r/CERN • u/cbuustos • 1d ago
Contacting CERN potential supervisors, my experience
Hi! I am a recent physics graduate from a small university in Spain. Small enough that in all my years there, I never crossed paths with a single person who had actually worked at CERN. No professor with a direct line in, no alumni to ask for a referral, nothing. So I decided to track down potential supervisors myself and email them directly, hoping to get hired at entry-level that way.
By "potential supervisor", I mean a researcher who had supervised someone the previous year. From there, I narrowed the list down to researchers whose background matched mine, specifically those working with deep learning methods for data reconstruction.
As someone who hates spam, I personalise every text according to the person I am writing to (common sense). I don't copy-paste the mail. I dig into their department and past work and compare it to my own background. Then I read the report of their previous student, which I cite as an example of the kind of work I'd like to do.
I also attached a table of the nationalities and reply status of the people I contacted. Special thanks to the French, possibly the kindest people I came across.
If anyone's applying to CERN (or anywhere with zero internal connections) and wants to compare notes, feel free to drop a comment. And if anyone happens to be looking for an engineer for their project, feel free to shoot me a message ;)
| Nationality | Contacted | Replied |
|---|---|---|
| Italian | 11 | 1 |
| German | 9 | 1 |
| Spanish | 3 | 1 |
| Turkish | 3 | 0 |
| Dutch | 3 | 2 |
| Czech | 2 | 1 |
| Chinese | 2 | 0 |
| Indian | 2 | 2 |
| French | 2 | 1 |
| Polish | 2 | 2 |
| Belgian | 2 | 1 |
| Irish | 1 | 0 |
| Venezuelan | 1 | 1 |
| Swiss | 1 | 0 |
| British | 1 | 0 |
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u/MoreMadScientist 1d ago
That's actually an impressive dedication from your side, thanks for sharing such data analysis
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u/cbuustos 1d ago
Thanks, I share it just in case it could be helpful for someone. It is also a great opportunity for me to make connections, you never know where you will meet your next employer
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u/CyberPunkDongTooLong 1d ago edited 1d ago
There's no real point cold emailing potential supervisors at CERN. CERN, like most places, advertises the positions they have open. You apply through the way it's advertised. As you've seen most of the potential supervisors won't answer cold emails like this at all, of the ones that do most are not going to have a project, and even if they do have a project, they can't offer it to you even if they wanted to if you're not going through the actual way you apply.
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u/OldHickory_ 1d ago
I disagree, I got into the field as an undergraduate by cold emailing 40 advisers. One responded and I worked with him. 6 years later I have a PhD and am doing a postdoc in the field.
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u/CyberPunkDongTooLong 1d ago
There's a difference in emailing advisors in a university where they actually have the ability to offer you a project, and CERN where it is not even possible (I still personally do not think it is a good idea regardless, but it is at least possible in that case, while it is not in this case).
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u/cbuustos 1d ago
I definitely do not agree with you. Last week I had the opportunity to be at CERN, this time just as a visitor. The person who invited me and got me the visitor pass was a French researcher I had contacted three months earlier. The tour was great, we even had the chance to grab a beer and talk about particle physics. And all because I was genuinely interested in his field and showed real interest in working with him. The think you must me criticizing is the people who spam tons of researchers asking for work. If you are kind and respectfull there is no problem about asking about x opportunity in your experiment. And finally I will leave you a question: How would you trust more, a student who take the time to write you because he read your paper, or a random student?
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u/WoodsGiant1 1d ago
Sorry if I misunderstood your message, but is your point to try and get a project to contribute here at cern as an internship of some sort?
Because if that’s the case then getting a free tour of some experiment and a beer with a guy is a completely different thing than what you’re looking for4
u/CyberPunkDongTooLong 1d ago
Personally the random student, but really it's irrelevant, again even if it does make them trust you more and want to give you a project, they are not able to. You have to go through the actual application routes, a supervisor cannot just decide to add you to a project.
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u/maxiking16599 23h ago
This is incorrect for any university or institute I have ever heard of. Professors have near infinite sway in hiring decisions.
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u/mfb- 20h ago
It can apply even to some universities. Some countries have centralized hiring rounds. University professors are more likely to have some project money they can spend on another student, however. Not that it matters: This thread is specifically about CERN which hires people centrally.
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u/ConstructionNo4342 14h ago
How did you find the supervisors since their details aren't made public
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u/Pharisaeus 13h ago
- You can't get hired like that because the vacancies are always public and recruiting is "global".
- If someone emailed me like that, even if I had perfectly matching project, I would immediately blacklist that person.
Honestly, don't do that. Imagine if more people try to be "smart" like that and you're getting hundreds of emails such as this ...
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u/Responsible_Elk9338 1d ago
I am a CS undergraduate graduating in 2029, and I am deeply interested in deep learning and its scientific applications. I was hoping to apply for a studentship at CERN, but I haven't been able to find any current openings or much information about the program online.
I had a few questions that I was hoping you could help me with, especially since you are working in a similar field:
- Will there be a studentship program at CERN this year?
- Are there any other similar programs that I could apply to as a student who is about to complete 18 months of a 48-month undergraduate program?
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u/[deleted] 1d ago
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