Finding Thesis Work in Sweden

If you are an international master student in Sweden, it is really hard to find a thesis work nowadays. Even if you don’t want to be paid, it is still difficult to find a thesis work both in the industry and the academic world. So what should you do ?

Networking

Being a stranger in a country is difficult, if you don’t know anyone, you better meet them ! Attend events, conferences, meetings and network with the other people. If there is one thing I have learned through my master studies is that, networking is extremely important for the success. So go out and meet people, you can’t know when they will need you or you’ll need them. You can check my networking tips in Stockholm.

Muscular Fingers

It took me more than 70 NO’s before I got that YES ! I have applied to nearly 70 companies, (remember there is still economic crisis) had an interview with 4-5 of them and started my thesis work at 1 of them. Some of them required fluent Swedish, some of them wanted to start earlier and so on. So you better apply a lot of places to increase your chance.

Quick Fact : I have started looking for master thesis in the end of August 2008 and found it January 2009 🙂 This is the same for my peers who have found thesis works in the industry. Unfortunately it is not easy !

No Job is Small

Don’t hesitate to break your limits, you never know what will happen. For example, I even had an interview with a company in Malmö and had to travel there. One company was going to send me to China but their time schedule didn’t fit mine. So if you don’t try, you can’t meet new opportunities.

Proposals

I have a folder named “Thesis Application” and I have more than 20 proposals there that I have prepared for different companies. The companies expect you to prepare individual thesis proposals for every single of them. On the other hand as a student, you may not be sure about what you want to work with but you better spend some time on that. Be ready to prepare proposals that you will never use 🙂

Documents

Upgrade your CV, transcript and anything that you may need during your applications. Send them to everybody. Maybe someone who knows someone may help you.