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.
This just went out:
Dear [Data Contributors],
Thank you for choosing to contribute your A/R data through [our company]. As you know, the world of commercial credit reporting that we all depend on, requires timely, accurate data and your contributions are very important.
For over 18 years now, our data contribution program has been managed by [Johnny L.A.]. I wanted to let you know that [Johnny L.A.’s] last day with [us] will be February 5, 2026. [Johnny L.A.] has been a terrific member of the [the company] team and he will be missed not only by the team here, but by many of you. Going forward, [receptionist] will be the new point of contact for data contribution. [She] has been on the [company] team for the past three years and has been mentored by [Johnny L.A.] on all things data-contribution-related, as he prepares to depart.
Nothing about this personnel change will change the way you submit data or communicate with us about it. Please continue to use the current processes and continue to reach out to [data email address] for any issues you might have.
And if you have any questions, don’t hesitate to let us know.
We appreciate your partnership!
[La Jefa]
Why do I get the feeling that La Jefa is going to regret the next-to-last paragraph?
It’d be entertaining to pull up a chair and some popcorn to watch the hijinks over the, say, 3 months after your departure.
But certainly not entertaining enough for you to bother being that narrator. If somebody else worked there who was in a position to watch and report that’d be something else.
And gawd do I hate bland CorpSpeak that, although narrowly truthful on the very surface, is simply one large lie from “hello” to “goodbye.”
+1 what @LSLGuy says … (the worst offenders are companies that are bankrupt and spin it like that’s the best thing ever happened to them)
I mean - you could completely avoid having to miss the terrific team-member @Johnny_L.A
… then just don’t fire him …
(fuggars)
edit to add: why feb 5th (thursday)… weird (non-logical) date to end an employment programmed…???
I feel bad for [receptionist].
Here are the consequences: Data quality – something we’ve prided ourselves on for decades before I started – will decline. Records that I have been saving using my Easytrieve programs, will now be rejected. Entire files will be rejected because they will not be in the right format/layout. Tampa might be able to fix the formats/layouts and even do some cleanup and zero-balance captures; but they’re not going to be able to do it in the next three weeks. So…
Receptionist (or whatever her new title is) will have to contact Experian and Equifax and let them know that the formats have changed. Experian and Equifax will have to write new programs for the new formats. This may take months. In the meantime, no new data will be loaded. I think Equifax pays us on the number of records, but I’m not sure. Experian pays by query. So we may lost most of the Equifax revenue until they reprogram. Previously-loaded data will still be on Experian’s database, so I suspect we’ll still get revenue… but it will become more and more stale, and thus less valuable to our customers.
So yeah, it’s more work for Receptionist.
While I don’t/won’t have any coworkers on my Facebook, I do have at least one (Receptionist’s manager) who thinks this is all a Bad Idea. I’m sure I can reach out to her if I get curious.
Yep. I thought the same thing.
It’s funny how people who have been in executive positions (or executive-adjacent positions) their whole careers think they can come in and ignore How Products Are Made and Institutional Knowledge.
I’m sure it was an issue before, but the trend seemed to accelerate when companies stopped having employees and started having FTEs (Full Time Equivalents). That gave rise to the theory that people are like game cartridges* which can be plugged/unplugged without effect.
* There’s got to be a better analogy, but I can’t think of one at the moment.
I’ll say again: When you’re gone, you’re gone. If La Jefa or Secretary or Tampa want help, charge them the going rate for your time. The going rate for the industry, not whatever La Jefa offers you.
I’ve rewritten their letter to be truly in-depth truthful:
Dear [Data Contributors],
Thank you for choosing to contribute your A/R data through [our company]. As you know, the world of commercial credit reporting that we all depend on, requires timely, accurate data and your contributions are utterly irrelevant to the parts of our business we now choose to care about.
For over 18 years now, our data contribution program has been managed by [Johnny L.A.] who has done an excellent job and has made his department into a profit center for our firm. So we fired him a couple months ago effective Feb 5 since we are abandoning the entire data submission project as more trouble than it is worth … to us. [Johnny L.A.] has been a terrific member of the [the company] team, but with our new CEO, we don’t care about any of that. In fact, we especially enjoyed closing his department and firing him shortly before his retirement.
Going forward, [receptionist] will be the new point of contact for data contribution. [She] has been on the [company] team for the past three years and has been mentored by [Johnny L.A.] on all things data-contribution-related for a couple hours a week for the last couple of weeks, net of holidays of course. None of which she has the training or background to understand, much less do solo. She is also already fully overtasked with other more important duties. Bottom line, as we say in the cutthroat business world: We have no actual provisions to do anything useful with your data. We will pretend to submit it to the bureaus and they will reject all, or almost all, of it.
Why the rejections? Because most of you have been screwing up your submissions for decades now, necessitating [Johnny L.A.] 's continuous full-time efforts to convert your garbage in into quality data out. Frankly my dears, we don’t give damn anymore about that. If you can’t be bothered to do it right, neither can we.
Nothing about this personnel change will change the way you submit data or communicate with us about it. Please continue to use the current processes and continue to reach out to [data email address] for any issues you might have. But rest assured your every submission will be lost by overworked [receptionist], or be rejected by the major credit bureaus. And we don’t care.
And if you have any questions, dial 1-800-EAT-SHIT and tell them what you think.
Sincerely (for once in my life)
JANE C. (for Clueless) Costcutter
Newbie CEO
Sorry, man but you sound like you still care… stop doing that.
Well, when you include Experian, I’ve been doing this for almost half of my life. It’s hard not to care… now. In three weeks, it will no longer be my problem. I’ll collect unemployment until it runs out, or find another job… even if it’s as a cart wrangler at a supermarket. (Not that there’s anything wrong with being a cart wrangler. It’s just not the type of work I’ve been doing.) But as far as the data, my answer will be, ‘As it was foretold.’
ETA: An Account Executive called to tell me about a problem with Experian not loading data for a few months, even though I’ve been uploading the files (or the receptionist has). I opened a ticket with them to find out WTH is happening. I wonder if they’ll get back to me in time? 
(Oh, and this AE has a habit of talking over people, which I hate. I almost hung up on her.)