Dunno about a BS in physics, but i have a friend with a PhD in physics who was recruited by one of those companies, and another friend with a PhD in math who made it his career.
FWIW, about 35 years ago Wall Street was definitely hiring people with physics & engineering BS degrees. I had a BS in physics and interviewed at a firm a friend (BS in EE) worked at. I declined the 3rd round of interviews when I saw how utterly insane they were, near “Wolf of Wall Street” levels of behavior.
This is my observation as well. There are exceptions, but my advice to friends and their kids is that if you want to pursue physics, then plan on sticking it out for at least a PhD. The job postings that my son found mostly required PhDs.
I agree. Given the volume of resumes that are being received and filtered, it seems unlikely for a BS in physics to make it through the automated portion. My three sons all graduated college recently and the job search is brutal; nothing like I dealt with 30 years ago. They put in as much effort to get an interview as I did to get an offer. It’s almost a requirement to know someone at the company to even get your resume looked at by a human.
Yes. By necessity, I think we will see a change in how hiring is done, because it’s not just terrible for the applicants. Hiring managers and HR can’t manage the deluge either.
This article gave me a wry smile.
Got laid off and told I was “expendable.” My entire department fell apart without me.
My company did “restructuring” and let me go along with two others. During my exit, management said I was “good but not critical to operations.” Apparently, I was easily replaceable.
I managed all the vendor relationships and project coordination for our department. Didn’t think it mattered to them.
Within a month, things fell apart. Vendors were confused about contracts, deadlines got missed, and nobody knew who to call.
A major contract got delayed because nobody knew how the systems worked. My former boss started calling me, asking for “advice.”
This employee was already working for another company that values him.
I was already consulting for one of our biggest vendors. They saw the chaos, asked if I’d work with them full time managing multiple client accounts.
I’d be essentially doing the same work but for better pay and actually appreciated.
Current company lost three contracts because of the fumbling. The vendor I’m now consulting with? They’re their second biggest revenue stream.
Told my old boss, no thanks. Feels good knowing they made a mistake undervaluing me.
I don’t flatter myself to think that the company will fall apart without me, but I like what was posted in one of his tweets:
Common theme:
managers don’t know the extent of institutional history and knowledge that get lost/dstroyed with these restructuring.
I got seven files back from our Tampa team today. Six of them were not cleaned up, and were in the wrong format. One was in the right format, but was not cleaned up. One was fine. The one that was fine, was one that we load as-is. I replied for the six that were wrong, telling them what they did wrong.
This morning during the training session, I told the receptionist to handle the things she could handle. This afternoon (after I clocked out), I got an email from Experian that said the upload failed. They’re very particular about their file names. She used the wrong one.
In exactly one month from today, I’m not going to care.
That’s a wise mental place you’re migrating towards. Your future and their future are unrelated. They are screwed; you are not. head high and power forth, my friend.
I’m really hoping Tampa says, ‘Johnny L.A. is being unreasonable! He wants everything perfect! We can’t do this!’ And if that happens, God willing, I will already have gotten a new job. 
It’d be ideal if the bureaucracy announces to the CEO that “We canna do thet Ciptain; the ship’s gonna blow!” and she believes them and stays aboard to die in the ensuing explosion.
But that’s sure not the way to bet. Being elsewhere is its own reward. I sure hope you can find something appropriate in your small-town backyard.