Aaaand another round of rejections for PhD positions. I've been sitting jobless and useless for about 2 years now after my Masters - must've gotten through nearly a hundred PhD applications and rejections. The only other thing I do is publish in my field through some previous colleagues - a feeble attempt to expand my CV, though not that it seems to matter.
I was wondering if you guys know whether a majority of PhD positions are already given out before they are advertised. My experience speaks overwhelmingly in the favor of that hypothesis. I've come to the conclusion that ALL positions are actually written for a Masters/undergrad student already in the prof's lab. So, in essence, its impossible for someone to actually change a university going from Masters to PhD like I want to. Anyone done that? Is there any hope? Anyone here applied for a position at another university from another country and got admitted? Was it an advertised position, or did you work out a proposal?
Anything, really anything would be helpful at this point. At least a good story might lift my spirits a bit - even if its not my story.

What field are you in?

FWIW I have been through the PhD application process successfully twice, and was not previously known to the interview panel before I applied. In one case I was accepted onto a 1+3 scheme, in another directly onto a specific PhD project.

Have you had any feedback from any of your applications to date?

I'm in electronics engineering - specifically computational electromagnetics.
Well, its good that you got to the interview stage twice...I've never gotten that far. When I apply for a specific project, the "feedback" has always been a rejection ("We received lots of good applications...blahblah...its not you, so sorry, best of luck blahblah").
I wrote about 2 good ideas I had for PhD topics into a kind of an abstract format. Whenever I've sent them to prof's, they've always said they are very good ideas, but they don't have any positions. I've had short discussions back and forth about the ideas too, and its always been very positive (I understand profs don't often use exclamation marks, or email :-).
Unfortunately, I'm applying from overseas for all these positions, so I can't actually go around and meet the people. Anyone have experience of being an international applicant? Is it always a disadvantage?

I can't comment on the international side of things, other than to say I have met plenty of international PhD students in my time. That said, EU students are more likely to obtain funding for UK projects than other international students.

I would say that it is rare in science (and I am assuming, by extension, engineering) for people to submit their own project proposals (in the UK at least). So while you might get positive comments from professors on your ideas, I would keep your expectations very low in terms of this leading to a PhD offer. I'd focus my energies on applying for existing funded projects if I were you.

It might be worth seeking advice from other students you may know from your country who have studied abroad, to see if they found that there were any countries which were more amenable to overseas applications than others.

Good luck

Thanks for the info about UK unis. I haven't tried too many of them though, because most of the funded positions require UK/EU students like you mentioned. Very few positions for international students.

I agree that its rare in engineering to propose your own project but, its only when I sent over a bit of an abstract about what I wanted to do, that I received my only ever consent from a professor for supervision. However, this abstract I wrote after racking my brains for 5 months, concentrates more on developing a new mathematical technique for electronics, not the electronics itself. So, now I have the approval of a mathematics professor to supervise me, but the difficulty of applying to a mathematics department, without a mathematics degree which is a requirement for admission there :-(
It might not seem like much, but its the closest I've gotten. Everything else has been a "no".

Your position sounds very familiar to me, I also spent more than a year applying (and being rejected) for PhD projects, I'm a physics student. My advice would be to keep trying, I eventually found my position (outside of the UK) because a supervisor who I had applied to work with knew another supervisor who was looking for a student and recommended me. My position wasn't advertised, I think positions are filled this way quite often.

I agree, you are better off looking for funded projects in the EU/UK that will accept international students, or funded projects in your own country, rather than writing to potential supervisors with your own proposal (unless you have your own funding, in which case carry on because they will generally accept anyone even without an interview in my experience).

It's definitely the case that some PhDs are advertised with a person in mind, but I'd say this is only about 50% of cases or less. I got my PhD position in a different uni from my BSc/Msc with zero connections to the supervisor or project.

Hi try jobs.ac.uk good luck!

I did my Masters with the Open University (distance learning) and to be honest I didn't think I had much chance of going straight into a PhD with no connections. I was very lucky though, and got two interviews, and was offered one of the PhDs. My sister-in-law also did her PhD with no prior connection to the university, and a friend of mine has just started a PhD in the same circumstances. There are plenty of us around, even if it does sometimes seem to be a small world in which the same students get given opportunities by the same supervisors!
Like others have said here, it's a good idea to focus (at least for UK PhDs) on advertised projects, as those already have agreement from supervisors and may already have funding. I applied for mine via jobs.ac.uk. I don't know how the funding works for overseas students, but I know there are a lot of overseas students at my university (I would say around 50% of the PhDs) so it is possible.
I wonder if it may also be worth contacting certain university departments, not with your own proposal, but just to say that you are very interested in the research they do, you wonder if they have any PhD studentships coming up etc...... It may just help to get your name on the horizon. From my experience of being interviewed, they want to know 'why did you choose this department?', 'do you know anyone else who has studied here?' and so on, so it might help to try to get some kind of communication with the department. Good luck.

Thank you guys for your responses. Your own experiences are encouraging :-). I suppose I just have to keep trying.
The thought that I find depressing, but which makes sense too from the supervisor's perspective, is that they would write a project for the research being done at their lab by their PhD's and postdocs. But there would also be quite a few Master's students and perhaps undergrads too associated with the lab - so they would definitely be their first pick. Then would be students graduating from that department itself, perhaps whom their colleagues speak of. It seems like an ever-vanishing probability of being picked if you are an international student.

As for sending my own proposal, I really didn't want to. But I'd tried absolutely everything else, and nothing worked - so I thought, might as well! Oddly enough, I've gotten a better response - even the number of profs who've responded (to my very long emails!) has gone up. It would be a great idea for me to secure funding for it from somewhere, but I don't know how. Just shoot it off to random R&D companies?

happyclappy, thanks a lot for that link. It has a number of positions advertised that aren't in academicpositions.eu, euraxess and naturejobs. Anyone have a "favourite" website they used to hunt on? How about the site on which you found your position?

From your responses, it seems there are a fair number of international students in UK unis - I guess I should give them a shot. I got kind of discouraged because most of the funding seems to be for UK/EU. But I'll look into it again now!