On the 2026-3 IT Technical Studentship process...

[u/lumlum2]

Hi to all.

I applied to the 2026-3 Technical Studentship (IT, Mathematics & Robotics). I wanted to share my experience, not to complain about anyone who got in (congrats to all of you, sincerely :]), but because I think the process deserves some serious, honest discussion.

I have almost 2 years of experience (closer to 1.75 years of experience, to be precise) as a backend engineer at a large tech unicorn in a quite conventional/popular/consistent technology stack (Java/Spring boot, Docker, etc), while studying for a CS degree at a major research university. Some OSS contributions around there too.

Result: Not even a single interview.

What struck me most is that, after talking with a few people who were accepted in IT (all very kind, and I wish them the best, this is nothing personal), several of them were genuinely surprised that someone with my experience didn’t even get a call. All of them applied with fairly general, "basic" (foundational/standard, not necessarily "weak") profiles. That isn’t a criticism of them at all. It suggests that selection depends much more on which supervisor happens to open which CV, and when, than on the profile itself.

I understand that supervisors are busy researchers and/or engineers, not recruiters. But for an organization built on rigor, a selection process where a strong profile can go completely unseen absolutely feels like a missed opportunity, for candidates and for CERN, and it most certainly seem to be a disappointing, vague, non carefully thought system.

This was my last chance to apply, so I’m not posting this for myself. I hope it helps future applicants calibrate their expectations, and maybe someone at CERN reads it and gives a damn.

[u/Pocio128]

They got the best people they could find for their needs. You, for some reasons or for others, were not among those people. If you didn't stand out it's probably because either you didn't mention the expertise they were looking for, or because your cv is not optimized and wasn't properly indexed.

[u/lumlum2 → u/Pocio128]

I get the logic, but I don’t think it holds here. My expertise was literally the first thing on my CV, in a plain-text Harvard-style format, keyword-optimized on purpose. And I spoke with a few accepted IT students: at least two seats were squarely in my area and the people who got them, who were genuinely nice and whom I wish the best, described their own profiles as fairly general and were surprised I didn’t even get an interview.

So I’d rephrase your point: they got the best people among those they happened to look at. My critique is precisely about that step: strong profiles can go completely unseen. The ethos may be "We get the best people we can find for our need", but the actual, practical "find" part of the process is what I am complaining about, as it seems completely inefficient and incomplete.

[u/Pharisaeus → u/lumlum2]

My expertise was literally the first thing on my CV

Doesn't mean it was what any supervisor was looking for.

described their own profiles as fairly general

Or they were just modest and didn't want to brag :)

[u/lumlum2 → u/Pharisaeus]

Or they were just modest and didn't want to brag :)

Could be! I’m not claiming they’re weak. I’m sure they’re capable, and I genuinely wish them well. But some of them told me they didn’t even list a specific stack, and all were surprised I didn’t get an interview. The exchange, from both sides, was purely informational and I never felt they were bragging nor I ever intended to, but we all wanted a clear view on what the other was proposing and most of them too told me what they got the impression was the deciding factor to get chosen in their cases. Either way, my point isn’t about them. It’s that a profile like mine apparently wasn’t even looked at. I am not bragging, I have nothing to brag about.

Whether the people chosen were great or average, the question remains: how many strong applicants never get seen? At this point, the recruitment process might as well just become throwing some darts at some wall and see where they hit.

Of course, cases are very personal and it's hard to get an objective picture if it comes from the involved people themselves, but you can see that I am not the only one who thinks the process seems to be poorly optimized.

[u/Pharisaeus → u/lumlum2]

I am not bragging, I have nothing to brag about.

... and yet you believe that the fact that you were not interviewed means that:

a profile like mine apparently wasn’t even looked at

:) But I guess it's easier to believe you were omitted than to consider you might have not been the best person for the job.

how many strong applicants never get seen?

Most likely none. It's just that the definition of "strong" is not universal. Again, remember that it's a selection for a very specific project.

The fact that someone was not interviewed/selected doesn't mean they are "weak" or "bad", but often that they simply didn't match the job. I strongly recommend you start looking at recruitment processes in this way, or you will have hard time once you start serious job hunting. There will be lots of jobs you won't get, that's just a way of life. Success rate for technical student applicants is about 1:50.

[u/lumlum2 → u/Pharisaeus]

Fair points on project fit and the 1:50 rate, no argument there. My question was never why I wasn't selected; it's why profiles similar to mine with less experience got interviews while mine got none. And you can see many other profiles claiming the same situation. That's a visibility question, not an ego one. And I don't see where the bragging is, I literally missed on the opportunity I wanted the most, why on Earth would I brag about anything?

On the job hunting part, I appreciate the advice, but I'm already working professionally and went through a multi-stage hiring process to get there, so I'm familiar with not getting every job. No need to lecture on that.

As for "most likely none": you probably have more inside insight than I do. If supervisors search by keywords and only review a subset, some strong profiles will inevitably go unseen. I'm not claiming I was the best fit, I'm questioning why profiles similar to mine with less experience got interviews while mine didn't when common sense would say otherwise. And I seem not to be the only one that suffered this, though of course, just as mine, personal experiences should be taken with a grain of salt.

Anyway, thanks for taking the time to at least read my crap.

[u/Pharisaeus → u/lumlum2]

why profiles similar to mine with less experience got interviews while mine got none.

Sorry but no one is going to interview hundreds of candidates who have "java" in their application. Instead you will add more relevant keywords to the search, until the number of matches is manageable, then you will pick the best looking 3-4 people and call them. And since you don't know the criteria, you simply can't tell if your profile is better or worse than someone else's.

Also keep in mind that technically speaking there is no official "interview" at all in the process. People can get selected without ever being contacted. This is basically just a sanity check, to make sure the candidate is not going to reject your project, and to make sure the didn't lie in their application.

[u/lumlum2 → u/Pharisaeus]

Thanks, that's a helpful description. Genuine question: is the search in the candidate database exact keyword matching, or something semantic/fuzzy? Because if it's exact matching, that's where I think the low recall comes from. Narrowing by exact terms until the list is manageable means you get someone probably somewhat decent, but strong fits get excluded just for using different wording (e.g. 'Kubernetes / production deployments' vs. 'server management'), before anyone actually looks at them. I'm not suggesting interviewing everyone with 'Java', that was never my point. My point is that the filtering step, not the candidates, ends up deciding who gets considered. Semantic search or structured skill fields could reduce that without adding work for supervisors. And if you still insist that the odds that they miss a strong profile are very low, I can't do more than blindly trust you, even though from the outside it seems to be clearly NOT the case. Edit: All of this aside, thank you for taking your time to read and reply to all of this.

[u/Pharisaeus]

1. It's not like some bigtech recruitment where everyone who "makes the cut" gets hired. Supervisors are looking for someone to do a very specific project/job, and they search via particular keywords in your application.
2. You don't know what projects are available during current selection. You might be the best Java guy on the planet, but if all projects are for Rust or C++ then you're not going to make it.
3. Even the candidates might not realize which part of their CV was the deciding factor. Someone might have done 1 semester of PLC programming and this might have bumped them much higher on the list, even though rest of their profile was not as good as yours. You're saying that you spoke to some guys with similar profiles who "got in" - an interesting question would be "where?". CERN has generally 2 main "profiles" for software people - devops/infrastructure in IT department, controls/real-time in Beams/Engineering/Technology departments. So even if someone is doing "java", it's very likely they are doing that in "domain" related to electronics, automation control, real-time systems etc. As a result a guy who happened to have for example some previous PLC/SCADA exposure might be a far stronger candidate.
4. Some people are modest and are not going to brag to some random on the internet. Eg. they told you their profile is "basic", but forgot to mention they also interned as NASA and in spare time built a cubesat at the university ;)
5. There is of course also the "nepotism" part - chances of becoming a tech student after being a summer student are non-negligibly better (same as chances of getting a grad/fellow contract after being a tech student or getting a staff position after being a grad/fellow), simply because someone already knows you.

[u/lumlum2 → u/Pharisaeus]

1. I know.

2. I know, I happen to too have a lot of C++/Rust OSS shit, but I know you are mentioning those just as an example.

3. I meant people whose skillset/profile/possible jobs overlap mine. There were a few PLC guys, EE or Mech. Eng that I simply don't compare myself against nor consider we ever were in the same group.

4. Such some people definitely exist, I really doubt this was the case as per personal details of them I do not want to disclose publicly.

5. Not much I can comment on that besides of course agreeing that it's ethically messed up, though I get it's an easy, lazy way to get some sort of guarantee on the candidate.

[u/ConstructionNo4342]

The entire selection process at CERN is so messed up, Capable candidates never get a chance. I myself had applied for numerous positions but never got an interview call despite having a strong profile( according to many CERN supervisors). I request them to please make some amendments in the hiring process

[u/Least_Handle1621]

How does your cv look like?