Prima esperienza di lavoro

Less than an year ago, as a young graduated, I faced the problem whether to continue the academic career, which was meaning to do a PhD, or to shift to industry.

It has been a very difficult choice, and at the end I chose to leave university, at least for a while, and to find out what the “real world” could offer to a young physicist.

Even if it was a bad situation for finding a job, due to the global crisis, I received offers from some insurance, software, and consulting companies. Finally, I accepted the offer of an important softwarehouse, SAS. This industry is a leader in “business intelligence” which means, in few words, the ability to extract useful informations from the large amount of data that industries collect everyday, to drive managers, directors… to lead the business. This is possible thanks to the use of several of the finest statistical alghoritms.

During the first month, I’ve only attended a course (named ‘Masterclass’) where I learned the SAS programming language and the complex structure of the SAS Platform; at the end of this course I did a sort of exam at the end of which I obtained a certification.

After that period, I started to work as a Business Developer: my everyday work turned from the study of the new solutions created by the R&D, to the creation of slideshows for our clients, from the market researches to the implementation of some code.

The transition from academia to business was not easy for me, since I continued to miss physics, but was really interesting because I started to learn and understand a lot about business processes that before were completely obscure for me. There was no lack of enthusiasm in my new job. Moreover, I quickly learned some economical concepts useful in a business context; I found out that colleagues with a background in economy were not so advantaged with respect of me. Generally. a physicist is experienced in learning new things in a short period of time, and this is a plus that can help him to fill the lack of knowledge in a new area.

As a physicist, I was also quite skilled in programming, and it is very useful when working in IT.

One of the main differences from the academy that I felt in these months is the following. In the years of university, when doing a presentation or a research, I was only interested in explaining my work in a direct way with, e.g., very simple and basic slideshows. In the business, since you must convince your clients that your offer is the best they can ever desire, you’d better create very elaborated presentations, that are not only synthetic and effective, but also a pleasure for the sight and rich of effects that strike the audience. Besides, communication is an important skill in this area; I was impressed when I saw how many courses my company dedicates to public speaking, teamwork, communication.

In conclusion, I think that someone with a degree in a scientific area is well prepared for a career in a technology-based company, even if the work is not only technical but also, for example, a business work.