Margaret Harris: October 2008 Archives

By Margaret Harris

I spent last Friday milling about with thousands of besuited young people and about a hundred potential employers at the National Graduate Recruitment Exhibition in London. My main goal was to sniff out companies or fields that are hiring physics graduates, so we can highlight these opportunities in the Careers section of Physics World. Along the way, I also talked to several recruiters and recruitees — and was even “recruited” myself by the Royal Air Force.

One big traditional physics employer, the nuclear industry, won my award for the most eye-catching stall at the exhibition: recruiters from nucleargraduates.com spoke to a steady stream of would-be workers inside a huge, grey, inflatable dome. Both dome and recruiters were there to advertise a new “umbrella” graduate programme with links to more than 20 companies and government agencies, and designed to bring new talent to an industry that has experienced a “greying” of its workforce over the past decade.