How to write an RA application

If you’re thinking about a career in research, working as a research assistant (RA) can be a great first step on the ladder. You’ll be working with an established academic, and possibly a team of other researchers, on a real-world study. The exact project will dictate the nature of the job, but it might involve recruiting participants, collecting data, preparing data for analysis, and possibly doing some of the analysis too.

These jobs are competitive. I’ve read through several hundred RA applications now, and there’s an art to writing them. Here are my tips.

1. Before you begin: get some research experience outside your undergrad degree

I know: this is the crappy can’t-get-experience-without-experience bind. But the reality is that few people get RA jobs without some prior research experience. This could be in the form of a masters, but this is not the only option. (Masters are expensive. I never did one.)

The other option is to get some paid or voluntary short-term RA experience. Either alongside your degree or after it, email researchers and ask them if they have any opportunities for work experience (most have email addresses on their university website). Be polite, and tailor the email to say why you’d like to work with them specifically (i.e. why their research is interesting). Your dissertation supervisor is a good place to start, but be open in terms of institution, research area and level of seniority; many people will not have anything available. What you do get might be pretty brief and/or mundane, but it’s a great starting point. If you can’t afford to get voluntary experience, consider doing it alongside another paid job: I know several people who have done this successfully.

After my undergrad I emailed a researcher in this way, and got six weeks of unpaid experience in a brilliant lab. This turned into ten months paid work in the same lab; this experience then got me another RA post at a different university.

2. Structure your cover letter clearly

This is essential: structure your cover letter/personal statement around the person specification (available in the job advert, often a separate document). Copy and paste the list and describe how you fulfill each of the criteria. Whoever is reviewing your application may literally have the list in front of them and will tick off the points you meet. Make it easy for them.

Say how you meet each point and give an example as evidence. For example, don’t just say ‘I have excellent writing skills’, say ‘I have excellent writing skills, as evidenced by my average of 67% in essay assignments and my experience in writing for the student newspaper’, or whatever. Anyone can say they’re good at something: evidence is essential.

If you don’t meet one of the criteria, that’s okay. Say something like ‘I don’t yet have experience with MATLAB, but this is a skill I’m keen to develop in this post.’

Be confident. I once wrote ‘I feel I have good [something] skills’ in an application, and was told by the person checking it to drop the ‘I feel’ bit. (In fact I was told, ‘No one cares how you feel’ – ouch!). That tough love approach has served me well: I now see that applications look much more assertive without this padding.

Frame your application like you will contribute usefully to the project, not like they’ll be helping you out if they give you the job. Say stuff like ‘I have the skills and experience that will enable me to deliver on this project’ rather than ‘This would be a great opportunity for me’. They want someone who will do the job well; they don’t care – in the nicest way possible – about doing you a favour.

If you’re applying to several jobs at once, tailor every application to the specific job/person specification. Have a ‘base’ application that you edit each time. Generic applications go down badly. It’s tiresome, I know, but essential.

3. Get your CV right

Make sure your CV highlights all the important information. Start with your education background, and include detail about your degree class and A levels. If you got a high 2:1 or a high 2:2, you should definitely give the exact numerical grade you got (for example, state that you got a 2:1 (68%)). Borderline grades like this are often viewed as being as good as the next grade up, and it will set you apart from those with lower marks within the same degree classification.

Put your A level subjects and results on there too: in RA applications it’s very hard to distinguish between candidates, so some people may look to A levels to differentiate. If you don't give your A level grades, you allow the reader to suspect there is a reason you left it blank. If your A levels weren’t great, this may be a risk worth taking, but it’s a wasted opportunity if your grades are high.

Include all your relevant research experience, including your dissertation. Describe the topic of the project/s and the kind of tasks you did. For all research experience, give the name of your supervisor/s. Everyone knows everyone in academia, and this can be a useful gauge of the kind of work you were going.

Include any other work experience at the end. If it seems irrelevant to an RA job (like bar work), keep it brief and highlight anything that could be a transferable skill, like time management or working in a team.

Two last points: don’t put your photo on your CV, and for the love of God, get someone to proofread everything. Or several people. Typos do not go down well.

4. Don’t get disheartened

Try not to get disheartened if you’re not successful. RA positions in popular labs can get 100+ applicants. Lots of brilliant, perfectly capable individuals never make it to interview because there are simply too many of them. I applied for 15-18 RA/assistant psychologist posts, was invited to interview for maybe three of them, and was offered one.

If you’re unlucky many times in a row, you probably either don’t have enough experience or are doing something wrong in your application – if so, seek out advice from someone like your dissertation supervisor, your personal tutor, or your uni careers service. Apply for as many things as you can – be as open as possible in terms of topic and location – and know that most people who want to be an RA do get in, it just takes a bit of time.

Good luck!