I request someone to guide me to ace my application for cern administrative student program..what kind of CV/CL are they looking for, what kind of documents are neccessary, How much expierence should a student have etc..All of you who were accepted and worked there, please share some tips with me. I will thankful for life. :)

Hi everyone!

I’m an applicant for the CERN Summer Student Programme 2025, and I was wondering if anyone who has participated in previous years (or has knowledge about the cost of living around CERN) could share their insights.

Based on the CERN website, students receive 93 CHF per calendar day. Should I calculate my monthly budget as 93 CHF × 30 days = 2790 CHF? Would this be enough to cover rent, food, and transportation, or would I likely need additional funds?

I’m not a big spender and won’t be shopping for luxury items—just basic necessities like food and commuting. In your experience, is the stipend sufficient, or should I plan to bring extra money?

I’d really appreciate any tips on managing finances while at CERN! Also, wish me luck with my application—I’d love the chance to work there this summer!

Thanks in advance!

Hey everyone, I recently had an interview for the Software Engineer position at CERN (GRAP) and wanted to share my experience for anyone preparing for it.

The interview panel consisted of a hiring board, a physicist, a lead engineer, and a software engineer. It started with introductions, followed by a deep dive into my past projects and experience. This part lasted around 20-25 minutes, where I walked them through my previous work and contributions.

After that, they moved on to technical questions. There were five in total, and they were directly related to the job requirements. So, if you thoroughly understand the role’s expectations, you should be well-prepared. My questions included Explaining the git process, choosing Linux commands for specific tasks, linking in libraries and compiler-related questions, containerization considerations based on OS internal and a memory management problem where I had to analyze code execution and predict the result.

I heard back within a week with a rejection, but honestly, it was a great experience. The interview was structured but fair, and it was amazing to talk with such brilliant people at CERN. If you're applying, my advice would be to know the job requirements inside out and brush up on relevant technical concepts.

Hope this helps, and best of luck to anyone going through the process!

Iam invited to a job interview. How many people are typically invited for one specific job. I want to calculate my chances to be accepted.

Hi everyone, I'm in first year and considering applying for the short term internship program at CERN. The comments on this sub indicate that short term interns are rarely hired since most researchers go into a project already having someone to hire. How unlikely is it to be hired as a random applicant from a non-member country (Canada)? Is it feasible to get a spot by contacting random researchers and asking them to consider you if they need an intern?

I've also heard it pays less than the summer student program, however that program requires 3 completed years of study which I do not have. Some sources say you cannot apply after having already completed a program at CERN. Is it worth refraining from doing the short term internship so I can do the summer student program in later years? Besides the pay difference, how do they compare in terms of value to employers and graduate school admissions?

Finally, I'm not too sure what exactly you do as a short term intern. I have no research experience but have won several contests in physics, however these often don't touch on anything related to particle physics. Is this a big problem? As a first year intern, will you just be a lab assistant or will you be expected to contribute anything of value?

Edit: I am also bilingual and speak English and French as my native languages since I am Canadian. Is this good to mention? Since I am in first year, my school has only taught mechanics and electromagnetism so far, and from my contest experience I am very strong in mechanics and optics and decent with electromagnetism and waves but I literally know zero quantum mechanics.

I came from NMS country and based on experience, only one student that have been accepted in cern summer student program from my country in every year.

Just want to ask a random question. Now, i have a friend from the same institution but different major, i take computer science / informatics engineering, and my friend is information & system technology student. Maybe I am more technical than her, my recommendation letter also stronger (i got from my research supervisor, he used to be a tenure in Univ. Geneva and former intern in google zurich). But, i think her GPA is higher than me and she has more competition certificate than me. Would do you think? Is it me or she that has a better chances to be accepted? Maybe CERN supervisor could answer here :)

I'm currently majoring in Systems and Control and am very interested in pursuing a graduation project at CERN. I am fascinated by all the research that is done and I believe CERN would be a great place to learn from the best.

I've been looking at the CERN website, but have not been able to find very specific information and would therefore like to hear from people that are familiar with CERN's work, specifically,

What are some projects that would fit my background?

What skillset would make me stand out?

I would really appreciate any advice.

I have applied for an internship in the Summer Student and OpenLab programs and have submitted my recommendation letters. I wanted to ask whether CERN contacts the people who wrote the recommendation letters or not.

Hi guys, have you received the final results of CERN’s Technical Student Programme 2025-01? Has anyone received any offers? Do you know the date when the committee will choose the final students?

Hi everyone, I'm currently a college student and in class today our professor gave us a riddle. He asked us what causes the Blue Screen of Death. After clarifying it wouldnt be any of the simply things we thought he also gave us a hint in with the name CERN. After hours of investigation I have not been able to find much connection between the two. Im hoping you guys might be able to help me and give me some insight. If I can discover the answer to this riddle I don't have to take the final exam so I'm really eager to find the answer. Thank You for your help!

Hello everybody,

I have submitted my CERN short term internship application since 15 November 2024, until now its status (in CERN recruitment portal) still says "New". Does this mean I really have not been reviewed yet or I already got rejected silently?

Thanks for your response.

Hello all I have a internship coming up soon I am from the US I was wondering if anyone had recommendations on bank accounts that would work best for me to receive my stipend. And spend money.

Hi everyone,

I recently attended a final interview for an early career position. The interview panel included a supervisor and two other managers. It was a relatively short interview, lasting around 15-20 minutes. This was my first invitation, as I didn't receive an asynchronous interview before. I applied for this position about three months ago, and the process has taken some time.

I'm curious if anyone has been through a similar experience. How long does it usually take to hear back after a final interview? What are your thoughts on my chances?

Thank you for comments

I'm in my second to last year of high school and I'd like to start building up a nice CV to apply to the Student Programme at university. What kinds of experiences would help me stand out the most? Are experiences abroad valuable even if they are not related to what CERN does? Are language certificates particularly valuable (was thinking Cambridge for English and DELF for French)? I'm from Italy if that matters.

Hey guys! Is the Openlab summer student programme only meant for students who are majoring in Computer science? I am a Physics and Mathematics double major and I was wondering whether I qualify for the Openlab Summer Student Programme.

Also, my experience is related to mostly training machine learning algorithms at Fermilab but I was working with coding and producing files for training rather than building the machine learning model myself. In the openlab application, they have a separate section for experience with Machine Learning which I don't have experience with apart from just training on them.

How would you rank these criteria from most important to least important when applying for the summer student program: • Transcripts • Projects • Recommendations • Motivation Letter • CV • Nationality • University Reputation

And other than the ones I mentioned, what would make you have an edge over other candidates?

Hi everyone,

I am currently try to apply for the Summer Student Programme. There is a box asking my motivation for applying. So, I assumed I should add my motivation letter into this box. However, although it is written that I can use max 1440 characters, it only allows me to write max 226 character. Should I attach my motivation letter to the additional attachments and leave this box empty?

Hey everyone,
I am an international student studying at a university in the United States, but I am currently a visiting student at the University of Edinburgh. I’m a bit confused about how to answer a couple of questions:

1. Should I list 'The University of Edinburgh' as the university I’m currently studying at and 'United Kingdom' under 'In which country are you studying'? Or should I list my home university in the United States and 'Other' in which country are you studying?
2. Since I am currently studying in the UK as a visiting student and will be a visiting student until May, should I mention the start date as June 2, or should I use June 9? The June 9 date is for students coming from non-member states and June 2 is for students coming from member states (UK).

Hello everyone,

I am currently applying for the CERN summer student programme 2025, but the process has been a bit drawn out because I am not sure that I understand all of the instructions.

First page:

Under "Experience", is it a good idea to include my bachelor's thesis project where I worked specifiically with MC generators and ROOT to analyze the data, and ultimately compare it to CMS data? I had assumed that I would delve into this on the second page where they ask you to describe your experience working with the programs/topics of interest that you selected, but I have read some posts here where commenters suggest to include bachelor's projects in the "Experience" section. In those questions on the second page of the application they also give you the tip to include these skills in "Experience" and "Education". To me it seems like I would just be repeating the same things in different places, so I am a bit confused.

I also have a bachelor's degree in chemistry and my project was in theoretical chemistry. There, I used Hartree-Fock and DFT to compute the energies of certain orbitals important for electron transfer in different coordination complexes. Could this be important information? It involves physics but is obviously not related to particle physics which is what I am interested in now. But maybe it is worth something as it shows experience of working with simulations?

I don't include these things on my CV since it is more general. I have instead spoke in more detail about my education and any projects I have done in the cover letter, if I was applying for a position as a lab assistant or such.

They also ask you to link your profiles but I only have my private Facebook and I don't see how it is relevant since I only allow friends to see what little activity I have on my wall. Does it make my application any more attractive if I include it?

On the first page there is the "Message to the Hiring Team" where you should "Let the company know about your interest working there", but on the next page there is the question "What is your motivation for applying for this job? (max. 1440 char.)". What is the difference between the two?

Second page:

For the questions where you're supposed to rate your level of expertise in the software/languages/databases etc, do you answer by listing everything you selected but with one or several numbers next to it? Do you have to explain anything in text?

Thankful for any help and advice!

I'm in my last year at school and wanted to partake in job shadowing at CERN over the summer. The website says that I can send my cover letter and cv to a chosen supervisor or secretariat

"write a cover letter explaining why you would like to live this experience and in addition to your CV in PDF format and send the spontaneous application to a contact point or a secretariat"

I'm not quite sure who to get in contact with or how to find information regarding finding a supervisor.

Any help or advise would be appreciated.

What types of projects Students are allowed to work on during the program?

shop in CERN Science Gateway I know that they currently doesn't have an online shop but I really need to get a gift for my family member.

We can't travel there.. Does anyone know of a way or someone I could contact?

What types of projects do accepted students typically work on during the program?

I am a fellow at cern and I have been told at the end of the contract the cobtributions to the pension scheme will be refunded to my bank account (which apparently needs to be swiss).

Do you know whether it is possible to ask for the contributions to be refunded before leaving the country? I still don't know where I will go afterwards but, no matter where I go, I'd rather avoid arriving to a new country with a tax problem in my hands...

(or does anyone know of a list of countries and their taxation rules with regards to the cern pension? The amount is so high that right now it would actually impact the choice of country for the next postdoc...)

I'm currently in my second to last year of high school and I would love to take part in the Summer Programme at university in a few years since I'm an aspiring particle physicist. I noticed that the success rates of applicants are pretty low (3.7% in 2023 if the data I found is correct) and I heard that experiences are crucial for the applications. Do you have any advice in terms of what to do maximise my chances of success and improving my curriculum (doesn't need to be particularly specific)? I live in Italy and have Italian citizenship.

Thank you in advance!

Hey everyone, i wanted to ask if anyone knows if they have different quotas for each country on the number of students they will accept for CERN summer programme. Mind you i applied as a student from a non-member country at Cern. Thank you so much xxx