Was rejected from my own lab for a PhD position (EU)
Like, I worked at this lab for 2 years as RA, speak the local language natively, have 2 papers submitted to A* journals with me as main author and co-authors from that lab, presented at 3 national and 1 international conference, and also have a lot of working papers/B papers. I won’t give the exact amount since I don’t want to dox myself.
I got recommended by the PostDoc I’ve been working for, who also really pushed my application pretty hard, yet I lost to somebody with 2 years of audit experience and no publications... :(
Would you just try to apply elsewhere? Like, the prof just claimed "my research doesn’t fit," even though I told him I can switch to his lane, even though he initially recommended that I apply for that field, and even though he knew my research very well.
Should I switch labs?
Like, I sacrificed my health and my contacts with my family and buddies for this, so I'm less than happy... If at least the external candidate had been a nepo hire, I would get it, but their connection to the chair was flimsy at best. Heck, even the postdoc was shocked that I didn't get it, especially since I had already been onboarded for my task as a PhD student.
Like, in US GPA terms, my grade is 3.9 for my master's, and I did a lot of extra coursework, which might basically be worth a degree in its own right (haha).