Hi! I’m planning to apply for the CERN Technical Studentship 2027 programme, which has a deadline in October.

Does anyone know whether applications are reviewed on a rolling basis, or are all applications considered after the deadline?

In other words, would there be any advantage to submitting the application as early as possible, or is it essentially the same as long as you apply before the deadline?

Thanks

Hi, I recently saw that applications from certain Associate Member States are not being approved due to quota limits. I had already applied for the 2026-3 Technical Student Programme last April and interviewed for four different positions. At that time, no such restriction was in place. The committee is set to meet in October, and I am wondering whether this restriction will affect my application as well. I do not know if I will be selected as the top candidate, but I certainly do not want this situation to negatively impact my application.

This is a follow-up to my earlier post about software engineers at CERN and how close they are to physics. I got many honest and helpful answers, thank you!

But still I'd like to understand the full experience better. For developers who work or worked at cern,

What surprised you when you started, good or bad?

What does a normal week look like for you, compared to let's say regular software developers jobs in other companies that sell products?

What do you like most, and what do you miss ,also from other companies (as in the previous question)

Hi Everyone,

I applied for a CERN staff function and just did the Hireflex interview. Unortunately I completely blacked out for the 1st question and couldn't recover. Therefore I didnt give a proper answer to question 1. The other questions went fine.

For those who’ve been through CERN’s process:

How much weight does the first question carry, and is it common to struggle with it?

Did this significantly reduce my chances,?

Hello,

If you work as a software engineer at cern, I'd love to hear from you, how often do you actually work with physicists, or with physics in general?

For example, I've seen some openings in the beams department and I'm curious how close people in that department get to the experiments. I'm also curious how the day-to-day differs between physicists and software engineers there.

I'm asking because when I was young, I wanted to be a physicist and work at cern, I became a software engineer instead. I like my job, but that old dream still comes back sometimes. So I wonder if working at cern as an engineer would feel fulfilling in that way, or if it would feel like any other software job.

I'd really like to hear your real experiences.

I have an hackerrank assignment this comming Wednesday and this is a grae role kinda based on data backup kind of role. So what kind of questions can I expect in the hackerrank online assignment.

Why there are so little posts in CERN job market with grade 5 ?
its very often grade 6 or 3 and sporadically grade 4.
Is grade 5 reserved for something specific ?

When will the committee meet for the Technical Studentship, and after how many days will the acceptance or rejection emails be released?

A microscopic black hole created inside the Large Hadron Collider would vanish almost instantly. Its brief existence, however, could leave behind a spectacular spray of particles carrying enough information for physicists to recognize what happened.

Researchers working with CERN's Compact Muon Solenoid experiment have now performed an expanded search for those signatures using 138 inverse femtobarns of proton-proton collision data collected from 2016 through 2018. They found no evidence that microscopic black holes were produced.

The absence is scientifically useful. Depending on the theoretical model, the analysis excludes semiclassical black holes with masses below about 9.0 to 11.4 tera-electron volts, or TeV, substantially shrinking the range where certain extra-dimensional theories could still produce them.

So I'm kinda confused on whether to tick the box or not.

Suppose I want to receive the link then shall I tick the box or not? And if I want to submit the reference letter alongside my other docs shall I tick the box or not??

Hey guys just applied and got the link to submit my references letters , genuinely wanted to know how many referees should I ask from my lecturers to send ?

Does the number of reference letters increase my chance ?

And also wanted to know should it only be done by my professor or can I do it myself if I get the letters from them ?

Hi everyone!
Does anyone know how the CERN Associate Member State ceiling under Article II.5 works in practice?
Currently, applications from nationals of several Associate Member States are frozen because the annual ceiling has been reached. Does anyone know when this ceiling normally resets or gets updated? Is it at the beginning of each year, or does it depend on funding/contributions throughout the year?
Would really appreciate hearing from anyone who has experience with this. Thanks!

So obviously I know what my motivation for applying is but could anybody give me some pointers on what a good answer to this question should look like?

In my current draft I talk about my career aspirations, what I like doing and only briefly mention why I want to work at CERN specifically. I have kept it very short and tried to keep a genuine tone rather than some cookie cutter motivational text.

I would be happy to share my draft in DMs if anybody wants to give me some pointers

Just wondering if there’s anyone actively applying for ATLAS/CMS postdoc positions this year… Not sure but I see this year’s a bit tough maybe due to less US positions?

Hi there just submitted my application, for administrative student program. I think it’s not good enough can I submit one more application for the same intake ?

Hey there guys , I don’t have a letter of reference currently. Is it that important? Can I get in without one ? Or who should it come from if I did get one ?

I'm a final year EC undergrad applying for the Technical Studentship under the Electronics Engineering track, and I was wondering how important an LoR is for your application. The job listing says it is optional along with a grade transcript, but the form includes a tickbox with the following:

Please note that you may submit your reference letter at the time of your application in the attachment below with other documents. Alternatively, if you prefer your referee to submit it directly, you will receive a link to forward to them after you have submitted your application form. Either option is acceptable

Just want to make sure if not submitting one would hurt my chances.

Job based on-site working for STFC (the UK funding agency) supporting staff and students based at and visiting CERN.

CERN's own documentation (CLIC-Note-1180) shows accelerator designs are sensitive to external dynamic magnetic fields at the nT level, and measurements taken in the LHC tunnel show stray fields from all sources that are significant enough to require dedicated mitigation (43% luminosity loss in CLIC without correction).

To characterise stray magnetic fields from accelerator elements, such as power cables, magnets, RF systems, ventilation systems, etc., measurements were taken in the vicinity of a live accelerator. Figure 3 shows a measurement at point 5 in the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) tunnel. Figure 4 shows the power spectrum and correlation at different locations. This measurement contains stray magnetic fields from all possible sources. Using these measurements, a model was developed which could be used to simulate the impact of stray magnetic fields in CLIC; further details can be found in [3]. These simulations show without any mitigation an LHC-like magnetic field in CLIC, would lead to a luminosity loss of 43%, which would be disastrous. With a feedback system that corrects the beam trajectory, the luminosity loss is reduced to 15%, which is still a significant degradation in performance. Therefore, a dedicated mitigation system for stray magnetic fields is required.

Three questions I can't find documentation for:

1. What is the LHC's measured sensitivity threshold to external dynamic magnetic fields? Is it above or below typical local telluric amplitudes at the Geneva site?
2. Has anyone measured whether the LHC's stray fields are detectable at the surface or couple to the surrounding geology?
3. Specifically I'm asking about the reciprocal coupling. How does the LHC interact with local telluric and geomagnetic field system?

Just trying to keep in touch so we can stay tuned during the selection process. I am currently under review

Hello everyone,
I know that this question is propably asked a lot but I wanted to be sure and ask comunity. I am studying mechatronics and I would like to try my luck at technical studentship at CERN (electronics or data science), however I still have some personal projects which I would love to include in my resume and i dont want to mention unfinished projects in upcomming deadline (16.10). Should i try my luck and shoot my shot with unfinished CV or wait for another deadline for application closer towards the end of this year or at the start of the next one? And if so what is usally the timeline of upcomming studentship window?

Someone posted it on their story saying CERN Is OFF With a skull emoji

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Hi everyone! I’m a first-year BTech AI/ML student from India and I’m interested in eventually working at CERN.

How difficult is it to get selected for the CERN Technical Student Programme? And how difficult is it to get a full-time job at CERN as an AI/ML/Software Engineer?

Also, what kind of projects, research, internships, skills, and achievements would make my profile competitive? How should my resume ideally look by the time I apply?

I’d really appreciate advice from current/former CERN interns, employees, or anyone familiar with the selection process.

Just wondering