Cold emailing profs about PhD positions? Read this [D]

[u/tariban]

This is the time of year when the number of cold emails I receive about PhD positions tends to ramp up quite a bit. In many countries, this cold emailing is essentially part of the normal recruitment process, so there is nothing inherently wrong with doing this. However, there are a few things you definitely shouldn't be doing:

• Massive emails. The probability of me reading your email is inversely proportional to its length.
• Emailing everyone. Find supervisors that work in areas you are actually interested in. I do relatively foundational ML research (i.e., not associated with a specific application domain), but the majority of emails I get from prospective students are essentially "I want to apply ML to domain X". In many cases this does not constitute an ML research direction; you'd be better off finding a supervisor with expertise in domain X, which is where most of the impact will be.
• Generic research interests. If the most specific research interests you can give are "Machine Learning, LLMs, and AI" then I assume you only have a surface-level familiarity with the field, and are not ready for a PhD.
• Passing off workshop papers as conference papers. This has become a much more common thing in the last couple of years. It's a big red flag; I am not going to take on someone who is dishonest.
• Excessive AI use. Using them for fixing up grammar is fine, but if you outsource your thinking to LLMs then your research direction will be the same as everyone else who outsources their thinking to LLMs. This tends to result in something that would be an okay bachelor's thesis project, but nothing more than that. I get a lot of LLM emails, so determining if you are in this cluster is very easy.
• Summarise my paper. I already know what's in it, I don't need a summary. I care more about how you think you could build on it, or do something related. Don't use LLMs for this; see above point.
• Ignoring instructions on my website. Check prospective supervisors' websites for how you should be getting in contact with them. Often they will ask you to include something in the subject line to make sure your email goes to the right place. Ignoring this will send you straight to spam.

[u/mr_formaldehyde]

One big recommendation in general. If possible try to get a conference publication and visit the conference. A real life meeting creates a much deeper impact.

[u/sun_PHD → u/mr_formaldehyde]

Some fields, like mine, its even easier because we love posters! Get a poster at a conference!

[u/Exotic_Zucchini9311 → u/mr_formaldehyde]

Tried that. Couldn't meet any supervisor even remotely relevant..

[u/EdwardRaff]

I've had 2 people ever follow the instructions on my website for contacting me. A depressingly good filter.

[u/lurking_physicist → u/EdwardRaff]

Does it involves red M&Ms?

[u/DevFRus]

That's a great list. One thing I'd add is to not try to tailor your own research interests to what you think my research interests are. Instead, be honest about what you are excited about and interested in. Figure that out first. Then email only those profs that might naturally overlap with or compliment to YOUR skills and interests, rather than trying to make up interests or shoehorn skills. This will make your emails more authentic and much less draining to write for you (and more interesting to read for me).

[u/Ulfgardleo]

Also a big one: check whether the university has a hiring page for academic staff. If they do then the chances are large that professors who have not advertised a position there have no money to hire people.

You can of course still contact them, but the focus then must be on acquiring money, e.g., writing an application together. This means you have to come prepared and use your few sentences to convince me that it is worth spending a week of time on writing an application with you.

[u/Pseudomanifold]

Seconded! The older I get, the more I appreciate brief emails that get to the point. It's awesome if you want to work with me but resist the urge to reiterate my bibliography and instead just tell me what you like and, more importantly, what you would like to do. Precision and conciseness will always beat long winded slop.

[u/No_Inspection4415 → u/Pseudomanifold]

Everything concise is better to me, except of poems maybe.

[u/feng_sg]

Check the current grad students' recent preprints if you want to know what the lab is actually working on. The professor's own publication list is always a year behind their real priorities.

[u/Fit_Caterpillar4434]

Can you spot the missing piece in my approach?

Me: Hi Prof., I was reading your paper about X and had a question. The question is XYZ.

<after less than an hour, I received this>

Prof's PhD student: Oh! Thank you for this good question; the answer is ABC.

Me: Thank you for your time. The paper is so interesting that I have another question: do you think applying method Z to the problem has potential?

<after less than an hour, I received this>

Prof's PhD student: Very interesting idea. We thought about it while doing the experiment but never had time to do it. I would be interested to see if the experiments tell a compelling story.

Me: Thank you. I noticed on your website that you are accepting interns. Would you accept me for an internship to work on this under your supervision? I also have other ideas, but let's keep those for later.

Prof and his PhD student: .......

I have done this with three professors and seen the exact same pattern. What is the issue?

I don't mind saying No (as I think they might not have capacity currently), but why ghosting?

[u/tariban → u/Fit_Caterpillar4434]

PhD student doesn't have the ability to hire interns, and that's who you were communicating with. Most profs will only take on-site interns, due to bad experiences with remote interns. We get slammed with so many intern requests (I get a couple each day, currently) that we don't have time to reply to them.

[u/Fit_Caterpillar4434 → u/tariban]

Yes, sure. the professor was CC'ed on all previous messages, and the most recent message was directed specifically to the prof. rather than the PhD student.

Additionally, the professor's website welcomed both remote and on-site internships, which is why I inquired about it (I didn't assume this).

I have the feeling that if they PIs don't know you or know someone who knows you, they won't work with you (as an intern, collaborator, PhD student, ...)

[u/Material-Bread603]

How would u be seen if you have a preprint that u have sent to a journal but a decision hasnt been given as a bachelor student and u are trying to get in as a masters of research through rtp

[u/VRos02]

This is gold. Thank you Professor🙏

[u/RonKosova]

Thanks for the info. I do want to ask if any professors could weigh in, are workshop papers at all impactful in your evaluation? I mean, I assume its better than nothing but by how "much" (if it can even be quantified)? Better than a non-reviewed pre-print I assume?

[u/wvheerden → u/RonKosova]

Personally, I would go with whether the paper is published in the conference proceedings or not. If it is, I consider it fine for inclusion in a CV. If it's not formally published in the proceedings, rather leave it out, or include it in a clearly separate section titled something like "Workshop Papers". I think the point is just that you should not try to mislead anyone.

I think the importance of a workshop paper varies from field to field. For workshops in my field, they're often peer-reviewed, but are easier to get accepted, and usually deal with preliminary work. Other fields or conferences may accept based only on the abstract (which is less meaningful). In my opinion, they do count more than a preprint that hasn't been reviewed (which I wouldn't mention at all), assuming there was some kind of review process.

[u/RonKosova → u/wvheerden]

Thank you! I only ask because I only got the opportunity to do research during my Masters in the form of a summer RAship (this summer actually) and I'm submitting to a NeurIPS workshop soon. So pretty much I would have to apply with, at best, a workshop paper and I've been a little worried abt being so light on research experience. At least Ill get a pretty good LoR i think so not all bad

[u/wvheerden → u/RonKosova]

NeurIPS is a great venue for making contacts and networking, so make the most of it 🙂 Also, depending on the outcome of the workshop, you might be able to develop your paper into something that can be published.

[u/dudu43210]

The last bullet is pretty lame. Plenty of people are going to find your email address through other means, and get an idea of what you do other than by looking at your website. Lots of false negatives here.

[u/madhatteronthetop → u/dudu43210]

Glad you won't be applying to my group then!