What are the plans for everyone to do overseas blogs?

After coming to the United States for five months, recalling the bitterness of applying for the post of PhD, it is really necessary to post a post, so that later generations can avoid detours ... If you reprint your personal experience, please register this post, please respect the author's labor achievements, thank you ...

After applying for overseas PhD, especially the doctor who just graduated from China without any work experience, it is really the result of a combination of luck and strength, and both are indispensable. Even if you are strong, if there is no laboratory to recruit people (especially your major direction) at the time you apply, then you can only wait, unless you open up a new path and apply for Humboldt, JSPS and other post-doctoral funds, and the other country's government will pay for you. On the contrary, even if your strength is average, you don't have many articles and your CV is not exciting enough, but if you happen to have a laboratory in your major in a hurry to recruit people when you apply, and you happen to contact them on your own initiative, congratulations, you are not far from taking the first step.

Therefore, first of all, you should recognize your personal strength, and where is your level among peers? There are many articles, which have high influence and plenty of time. Of course, it is recommended to find someone to apply for Humboldt, JSPS and other post-doctoral funds directly, or directly apply for the guidance of cattle in the top laboratory of foreign top schools. But I think that most of the people who visit the woodworm like me are only at a medium level. The articles are insufficient, and the time is not enough. Therefore, how can I use my only achievements to open the door to overseas post-doctoral studies in a short time? There are actually many skills in this ...

First of all, you have to prepare all the materials, CV, Cover Letter and so on. Needless to say, the skills of materials in this respect, how to make a brilliant CV and how to write an impressive Cover Letter, because each major is different in every direction, so the highlights are not the same. In short, we must strive to be professional and highlight your strengths. Some may be more Publications, and some may have more overseas experiences, exchanges or conferences abroad. Some of them may have outstanding experimental skills, instrument operation or system software ...

Secondly, they should make a list of overseas experts in this major. This may be a bit time-consuming and laborious, but it is definitely the most useful. I used Excel to organize it at that time. How to organize it specifically? If you want to read the authoritative journals of your major, of course, it is not the paper version, but the online version (that is, the journal database we call). You should start from the latest published papers and look back, and then list the names, units and e-mail addresses of the communication authors on the excel table one by one. Of course, there are many articles, and many of them are not what we need, so we need to simplify them, such as entering the country name with keywords. Then just look at the articles published in a certain country. American journals published in the United States may not be imported into countries, so they can only be imported from one state to another (for example, New York, California… ...). Through this method, I basically established the excel of this overseas professor. Of course, there are several pages, and each page is a country (the United States, Germany, Canada, Australia, Japan … of course, it also involves Singapore, New Zealand, small Nordic countries, etc.). In fact, after I have experience, I will know which country it is from as soon as I see the email address of the correspondent of the article. The ratio is:. edu (an American university),. gov (an American government department, probably a national key laboratory),. org (an American organization, some research institutes, hospitals, botanical gardens, etc.),. de (. . au (Australia),. jp (Japan),. se (Sweden),. sg (Singapore),. be (Belgium),. nz (New Zealand). fr (France),. uk (UK) and so on. More importantly, if the ones ending in. com are basically staying in the company, they will not be recruited, and they can be forgotten. Generally speaking, it is enough for me to read only the latest two years of each journal, because there are actually many repetitions ...

Secondly, I need to make some comments on your list of overseas experts, because now you only have the professor's name, school unit (laboratory), email, etc., and you need to make some comments on the professor you want. I made two comments at that time, one was academic level, and the other was the relevance of research direction. Because of me, I searched both of them through SciFinder, a chemical database. As long as I searched by author on SciFinder and entered the professor's First name, Last name, etc., I could basically see his published articles and conferences. I recorded the number of their articles at that time. Generally speaking, if the number of articles is less than 2, I think it may be that the doctor just graduated from a lecturer or assistant professor at most. Articles in 5-1 may be an associate professor, articles in 1-2 may be professors, and articles above 2 are basically awesome. Some people may think that this value is a bit large. In fact, SciFinder may include repeated articles or just a conference paper (remember that this value reached 11 when I just graduated from my Ph.D.), and the definition of specific values can be adjusted by each major in all directions. In fact, when reading their articles, you can see the title of the article, which can judge whether the professor is in the same direction or in the direction he is interested in in in a short time. For example, my list will be marked with the words "partial analysis", "partial synthesis", "partial biochemistry" and "partial pharmacology". There are also some situations that can be marked. For example, I found that one or two bosses actually hung up most of their articles. At this time, I marked them, because I think these bosses may have problems with their personality. You can also add some other marks, such as "China people" and "female professors" ...

After the list of overseas experts mentioned above is basically completed, you will feel a little better. At this time, you will start to feel from you. Here, I emphasize that the way to quickly find an overseas post-doctoral position is the word "Haitou". Some people may think that this is not a good method, but I think it is undoubtedly a good method for a person who just wants to find a decent overseas post-doctoral position and his own conditions are not what we call "awesome people". Again, after finding an overseas post, luck accounts for at least 3%, or that. Although the boss's laboratory may be eager to recruit a doctor in your direction, so the investment in sea is king. If you invest more, more people will know that you are looking for Dr. Bo. Maybe a professor's Dr. Bo will go back to China or find a new home that day, and the professor's staff will be short of people immediately. Then, he may think of someone who is looking for the position of Dr. Bo. Fortunately, you may inadvertently get an interview opportunity .. At least I found it by this method.

then what should Haitou do before? Email problem, first of all, gmail, Hotmail, yahoo (American, non-China), I have always recommended gmail, and I feel very easy to use (mentioned below). Generally speaking, it's almost enough to send 5-1 letters a day. Too many letters can't be managed (and will be finished soon), and too few may not receive a response. Remember to add the words "sent", "sent" and "contacted" at the end of your expert's list to remind yourself that the professor has sent a letter, and never send a letter to the same boss many times in a short time. Because it's very likely that your email address will be blacklisted by the other party, and he won't receive any letters from you in the future. gmail has a memory function (maybe other email addresses). As long as it is the email address you have entered, he will be prompted when you enter it, which is very helpful. There are also some tricks about the title of the letter. Many people may directly state what they want to find a blog post, so that people will know your purpose when they look at the title. Of course, normal email communication is very suitable for this, but I personally think that if you want to find a blog post, you should restrain yourself and use a simple "Inquire" as the title, because if the title is too clear, the other party may not even open it to see the content of your email, and just delete it. No matter how wonderful your CV is, because overseas professors almost receive hundreds of similar emails from all over the world every day. They can't read every one, but if your title is different, they may open it. Even if they open it and read your purpose, they may not want to recruit you (most of them can be temporarily unavailable), but at least they open it. Generally, in this case, all the calls are opened, and the other party will give you one. I hope to keep in touch or something. This is what I experienced personally. The first 1 wholesale letters may have only one or two or no response at all. After changing the title of the mail later, what I can feel is that basically all of them have read my letters, and basically 6-7 of the 1 letters have responded to me. Some have no money and even forwarded me to his colleagues, which makes me moved ... At the same time, the content of the email is also skillful. Generally, my Cover Letter is written directly on the email, so that the other party can see it as soon as it is found. CV can only be attached, and if you have awesome articles, it is suggested to attach them directly. If the other party is interested, the other party will come down and have a look, and then at least they will be impressed with you. Some people have awesome articles, but they only see them on CV, and the other professor has no spare time to download them from the database and read them slowly. Please help him download them to make them look good.

PS: Here, we are not encouraged to use "Inquire" as the title. In that case, it may be deleted when foreign professors see "Inquire" in the future ... You can just think of an ordinary title yourself ...

In addition, it is said above that you should regularly write 5-1 letters a day and then brush your email every day when you are free. In China, you can use the forwarding function of gmail to go to your own 139 mailbox, and then you will receive an email arrival prompt by SMS (only applicable to China Mobile). If you receive a reply from the other professor, you should also update your list in time. For example, most of the professors I contacted are retired (that's why I have to sort out the latest articles), so I will put the standard "retire" after their names, and then don't harass him (her) in the future ... In some cases, the other party's reply may contain other information, and some may say that you should contact him now in a few months. You should also indicate it on the list, so as not to forget it in the future. Some may say that you want to apply for CSC in China, and you can also indicate it (if you don't want to apply for CSC, you can also ignore it) ...

It's like this again and again, maybe, in a month or so, I mean maybe, maybe overseas professors in your major all over the world have asked you to contact an article (of course, you may have your contact standard: for example, yes. South Africa and South Korea don't contact each other, etc.). During this period, you may receive many rejection letters, and there may also be many potential offer. At this time, you should sort them out well. Rejection letters can be ignored first, and interested bosses can continue to send letters to communicate. If you are lucky, some bosses may ask you to send letters of recommendation, or some bosses will give you an interview opportunity. In this case, congratulations, you have taken a big step, so all the hard work will be done.

Let's talk about the bad luck. If the whole world has really contacted and no potential offer has been found, it is necessary to analyze the reason at this time. Is the personal strength really not up to the level? Or for other reasons, personal strength is a process of gradual accumulation. No matter how hard you try to accumulate and improve your CV at any time, there will definitely be an offer for you in the future. In this case, as I said before, you can't send an email to the same boss in a short time, so how often can you send it again? Generally speaking, personally, it will take more than three months, that is to say, if all the experts on your list have sent it once and still can't find your offer, then you can send it again every three months to half a year to make an inquiry. In this process, you should constantly improve yourself, find all the articles you should send, and upgrade your CV well, so as to gain your offer when you cast the net for the second time ... The interval is too short, and the other party will find you annoying. As far as I know, some overseas professors' mailboxes no longer accept emails sent by China, which is why sometimes I can't send them. Moreover, there are too many people in China, and if everyone sends them frequently, it will really affect others' work and be bad for later generations, so everyone is cherishing every email. Here, let me remind you, no. Indians like to do this, so American bosses are very disgusted with it. They hope that their compatriots should be self-disciplined. When sending emails, besides the name of the other party should be accurate (I don't need to say the importance of this), they should also say something about your interest according to the research direction of the other professor, or just tell him that you have read what articles he published in a certain journal and are very interested in his research direction, so that he always has something to say about him. Also, the reason why it can be sent again after three months is because I heard that American bosses usually post advertisements, and they also like to find suitable candidates in their historical emails. They will ask their secretaries to type all the emails that have been sent for nearly three months, and then choose from them, so everyone can send it again after three months to increase the chances of being selected ...

Finally, I hope everyone can get what they want.