FIAP Jobs Engine

The APS Forum on Industrial and Applied Physics (FIAP) has established an online jobs search engine to assist young physicists seeking job opportunities by serving as a contact point between them and potential employers. The CareerWeb Resume Database is a searchable engine for both job seekers and potential employers; FIAP membership is not a prerequisite.

Physicists seeking employment opportunities can enter their resumes online using one of three options: (1) enter the resum and keep it confidential so that it is not searchable by employers, so job seekers can forward their resumes only to employers offering positions of interest to them; (2) enter the resume and make it searchable by potential employers; (3) enter your resume and make it searchable using an alias to maintain confidentiality. The latter two options also enable users to make changes in their resumes online.

The Web site also includes suggestions and comments from FIAP members who are also recruiting professionals. One physicist employed in the industrial research sector of a large textile manufacturer suggests supplying the following critical information when applying for jobs: career goals (e.g., moving out of research into manufacturing); work interests (e.g., theoretical, computational, experimental); work style (e.g., close management or great freedom, alone or in groups); and any information about communication and social skills. "My observation is that employers typically don't doubt the capability of candidates, but they worry about career fit: whether they work well with others, and understand our constraints," Says another FIAP member, "The better a candidate communicates career goals and interest in the jobs, the better chance that person has of succeeding." Such jobs almost always require cross-disciplinary skills, so any additional coursework in project management, business, manufacture design, etc., is helpful in terms of preparing graduate students for the realities of today's job market.

Employers and recruiters who are APS/FIAP members can post job descriptions on the site at no cost, or control which candidates contact them by simply searching the CareerWeb Resume database. Such posts include information about the hiring organization, the job opportunity and contact information. Potential employers who are not APS/FIAP members should contact Chris Bastian at cbastian@cweb.com for more information on establishing a presence on the site. APS members may access the FIAP Jobs Search Engine through the FIAP homepage.