What should a PhD in physics put in a CV? The countdown to ending my studies has begun, with less than a year left to finish my PhD. I'm currently very confused about whether or not going for a post-doc, considering that I have recently found out that physicists can do something outside academia. I might therefore look for a job in the private sector.

I work in a mathematical physics sub-field called quantum chaos. I have been programing in Python and Mathematica for the past 3 or 4 years. Although my research does not include data analysis, I do have some small experience in neural networks using Keras, which I believe would not be too hard to fine tune. At the end of my PhD I will have published no more than two papers, both possibly in Physical Review A (impact factor 3), but maybe one will be accepted in Physical Review Letters (impact factor 9). I will also have participated in two or three international conferences. I do speak some four or five languages.

So what? I understand that if I apply for a post-doc my achievements can be seen as standard, and I already have a CV aimed at presenting my research work. The problem is: what should I put in a CV aimed at triggering the private sector's attention? I see my work as immensely irrelevant. I understand that physicists are quick to find patterns and solve problems, but they must be employed to get a chance to show it. Are they really going to care if I add that I have experience dealing with harmonic analysis in cotangent bundles or that I have shown that a certain coherent state propagator is not actually an element of a Bargmann-Segal space? I have absolutely no experience working in any sort of industry, and the only assets I can offer are a reasonable knowledge of Python and Keras and the languages I speak. Any imaginable CV I write will probably make an employer laugh at me. Do I even have a chance here?
This is why it's a good idea to think about these things during, or preferably before, your PhD. You're picking up skills, but how useful those skills are and how you're going to use them is a big question. Fortunately, you're not out of options, and you've probably learned more than you think. Some thoughts:


You should absolutely list Keras. With the amount of hype machine learning has been getting having experience with neural networks is a big deal. I'd go much more than that: list everything you know about data analysis. It doesn't matter if it's something as simple as linear regression. List it all, give details.
You should absolutely list Python as well. In fact, list all the programming languages you know. You don't have to be an expert in all of them because you can learn the others quickly. Are you able to read C/C++ code? Java? R? You can also list Mathematica.
You should absolutely list all the languages you can speak. These skills aren't easy to pick up. If you can speak Japanese for example, that might make you the only viable candidate for a company that's looking to send a consultant to a Japanese client.
What else did you learn in your research? Did you learn any algorithms that might have wider applications? For example, did you learn how to parallelize code? Did you learn how to use a Linux terminal? Git and Github?
Did you engage in science communication and / or teaching? If so definitely list this as well, since it indicates you can mentor others.


You should also visit your university's career center. They'll have experts who can help you.

EDIT: One more thing, take a look at the advertisements you're responding to before sending in a CV. Do you know any of the things they request? For example looking at one such advertisement, there's this:


  
  Ability to query a SQL and/or NoSQL database efficiently
  


If you know how to do this, you should absolutely list it on your CV as well.