13 practical tips to get PhD/doctoral position in European universities

Procedure to getting admitted in a PhD position in European universities is different than that of USA or Australian universities. Therefore if you want to work on a PhD project in a European country then these tips might be helpful for you.

1. Strong interest in research:

PhD is not a job which you “have to do” but its a passion which you “want to do”, therefore it is very important that you should have interest in research and solving unsolved. You should not look for a PhD only because you can not get any other job after your masters degree.

2. Show proof of your interest in research

If you have a passion for research then during you masters study, try to write an article for a conference or a journal of your field. It does not need to be a high profile research but it would show to your prospective professors that you have skills to report your research/results in a professional way. Usually during masters study, there are not so big projects where you get so many results that you can report in a conference etc. So in such a situation, try to talk to your current teachers/professors or other PhD-students to involve you in their projects. This would give you very good opportunity of getting guidance from your seniors.This article is a property of http://schoolselekt.com/

3. Research based masters study

Some universities offer “taught based masters”and “research based masters”. In later case, students don’t study some additional courses but they work on a thesis which is a research work at a small scale. Usually such work is to solve a problem in a big PhD project etc. Therefore if you are interested in getting PhD after masters then try to do a research based masters where there is better chance to get a publication in a conference proceeding or a journal.

4. Masters thesis in a targeted research group

This is the best approach to get PhD in a European university. Here (in Europe) getting a PhD position greatly depends on references and personal contacts. It is also natural that professors consider those candidates first whom they have already worked with. So if you are studying in university “A” and want to get PhD in a university “B” then try to do your masters thesis in university “B”. In that way you can get good knowledge of that group and they can also know you better. Meanwhile, during your thesis, your professor can evaluate you and make a decision if he/she should offer you a PhD position.

5. Personal References

As mentioned earlier, personal references matter alot in Europe while getting a PhD position or a job. Here I don’t mean that you should try to establish a personal contact with your prospective employer but you should keep very good terms with your current employer, teachers etc. Because when you would apply for PhD, there is much chance that your prospective professor would like to know your performance from people whom you are working with currently.

6. Attend conferences

Usually one needs to pay registration fees to attend a conference but in return you can get in contact with many professors who come there to deliver very interesting talks about their research advancements. Such events are very nice opportunities to directly ask professors about availability of funding for any PhD project etc. Sometime they tell you that after a few months they gonna get funding and then you should contact them again.

7. PhD positions on this website

It is very important that you keep any eye on new posting so that you apply immediately. Sometimes professors decide a candidate for a PhD even before deadline of a PhD position.
Soon we are going to start posting PhD posts on this website therefore subscribe to the following form by entering your email and whenever we would upload a position, you would get an email. This service would be free of cost, of course.

8. Personal Network

Sometimes its not a matter of “how much you work”, but its a matter of “how many people you know”. Yes, your personal network (family, friends, friends of friends, previous teachers etc) can play an important role in letting you know about available positions, you are looking for. For example if you mention to Facebook friends that you are looking for a PhD post and your friends reads that message who is doing PhD in ETH, Zurich (Switzerland). Then during some meeting, if his/her professor mentions that he/she is gonna hire a new PhD student to implement a specific task in a some big project. Then your friend would most probably inform you that his/her professor needs a PhD student. So in such case personal network plays any important role.

9. Credible communication sources

If you send an email to a professor (asking about available PhD) using your Gmail, Yahoo or any other free service then chances are that due to SPAM filter, your email would end up in SPAM folder of the recipient. Therefore use your official email address which is provided from your university, company etc.

10. Make a list of popular research groups

In Europe, there are number of research groups working in different universities. Therefore make a list of all groups working in your area of interest and then send emails/phone calls to group leaders and ask them about any available positions. General rule is that if some professor does not like your CV or does not have any position available, he/she would not reply you. So in that case don’t SPAM them by sending emails again and again.
Soon (on this website) we are also going to make lists of different research groups around the world, so please subscribe below to hear from us when we upload such listing.

11. Learn from your failed attempts

If you apply in five different places and you get a response like this one: “We regret to inform you that we could not select you for this post due to………. We wish you good luck in your PhD search” then don’t get disappointed. Reply to that email/letter, asking very politely that what were causes of your rejection. In this way you can make improvements in your next application and apply again in a better way.

12. Strong CV/Resume

Carefully make your CV/resume before applying for a PhD post. Because CV/resume for industrial job is usually different than that of a PhD position. To offer you a PhD posts, usually professors are more interested in candidate’s research activities rather than how many machines he/she knows to operate therefore make your CV/resume accordingly. Soon we would try to upload a sample resume which can be used for a PhD position.

13. Keep your self updated

PhD topics are very specific and focused in a very narrow field of work. Therefore it is very important that you should know that in what topic of field of masters degree, you want to do PhD. Usually this decision/choice depends on th topic of your masters thesis. It is also very important that you know recent happenings in field of your interest. For this purpose you can subscribe to different journals which send you an email when they accept an article(s) in the field you want to do PhD in. A free online tool to track recent happenings on a specific topic is Google Alerts.

Thanks & Regards,

"Remember Me When You Raise Your Hand For Dua"
Raheel Ahmed Khan
System Engineer
send2raheel@engineer.com
sirraheel@gmail.com

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