking. This is by far the most effective way. If you know someone in the company you want to work for who can place your resume on the desk of a technical manager who is looking to hire, you have cleared the number one hurdle that trips up every job hunter. If you don't know anyone at that company, your job is to get to know somebody there. You can ask friends and family, neighbors, professors, your pastor and any person you come in contact with for more than 5 minutes if they know someone there. LinkedIn can be invaluable in this way (I know someone who got hired through contacts they made on LinkedIn. I also got someone an interview because he found out that I was linked to someone who worked at a company he was interested in. I made the introductions, his resume was placed on the tech manager's desk and he got the interview. He did not get the job but I can't do everything :)
Of course everyone tells you to network but if you've spent the last 8 years or so buried in books, you probably haven't built up a particularly robust network. You can start by going to industry functions, chamber of commerce events, local speakers from the industry you are interested in and even enrolling in some classes where people of that ilk are bound to be found. For example, you can audit a financial derivatives class at your local MBA mill. The thing is, you are not going to find those people sitting at home and sending resumes into the wild (more on this later).
One thing you can do is call up people in the industry and ask if you can do informational interview. If someone calls me and I'm not under pressure to give them a job, I'm more than willing to give them advice on the industry. Just make sure you don't call them on Monday morning when they're trying to get caught up on all the crap they were supposed to do over the weekend. People will usually give you pointers. At they very worst, they will hang up on you - you have nothing to lose.

You are correct, I don't have the best of networks. I do, however, have good friends at very many defense contractors. I've had them suggest me for jobs, I've had some that are the heads of entire divisions send my resume out to their people, I've had others directly talk to their boss about how I would be great for some position in their own group. None of this has worked.

I keep hearing people talk about the magic of networking, but when you have friends who directly know people making the decisions and you can't get hired...

Anyway, yes. Everyone knows this is the way to network, but most people don't WANT to network with a physics person. 99% of the people you meet don't know what to do with you.

I also despise companies who are claiming to hire people but aren't. Stop bleeping lying, and wasting everyone's time.

Quote by jk

2. Head hunters. They have a bad reputation (some deservedly so) but the good ones have contacts in their respective industries that keep them informed. The really good ones have top level contacts (There was one particular head hunter who was rumored to have been romantically involved with a married director of the financial firm I was working at. That is contacts!). Your job is to find such headhunters - which is much easier than finding those elusive jobs. You have to make sure that whoever you get specializes in the industry you are interested in. It does you no good to go to a recruiter who works with oil and gas if you're interested in finance (unless it was energy trading) and vice versa.

This is MUCH easier said than done.

Quote by jk

3. Your school's career center. Depending on where you are located and what kind of jobs you are looking for, this may or may not be effective. For example, if you are in Arkansas and you want to work in Quantitative Finance, they probably won't be able to hook you up. But if you are in Texas and want to work in the Oil and Gas industry, they may have something for you. Companies routinely go to schools for recruiting events. They're probably looking for people with BS and MBA degrees but all you need is a chance to talk to the person the company sends. He or she may pass on your resume if you look promising.

4. Job fairs. You probably won't get a job out of these unless it's something like Walmart is in town and wants 200 people. If it is in your industry though, it is worthwhile to go and spend as much time as possible networking, ie. doing all those things that techies normally hate like accosting random people, introducing yourself, asking them what they do (even better if you know what they do - do your research beforehand) and then pumping them for information. Take their business cards. You will need it later when you call them up two weeks later, introduce yourself and ask if you can do an "informational interview".

These are one in the same and the problem is companies don't actually care. They're purposely not sending anyone worth networking with to these things. They send college-age kids who are usually one or two years out of their BE. 99% of the time all they have to say is how much fun they're having and to "use the website". It's almost never worth going to job fairs. I've never once met anyone who is worth "networking with" or is even interested in networking.

Maybe this was different when you were looking for work. Most companies just see job fairs as a way of reminding those kids who did co-ops that they have a job waiting for them.

Quote by jk

5. Sending out resumes blindly. This is the least effective way to get a job. Yes, if you do it long enough and you send out enough resumes, you may get something. But are you willing to do this for a year and send out thousands of resumes? Especially when there are other more effective, if less comfortable, ways to get jobs? The thing is, while you are sending those resumes you feel like you are doing something. You can tell yourself at the end of a grueling day of sending resumes and cold calling (you are doing that, right?) that you are searching for a job. Truth is, you are doing the most comfortable thing for you to get a job. If you really want a job, you have to get out of your comfort zone and try the
other things I listed. It took me a while to get this but once I did, I never really had a problem finding a job.

I've never, not once gotten a response back from a cold call. I always get a voice mail, and never, ever, get a call back. It's like when you pull a hot chick's number and she has no intention of actually picking up! :p

Yes, this is the worst possible way, but when the system is DESIGNED to screw anyone qualified, it's usually the ONLY way.

Quote by jk

When you send a resume blindly, it will land on some HR flunky's email inbox (if you're lucky). Usually, it will go to an automated inbox which scans for keywords and throws out those that don't have them. If by chance you get through to a human, most likely it will be someone in HR who has no clue what half the things on your resume are (I know this because I used to do programming for PeopleSoft and worked with HR people. They were really nice ladies but their priorities are learning new rules and policy changes, dealing with things like sexual harrassment and discrimination, etc. and not learning the latest hot programming language). Trust me, HR is your enemy. Repeat this until it sinks in. Their job is to filter out resumes, not to find that rare gem.

One more thing. Read a book called "What Color is your Parachute?". I read it when I first left school and the advice the author gave in that book has been spot on. It is updated every couple of years so you should get the latest one. If there is one book you should read on job hunting, this is it.

HR is the enemy, I know. However, there is little hope for me elsewhere since literally all my professors and colleagues have been career academics. I bleeping hate academia, and my contacts in industry, helpful as they have been, have not yielded results.

twofish-quant

Quote by jk

2. Head hunters. They have a bad reputation (some deservedly so) but the good ones have contacts in their respective industries that keep them informed. The really good ones have top level contacts (There was one particular head hunter who was rumored to have been romantically involved with a married director of the financial firm I was working at. That is contacts!). Your job is to find such headhunters - which is much easier than finding those elusive jobs.

For physics Ph.D's, you can find headhunters at www.dice.com, www.efinancialcareers.com, www.phds.org, www.wilmott.com. Also *.jobs USENET is also useful.

3. Your school's career center. Depending on where you are located and what kind of jobs you are looking for, this may or may not be effective. For example, if you are in Arkansas and you want to work in Quantitative Finance, they probably won't be able to hook you up.

The problem with large schools like UT Austin is that physics Ph.D.'s can use the good career services. UT Austin has very good contacts in the financial industry, but those are in the McCombs Business School for MBA's, and I was told specifically that because I was natural sciences, that I would not be allowed to use MBA career services (I even offered to pay them).

Take their business cards. You will need it later when you call them up two weeks later, introduce yourself and ask if you can do an "informational interview".

For Ph.D.'s it is extremely useful to go to conferences. Even if you don't get a job, you can get information.

They were really nice ladies but their priorities are learning new rules and policy changes, dealing with things like sexual harrassment and discrimination, etc. and not learning the latest hot programming language). Trust me, HR is your enemy. Repeat this until it sinks in. Their job is to filter out resumes, not to find that rare gem.

One thing that I learned is don't consider people enemies. HR people have a job to do. Their job is to get rid of you. Also, one thing that helps a lot for Ph.D.'s is to write a resume that confuses HR. If an HR person sees that you have a Ph.D. and has no clue what you did, they might forward your resume to someone that has some clue, at which point you've gotten over the first hurdle.

Also, be *VERY* careful when you are interviewed by someone from HR. Their job in the interview is to make you feel warm and comfortable so that you say something about yourself that disqualifies you from the job. Also, be *VERY* careful at assuming roles. Some people that look like stereotypical HR people are actually computer geeks, and some people that look like stereotypical computer geeks are actually HR people.

One more thing. Read a book called "What Color is your Parachute?". I read it when I first left school and the advice the author gave in that book has been spot on. It is updated every couple of years so you should get the latest one. If there is one book you should read on job hunting, this is it.

I haven't read that book, so I don't know about it, but I've found that other books about resume writing and job searching often get it wrong. For example, a lot of books say that you should write your resume so that the reader will understand what you did, but if you are a Ph.D. looking for a Ph.D. position, you should write your resume so that the average person *doesn't* have much of a clue what you did.

jk

Quote by Astro_Dude

You are correct, I don't have the best of networks. I do, however, have good friends at very many defense contractors. I've had them suggest me for jobs, I've had some that are the heads of entire divisions send my resume out to their people, I've had others directly talk to their boss about how I would be great for some position in their own group. None of this has worked.

I keep hearing people talk about the magic of networking, but when you have friends who directly know people making the decisions and you can't get hired...

There is no magic in job searches. Networking is work and it is not guaranteed to produce results all the time. But it is the best method that I know of.
What was the feedback you got from the jobs you were rejected for? Did you get any? Also, can you post your resume (after removing the personal info) here so we can give you feedback?

Anyway, yes. Everyone knows this is the way to network, but most people don't WANT to network with a physics person. 99% of the people you meet don't know what to do with you.

This is not true. Most people don't give a flip what you studied if they think you can do stuff for them. That is all that matters in the corporate world.

I also despise companies who are claiming to hire people but aren't. Stop bleeping lying, and wasting everyone's time.

Strange as this advice may sound, don't take it so personal when you get rejected. You will drive yourself crazy. You need to develop a thicker skin or you won't last long

These are one in the same and the problem is companies don't actually care. They're purposely not sending anyone worth networking with to these things. They send college-age kids who are usually one or two years out of their BE. 99% of the time all they have to say is how much fun they're having and to "use the website". It's almost never worth going to job fairs. I've never once met anyone who is worth "networking with" or is even interested in networking.

It is true that companies don't care but that is not relevant for your purposes. This is a commercial transaction. Your job is to convince the recruiter that by passing on your resume to his/her boss, they are doing something to help themselves. Of course, they don't care about you - they don't know you.

Try this next time you run into those "college-age kids"...instead of deciding that they are too low level to do anything for you, try to chat them up about the company in general. Don't tell them that you would like to work for the company. Tell them that you are looking around and trying to find one that you like. You don't want to give the impression of desperation, even if you are desperate. It's a funny thing about people that if they think you want to join their group badly (whatever their group is), they will be standoffish. But if you act as if you have options and are just being choosy, they will consider you more seriously.

Maybe this was different when you were looking for work. Most companies just see job fairs as a way of reminding those kids who did co-ops that they have a job waiting for them.

I don't think things have changed. For one thing, just because I got in the market 15 years ago doesn't mean I had never to look for work after that. The last time I got a job offer was in the middle of the financial crash when everyone was thinking the world was coming to an end. Of course, I have experience so that makes it a bit easier for me. But it is a question of degree and not a qualitative difference.

I've never, not once gotten a response back from a cold call. I always get a voice mail, and never, ever, get a call back. It's like when you pull a hot chick's number and she has no intention of actually picking up! :p

I agree cold calls are not very effective. That is why you should network and be introduced to the person you are calling. I am more likely to return a call if the person who is calling me was referred to me by someone I know and trust.

Are you on LinkedIn?

Yes, this is the worst possible way, but when the system is DESIGNED to screw anyone qualified, it's usually the ONLY way.

First of all, no one knows if you are qualified. A PhD is not a guarantee of qualification - it just means you were able to go through a few years of focused work in one very narrow area. That may or may not translate into productivity once you are at job. That is the only metric that counts for a manager. When I used to interview applicants, I noticed that there was very little correlation between advanced degrees and someone's performance. In fact, I had one PhD working for me that was ok but was not as good as this kid who was 6 months out of college with a BS.

The system is not designed to screw anyone. I think you need to step back for a minute and view this whole job search in a more dispassionate light. No one is out to get you. But no one is going to bend over backwards for you either. What you have to do is view this as a puzzle without getting emotional about it.

HR is the enemy, I know. However, there is little hope for me elsewhere since literally all my professors and colleagues have been career academics. I bleeping hate academia, and my contacts in industry, helpful as they have been, have not yielded results.

If you realize that HR is not going to help you, then the corollary is that you have to look elsewhere for help. If your professors are of no help, then you need to plug into a new network. Have you done any of the things I suggested earlier (like talk to people at industry conferences, go to chamber of commerce events, etc)?

jk

The problem with large schools like UT Austin is that physics Ph.D.'s can use the good career services. UT Austin has very good contacts in the financial industry, but those are in the McCombs Business School for MBA's, and I was told specifically that because I was natural sciences, that I would not be allowed to use MBA career services (I even offered to pay them).

I think you meant "physics PhD's can't" use the good career services. Yeah, MBA schools can be a bit territorial but there are ways around that. Audit an MBA class and network with some of the students. Then ask them to get you information from the career services (like which companies are hiring, when they are coming to campus etc and also access to the job listings).

One thing that I learned is don't consider people enemies. HR people have a job to do. Their job is to get rid of you. Also, one thing that helps a lot for Ph.D.'s is to write a resume that confuses HR. If an HR person sees that you have a Ph.D. and has no clue what you did, they might forward your resume to someone that has some clue, at which point you've gotten over the first hurdle.

Of course, they are not literal enemies. But people let the HR job description fool them into thinking that HR is there to facilitate job applicants' access to information.

I haven't read that book, so I don't know about it, but I've found that other books about resume writing and job searching often get it wrong. For example, a lot of books say that you should write your resume so that the reader will understand what you did, but if you are a Ph.D. looking for a Ph.D. position, you should write your resume so that the average person *doesn't* have much of a clue what you did.

I have read a lot of job search books as well and this one is the one I found the most useful. It does a good job of breaking the illusion that mass mailing of resumes is effective.

ParticleGrl

What was the feedback you got from the jobs you were rejected for? Did you get any?

The feedback I get is consistently that other candidates had more experience doing X (where X is some technical technique/skill that is needed for the job) than I did. Generally, this is no doubt true, because odds are I self taught whatever I thought I needed as I was applying for the job. (My theory phd didn't give me much in the way of what industry might want).

This is starting to make me worried that engineering/science industry jobs are NOT what I should be applying for (despite being what I would like to do, and despite having a physics phd), because they seem to care more about experience with some technique than a broad background/trainable.

mayonaise

Quote by ParticleGrl

The feedback I get is consistently that other candidates had more experience doing X (where X is some technical technique/skill that is needed for the job) than I did. Generally, this is no doubt true, because odds are I self taught whatever I thought I needed as I was applying for the job. (My theory phd didn't give me much in the way of what industry might want).

This is starting to make me worried that engineering/science industry jobs are NOT what I should be applying for (despite being what I would like to do, and despite having a physics phd), because they seem to care more about experience with some technique than a broad background/trainable.

This exact sentiment came as a huge mind**** when I went job hunting the first time: I knew little about electronics other than they were a bunch of transistors. I could do C++ but what the heck was class inheritance? I had no idea what Verilog was, or was it very log? I had never even heard of Pro-E.

Having believed the professors "if you learn physics, you can do anything" "there is always industry" "physics is used everywhere" instilled me with such unrealistic sense of safety and superiority. But the truth is, an academia focused physics education gives you zero advantage over an engineering education for a particular engineering field. And since most engineering fields are represented by their respective disciplines in academia, a physicist cannot do anything without being humbled by the engineers. Besides, the sense of superiority really shuts one's mind from the world. Irony for the discipline that tries to figure out the world!

Oh, and I don't consider a physicist more trainable and has broader background anymore. Not compared to an engineer. That was just superiority complex.

Choppy

Quote by ParticleGrl

The feedback I get is consistently that other candidates had more experience doing X (where X is some technical technique/skill that is needed for the job) than I did. Generally, this is no doubt true, because odds are I self taught whatever I thought I needed as I was applying for the job. (My theory phd didn't give me much in the way of what industry might want).

This is starting to make me worried that engineering/science industry jobs are NOT what I should be applying for (despite being what I would like to do, and despite having a physics phd), because they seem to care more about experience with some technique than a broad background/trainable.

As someone who's recently been on the other side (doing the hiring) one of the issues that comes up has to do with the applicant pool. When your applicant pool has candidates with specific experience doing X (for a position in doing X), even though it may not be a requirement, those candidates still go to the top of the list.

jk

Quote by ParticleGrl

The feedback I get is consistently that other candidates had more experience doing X (where X is some technical technique/skill that is needed for the job) than I did. Generally, this is no doubt true, because odds are I self taught whatever I thought I needed as I was applying for the job. (My theory phd didn't give me much in the way of what industry might want).

This is starting to make me worried that engineering/science industry jobs are NOT what I should be applying for (despite being what I would like to do, and despite having a physics phd), because they seem to care more about experience with some technique than a broad background/trainable.

My experience with applying for engineering jobs is that they are looking for very specific set of skills/experience - the same set that you would get in school. From speaking with my engineer jobs, they seem to be mostly a "paint by the numbers" type of jobs. Of course, they only have Bachelor's degrees so the types of jobs they would qualify for might be different than what you are going after. What kind of engineering jobs are you applying for?

You might do better with software positions, especially since you have a more theoretical training and it would be easier to fit you in software roles. For example, if you don't have experience with control engineering, it would be hard to convince someone to put you in a role designing control systems for a factory or something like that. But software is generally more malleable and the people in software have a more diverse set of backgrounds. One of the directors at a financial firm I worked for has a phd in particle physics and he is in charge of a division that writes risk management software for the firm.

If you don't have particular programming skills, I would take a couple of classes at your local community college.

jk

Quote by mayonaise

This exact sentiment came as a huge mind**** when I went job hunting the first time: I knew little about electronics other than they were a bunch of transistors. I could do C++ but what the heck was class inheritance? I had no idea what Verilog was, or was it very log? I had never even heard of Pro-E.

Having believed the professors "if you learn physics, you can do anything" "there is always industry" "physics is used everywhere" instilled me with such unrealistic sense of safety and superiority. But the truth is, an academia focused physics education gives you zero advantage over an engineering education for a particular engineering field. And since most engineering fields are represented by their respective disciplines in academia, a physicist cannot do anything without being humbled by the engineers. Besides, the sense of superiority really shuts one's mind from the world. Irony for the discipline that tries to figure out the world!

Oh, and I don't consider a physicist more trainable and has broader background anymore. Not compared to an engineer. That was just superiority complex.

I don't recall any of my professors ever making a statement like the one you describe.

Arrogance and superiority complex will do you no good, regardless of the field. Physics is not some magic spell that can compensate for lack of knowledge of specific fields. It stands to reason that if a company is looking for someone with very specific skills to hit the ground running, then you won't stand a chance - even if you had come up with the latest TOE that united gravity and quantum mechanics.

From my experience, a physics person would do better to go for software jobs rather than engineering jobs unless you are an experimentalist and have specific experience related to the job that you are applying for.

daveyrocket

I heard those kinds of statements on a fairly regular basis, from professors, grad students and undergrads. There's a general attitude that gets sold to physics students that physics will prepare you for a variety of things but in reality it doesn't really prepare you for anything.

And ugh.. software. I went to graduate school to get away from that field. The fact that you're recommending that someone with a PhD needs to take more classes goes to show how worthless a PhD in physics is.

mayonaise

I don't recall any of my professors ever making a statement like the one you describe.

I wouldn't say I heard the exact words, but communication is only 30% words. Imagine from 18 to 22 you're surrounded by this kind of poster (see attached), and most of you curriculum follows a reductionist approach (see "More Is Different" from P. W. Anderson), and the highest powers in your institution, the professors, seem to be happy about all that. Then it's not hard to imagine what messages ultimately form in the minds of young physics students.

ParticleGrl

What kind of engineering jobs are you applying for?

Numerical programming when it pops up, thermo stuff, fluid stuff, anything simulations, occasionally EE stuff but my circuit design experience is all analog and there isn't a ton of call for it.

If you don't have particular programming skills, I would take a couple of classes at your local community college.

Really? More than a decade of schooling past highschool, and your response is "maybe you don't have what it takes to get a job, take some classes?"

Physics is not some magic spell that can compensate for lack of knowledge of specific fields. It stands to reason that if a company is looking for someone with very specific skills to hit the ground running...

The thing with physics is that you learn a little bit about many different subjects. I certainly don't know as much about electrical engineering as an electrical engineer, but I probably know more about mechanical engineering than an electrical engineer.

I know a little about fluid mechanics, a little about circuit design, etc. The groundwork has been laid, and is there, and I've done a phd, so given a bit of time I can become an expert in any of these areas, after all I've done it before with certain aspects of quantum field theory. What companies actually VALUE that sort of dynamism?

jk

Quote by daveyrocket

I heard those kinds of statements on a fairly regular basis, from professors, grad students and undergrads. There's a general attitude that gets sold to physics students that physics will prepare you for a variety of things but in reality it doesn't really prepare you for anything.

You should have taken those statements with a grain of salt. It is true that physics (or any analytical subject) does prepare you well for careers that use those type of skills. What you don't have is a ready made track you can jump on that will carry you to your destination. If you wanted that you should have studied accounting, engineering or something like that.

And ugh.. software. I went to graduate school to get away from that field. The fact that you're recommending that someone with a PhD needs to take more classes goes to show how worthless a PhD in physics is.

I think that kind of attitude is very detrimental to your growth. Having a physics PhD doesn't mean you know everything. Why would you think that without doing the work it takes to learn it, you could do the same work as someone who spent 4 or 8 years studing something like engineering? That is so naive as to be unbelievable. You are going to have to continually learn if you want to be competitive in today's workplace.

While physics won't give you a ready made job, somehow I suspect that you will eventually do fine. I have yet to meet a PhD in physics who is on welfare. Just to give you some hope, I know two physics phd's (one particle, the other condensed matter) that are in industry and both are doing great. One is a director at a major bank and the other heads his own consulting company. Both are probably millionaires.

jk

Quote by mayonaise

I wouldn't say I heard the exact words, but communication is only 30% words. Imagine from 18 to 22 you're surrounded by this kind of poster (see attached), and most of you curriculum follows a reductionist approach (see "More Is Different" from P. W. Anderson), and the highest powers in your institution, the professors, seem to be happy about all that. Then it's not hard to imagine what messages ultimately form in the minds of young physics students.

I wouldn't make my career plans based on a poster that claims that physics tells you how to get out of black holes.

But I do agree that physics (science in general, with the exception of perhaps Chemistry) departments do a poor job of informing students about career options.

twofish-quant

Quote by daveyrocket

I heard those kinds of statements on a fairly regular basis, from professors, grad students and undergrads. There's a general attitude that gets sold to physics students that physics will prepare you for a variety of things but in reality it doesn't really prepare you for anything.

YMMV. I found my Ph.D., really, really, really incredibly useful for getting jobs.

And ugh.. software. I went to graduate school to get away from that field. The fact that you're recommending that someone with a PhD needs to take more classes goes to show how worthless a PhD in physics is.

As for as software goes, one reason I did my Ph.D. in the way that I did was that I wanted to get into software. I like programming. I like figuring out the universe. Writing nasty, hard code to figure out the universe was cool.

One problem with Ph.D.'s is that every Ph.D. is different. They aren't like MBA's in which one MBA is like another one. I happen to find my Ph.D. incredibly useful to get jobs, but YMMV.

twofish-quant

Quote by ParticleGrl

The groundwork has been laid, and is there, and I've done a phd, so given a bit of time I can become an expert in any of these areas, after all I've done it before with certain aspects of quantum field theory. What companies actually VALUE that sort of dynamism?

Investment banks.

jk

Quote by ParticleGrl

Numerical programming when it pops up, thermo stuff, fluid stuff, anything simulations, occasionally EE stuff but my circuit design experience is all analog and there isn't a ton of call for it.

This is probably very obvious but you are tailoring your resume to each kind of job, right? You listed 4 or 5 disparate items here. You should probably have that many, if not more, resumes - each emphasizing different aspects.

Really? More than a decade of schooling past highschool, and your response is "maybe you don't have what it takes to get a job, take some classes?"

All you are looking for is a job, a chance to prove that you can be an asset to whoever hires you. The first job is the hardest since you have no experience in the work world - and no, most managers won't be impressed by your education. They'll be asking themselves what you can do for them. So if the company is looking for someone with all the sills you mentioned above plus who knows some C++, if you don't know C++ you lost that opportunity. I am not saying learn everything under the sun but if that is a common skill set in the jobs you are looking for and if you don't have that skill, what is wrong with learning it?
The attitude that you had more than a decade of schooling past high school won't cut it with a hiring manager if in that decade you didn't learn something that he/she finds necessary to do the job. At any rate, in today's job market, you can't stop learning or you'll be out the door at the next recession.

The thing with physics is that you learn a little bit about many different subjects. I certainly don't know as much about electrical engineering as an electrical engineer, but I probably know more about mechanical engineering than an electrical engineer.

I know a little about fluid mechanics, a little about circuit design, etc. The groundwork has been laid, and is there, and I've done a phd, so given a bit of time I can become an expert in any of these areas, after all I've done it before with certain aspects of quantum field theory. What companies actually VALUE that sort of dynamism?

When I used to interview people for positions within my company, I always looked for that type of dynamism. A willingness to learn new things, to push yourself to do whatever it takes to get the job done, to be flexible in dealing with unexpected situations, a sense of optimism and confidence (not arrogance) that you can get the job done and are willing to work hard for it, to not be afraid to admit when you don't know something...these mean more than a list of specific skills.