I just finished my masters in Neuroscience after getting a 2:1 in Human Biology/Psychology, and I wanted to do a PhD. However, I applied for a good dozen and got nowhere. Therefore, I'm stepping back and trying to get an entry level graduate job in the research field.

To that end, I've been applying to a bunch of Research Assistant jobs at universities around the UK in my area of interest. Specifically, I'm interested in neurogenetics of schizophrenia, Alzheimer's and dementia [degenerative diseases].

However, I've been getting nowhere with this too. While I do have a good Bsc/Msc, I only have 6 months of research experience.

So, I've got a few questions and am desperate for some help.

How else can I get into research? Is there anywhere other than universities that do neuroscience research like this? In other words, industrial research? Where can I look for these sort of vacancies, as Newscientist, Reed etc are pretty useless for these kind of positions. Am I aiming too high/too low? What sort of jobs should I be aiming for?

Alternatively, are there any "guides to getting into scientific research" that you can point me at?

I'm really getting quite worried by this job searching. If it was simply a case of "I'm doing all I can", then I wouldn't be so bothered. However, I don't know enough, and I've got very few contacts who can guide me in this.

Any help would be appreciated. Mocking is only acceptable after providing said help.

Edit: Additional: Should I continue applying to PhD positions in the meantime? As I kept getting rejected without explanation, I assumed I was underqualified for a PhD position. However, reading around here suggests that there are a significant number of scientific PhD's who got their position without lots of experience beforehand.

Mugdha, perhaps you're right.

TreeofLife, thanks for the comments. I have been customising my covering letter/supporting statement and CV for each application, but not very much. Perhaps I should try a more thorough rewrite as needed.

What did you study BTW?

First post, so please bear with me.

I graduated with a 2:1 Human Biology and Psychology, and then went on to do an Msc Neurogenetics [grade pending]. I spent my time from January to May applying to various PhD positions around the UK in my interested field [Dementia, Schizophrenia etc]. However, I never got past the initial stages.

Normally I wouldn't mind too much, but of all my applications I was only able to get feedback from ONE of them. It drove me round the bloody bend.

For those of you who have successfully applied to, or completed scientific PhD's, what sort of experience and training did you already have? I'm currently stepping back a bit and looking for Research Assistant's roles around the UK, but not having much luck here either.

I'd deeply appreciate any suggestions or insight that you lot could provide into what I might be doing wrong, or what I might be missing from my applications. I have tried looking for common threads and requirements, but the specifics when applying are very scarce, which makes it difficult to figure out what I'm doing wrong.