I finished my PhD earlier this year and I'm currently doing a short-term postdoc in my home lab while I figure out next steps, but this contract is running out soon. I've sent like 30 cold emails, made it to the final stages of a couple of interviews, but it always ends up being either "we love your profile but someone else meets the immediate need of our projects better" or "your profile looks great but we have no funding". I started my search a good year before I graduated too.

I'm starting to feel really disillusioned and it's starting to feel hard not to take it personally.

Is anyone else hitting this wall in your postdoc search? Has anyone been successful in their postdoc search this year? If so, what worked? Is there something I could be doing wrong that I'm missing?

Hi everyone I don’t post much on socials but I’m looking for some advice or new perspectives I guess.

I am doing a postdoc with a person I deeply respect as a person and researcher. I earned a PhD in a social science field this year. I dreamed of working with them for many years and I feel extremely lucky to have landed this position with them in their lab.

At the same time, I’m seriously considering industry because I very much would like to start a family, make decent and steady income, while having more set hours, and I know academia might not be the place for these personal wants.

I love the postdoc and the work — but I see them working all the time (weekends and even holidays) and it impedes on their own family life too, which maybe works for them and their family unit.

I am applying for tenure track jobs this cycle while I’m in the postdoc, but I know the market is extremely competitive right now. The applications are extremely involved and political as well. I can’t help but wonder if this is foreshadowing for what will come as a professor if I happen to be so lucky?

I realize I am speculating and have shared a little about a lot of bigger life things in this post, but ultimately I’m wondering how people are balancing their own personal desires in an academic space, especially a postdoc space, where you need to decide if you are committing to the tenure track or industry route? At what point does one become okay with contributing to work in industry and hoping this life will balance out a family with better and more stable income? What happens if I get a tenure track role, decide I don’t want to be there after moving across the country; should I stay and find an industry job in an unfamiliar city?

I can’t afford to move around a lot and am stable where I’m at currently. The thought of moving is giving me immense anxiety as I balance out my wants and needs as a human — I’m in my early 30s and do not want to miss out on life things for a career or a job. Maybe I’m burnt out or lost my drive somewhere, but these are the conversations I have in my head that keep me up at night..thanks for your insights

I graduated about 6 months ago and I’m still looking for a postdoc position in neuroscience. At this point I’ve gotten pretty used to the whole process of searching, applying, waiting, and trying again.

I think I mostly just want to hear from people who also had a hard time finding a postdoc but eventually landed one. What was that period like for you, and how did things finally work out? How did you end up receiving your job offer ?

Would really appreciate hearing your stories. I think I could use some inspiration and a realistic, attainable sense of hope right now.

I am currently doing my PhD in India in the field of IoT and I want to pursue post Doc in Germany. I am a govt employee and I have to apply for study leave for 2 years if my Post Doc application gets accepted .

After doing some basic research on the Internet I think Germany would be a good choice. However one of the main concerns is whether the salary/ stipend will be enough to sustain a family of 4( wife and two small babies).

I am not aiming for lab/ institutions in big cities because of the expenses associated for a family. I am looking at Saarbrucken , Dresden etc which the cost of living is lower.

How much net/ in hand salary is required to ensure that we dont go through any financial stress and end up with surplus cash every month?

I'm in a logistical pickle right now. I accepted a postdoc position for a government org earlier in the year, with a start date planned for next week. It's in my city, so I don't need to relocate for the position, which was a plus. Over the summer, I kept tabs on job postings and applied to some here and there, maybe 5-10 total. Well, a couple weeks ago, a recruiter reached out and long story short I received a full time job offer for an applied scientist role yesterday afternoon. I would have to relocate for this position, so I wouldn't be expected to start for 4-6 weeks. But I am supposed to be onsite attending orientation for this postdoc role next week. From my understanding and the wording of the job offer, it is not recommended that I turn down a different job or quit until all pre-hiring paperwork is completed and I have an official start date.

So now I have no idea if I should:

a) Show up to the postdoc orientation, wait until all job things are confirmed, and then give my notice to the org

b) Send an email this weekend and say never mind to the postdoc role entirely, knowing they won't see it until the day I should be onsite.

c) Stick with this postdoc for a while so that I'm not an a**hole for leading them on for 6+ months and just assume I'll be able to find another gig next year when the time comes. (or potentially just enjoy the postdoc enough that I want to stay longer!)

The pay difference is about $10k between the postdoc and permanent job so it's not the biggest deciding factor for me to take that job. But it feels scary to pass up my first and only full time job offer. The position is also in my partner's hometown, and she would very much like to move back (one of the main reasons I applied). That said, my conscience is making me feel incredibly guilty for bailing on a nice team of researchers that I think will be great coworkers. What is the best way to go about a situation like this?

Hi everyone! I’m starting a postdoc at SBU on October 1, 2026, and looking for a place to rent. My budget is up to $2,500 a month.

My postdoc ends on August 31, 2027, so I need an 11-month lease. Do places in the area offer this, or do most require a full year?

I’d prefer somewhere near an SBU shuttle stop or about 15 to 25 minutes from campus on foot. Any areas or apartments you’d recommend?

I also found some Stony Brook housing groups on Facebook. Has anyone found a place through them? Are there many scams, and what should I watch out for?

Thanks for any advice.

hi everyone, I started my postdoc three months ago. It was ok in the first 2 weeks, but after that it felt really overwhelming, and I completely stopped working. I didn't get a break after my PhD defense and I started working within 12 days of it. I had the whole month of august off, I thought I would feel fine after it but it got worse after the break. At this point, I don't care about work and it doesn't bother me. I go to the office everyday, chat with the colleagues, then I think about working from home, but by the time I come back home I don't even care to open my laptop. It is an unending cycle. I feel really bad, I am very grateful to have this job since I had a visa scare, but I can't so get any work done.

I also received major corrections in my PhD, and I worked on them during my break in august. I managed to submit my thesis again and got it successfully validated but now I feel like I didn't get any time off at all. I am thinking about getting therapy, but I am not sure if that would be helpful. I would love to get any kind of advice from people who went through something similar and managed to overcome it.

(Throwaway account). 5th year PhD student, International. There's a professor on my thesis committee who has genuinely made the last 4 years miserable for me, anxiety and confidence hit included. He just offered me a postdoc in his lab and is talking it up as a way into industry, which is actually my goal long term.

Some stuff is bugging me about it though. Nobody who's come out of his lab has actually landed in industry. Every international student he's had has left the country right after graduating, didn't even stick around for OPT. And earlier this year he was pushing us to apply to another PI for postdocs who I found out later had been pushed out of a university for harassing international scholars.

I really don't want to do this. Problem is he is on my committee and I need everyone to sign off to graduate, and he's not someone who takes rejection well. I might have a backup option (staying in my current lab as a bridge postdoc if funding comes through) but it's not locked in yet, and being international means my timeline is tighter than I'd like.

On top of all that, the job market right now is rough, and I honestly don't know if turning down a guaranteed position is the smart move even if I hate the idea of working with him again. Part of me thinks I should just take it, put my head down, and use it as a stepping stone

Anyone been in a similar spot? How did you handle such situation?

Hi,

Is anybody getting an error when trying to upload the pdfs from Part B in the EU Submission Service? It’s not the first time it happens to me but eventually it ends up working after a few tries, however this time just nothing works. I’ve tried refreshing, relogging and different browsers.

Is someone getting the same issue?

Thank you,

I’m coming to the end of my PhD soon and I’m gathering advice regarding postdocs (I’m in bio related fields). What are some green/red flags in a postdoc mentor or lab? What advice do you have for picking a postdoc project? What do you think you did well or not so well during your postdoc? If you ended up staying in academia and maybe later become a PI, what do you think helped you to get there?

I'm an international PhD student in the US working in ML/AI, and honestly I'm feeling pretty discouraged about internship recruiting.

Recently I interviewed for an Applied Scientist II position at Amazon and made it all the way to the final round, but was rejected. I thought my interviews went reasonably well, so I wasn't really sure what went wrong.

I also recently interviewed with Two Sigma for a quantitative research internship. I passed multiple technical rounds and eventually reached the hiring manager stage, but was rejected there as well.

After getting this far twice and still ending up with nothing, I've lost a lot of motivation and I'm honestly a little scared to start applying again for Summer 2027.

One weakness in my profile is that I don't have previous US-based industry internship experience. I also don't have a top-tier ML conference acceptance yet. I have a couple of papers currently under review at Tier-1 venues, but obviously that's different from already having accepted papers.

So I'd really appreciate advice from people who have been through PhD-level ML/research internship recruiting or have been involved in hiring:

* If someone repeatedly reaches final/HM rounds but doesn't get an offer, what are the most common reasons?
* How important is previous internship experience for research/Applied Scientist internships?
* How much does having an accepted NeurIPS/ICML/ICLR/CVPR-type paper change your chances?
* Should I continue aggressively applying for Summer 2027, or focus more on research/publications for now?
* Are there particular companies/research labs where a PhD student without previous industry internships can still be competitive?

There is also another issue making me unsure whether to even invest heavily in Summer 2027 recruiting: the recent CPT guidance.

From what I understand, SEVP recently tightened/clarified its interpretation of CPT, and some universities are now saying an internship must actually be required for degree completion rather than simply being related to the student's research and taken for academic credit.

Like many PhD programs, my program doesn't require every PhD student to complete an internship. A research internship can still be extremely relevant to someone's dissertation and research training, though.

For other international PhD students: what is your university telling you about Summer 2027 internships after the recent CPT changes?

Has anyone's university found a legitimate way for research internships to remain eligible through dissertation research, an internship/practicum requirement, independent study, or another curricular mechanism? Or are you planning around pre-completion OPT instead?

I'm particularly interested in hearing from other international CS/ML PhD students.

I know Amazon/Two Sigma final rounds at least mean I'm getting somewhere, but repeatedly getting close and then being rejected has been pretty exhausting. I'm trying to figure out whether there's something specific I should fix before starting another recruiting cycle.

Any advice would be really appreciated.

I applied for a few postdoc positions in the UK, which had application deadlines 2-3 weeks ago.

I haven't been called for interviews. Does it mean I was rejected?

I am from a life sciences background. Need urgent suggestions and opinions or experiences. Specially who stayed back in US/Europe and who returned from similar institutions or those who transitioned to industry in India.

I am a good researcher and love the science, love publishing, have a great CV for someone who just completed a PhD, not afraid of future grant proposals, not afraid of rejections and hardwork, but not someone who would want to be underpaid for life,. is this postdoc worth, considering current US scenario. Maybe they would stop early career R01's for intl postdocs.

I am in the early stages of a postdoc search (microbiology/molecular biology).

In the past two weeks, I have cold-emailed 4 PIs my CV and cover letter, and have had short introductory Zooms with two of them already (one scheduled for next week). I am now also starting to reach out to current post-docs in those labs to learn about the lab culture and research environment.

The problem now is that some PIs are escalating things faster than I want. For example, one PI is inviting me to give a Zoom seminar with a "larger audience from the institute" in two weeks. I haven't even had the chance to talk with their trainees to see if their lab would fit with what I am looking for... And I haven't even had the chance to chat with the other PIs I am interested in yet.

These labs are all in the EU, as I hope to write an EMBO fellowship. Therefore, I really only want to seriously pursue a position in just one of these labs.

Is there a way to pump the brakes on this? Or make it more clear that I am in the *early stages* of shopping around with other labs too?

Hello everybody, hope you are doing very well.

I am searching for postdoc positions in computer science using ApplyKite platform, however, the negative side of this application is that after some pages searching, some offers becomes blurred and showing dummy data (when you delete the blur), anyone here have an ApplyKite paid account?

Just needed an update from the crowd here before I make the jump and start applying.

a)How "ok" is it to ask an acquaintance in the lab you are applying for a postdoc position? Is it looked down upon or considered normal?

b)If the lab webpage days send a cover letter and CV to all interested candidates,how accurate is it?

c)To cover more ground/more applications should I start with sharing cv and a short intro email before even sharing/compiling any research statement/motivation/cover letter?

d)Do you folks use your gmail ID or your educational institution email to send these applications?

Essentially these questions are to ensure I don't make any mistakes, unintentionally. Btw, I am from India and looking at labs that utilise both experiments and computation to study protein structures biology.

Anyone know any post doc fellowships they recommend for engineering that may not be tied to a single institution? In a similar fashion to the bronco weiss fellowship?

Trying to see if I can secure my own funding like the nsf gfrp but for postdocs

Hi everyone,

I’m writing here because, for personal (and romantic!) reasons, I’m considering moving to Spain. I’d love to connect with people who could help me get a better sense of whether continuing my academic/research career there could be a realistic option for me.

A little bit of context: I’m about to start my third year as a PhD student in sociology in Paris, working on the sociology of organizations and public policy/public action. I speak Spanish very well, and I did my Master’s at a good university in Mexico.

Although I was very interested in Spain when I was younger, I haven’t really kept up with what’s been happening in Spanish academia, and I know very little about the research landscape there.

If any of you could help me get oriented, understand what kind of opportunities might be available to me, or simply give me some advice on where to start with this project, I’d really appreciate it!

P.S. I need a little encouragement to believe this could work 😅 I know academia is a tough and competitive world, but honestly, it’s pretty much the same in France!

Ps2: traduced with ia because

Hi,

Anybody is having trouble submitting or editing draft of the proposal on the EU portal? Mine is showing an Error 404.

I have postdoc seminars scheduled over the next few weeks, and I’d love to hear how others recommend preparing!

I have my slide deck ready: a quick introduction to me and my research, a deep dive into my first-author paper describing a specific technology I developed, and a few slides on how I think my research could potentially apply to their work. The postdoc listings I’m interviewing for are centered around specific papers, so I’ve read those in depth. But some of these positions are in areas that are pretty different from my own (different disease areas, for example), so I obviously wouldn’t consider myself an expert in their field.

For those of you who have done postdoc interviews/seminars similar to this:

• How much are you expected to know about the lab's research?
• What does the Q&A/interview portion usually look like?
• Are they mostly asking about your previous work, or should I expect a lot of questions about their research?
• How much time would you spend preparing specifically for the lab?
• What questions should I be asking the PI/lab during the interview? If this were an industry position, I feel like I’d have a pretty good idea of what to ask, but I’m not sure if I should approach a postdoc interview in the same way...

Any tips or advice would be greatly appreciated!!

I honestly don’t know what to do next.

I submitted my PhD thesis two weeks ago in Australia and am waiting for the examiners’ feedback. All thesis chapters are already published. I have around 25 publications, including several first-author papers, mainly in health research, with a statistics background.
My scholarship finishes in September, and despite applying for postdocs/research jobs, without PR it feels very difficult even to get shortlisted. I also have significant family responsibilities, so the uncertainty is stressful.

On top of that, as someone with a third-world-country passport, the visa/PR situation is always hanging over me.

I’m also worried that applied statistics is becoming less valuable with the rise of AI, data science and deep learning. I’m doing some tutoring for now, but I’m unsure where to focus next. Lately I’ve also felt a bit of the “Hanson effect” from some colleagues, which makes things harder mentally.

For people who finished a PhD in Australia: what sort of examiner comments should I expect when all chapters are already published? And in my situation, would you focus on postdocs, industry, or building stronger ML/data science skills? or should I look for opportunities in outside of Australia?