Are there any success stories of people becoming a mentor to someone because of a cold email? That sounds like a lot to ask for considering how much time it takes to mentor.
8 months after graduating college, I realized I missed solving physics problems.
I drove to the nearest university, walked into the physics department office, and asked to speak to the chair. The chair was busy, but the vice-chair was more than happy to chat for 20 minutes.
The vice-chair then took me to a researcher's office, and we chatted for half an hour. That researcher then introduced me to a group professor, who offered my an unpaid-technician job a few days a week.
After a couple months happily toiling in the lab, often alongside the PI, I was asked to change to a full-time paid position.
A year into that the PI asked me to join the graduate college. I earned a PhD from the group 6 years later.
It all worked very nicely for me, and every person was lovely and encouraging through the whole process - regardless of my audacity in asking for the chair!
If you're an undergraduate at a research institution, the odds are extremely high (>>20%). Similar if you're a graduate student/postdoc. Almost every undergraduate I've taken on has been the result of a cold email with clear intent/interest.
If you're coming in from outside academia, be prepared to have useful skills/knowledge to bring to the collaboration and a clear ability to commit enough time to be valuable. Expect a much lower conversion-rate. Most people that academics encounter with cold emails (at least in physics) from the outside are insufficiently prepared or advancing a pet (usually demonstrably-incorrect) theory.
If you email the right person with,
"Hi, ISL!
I'm j7ake, and have a ton of experience with X (link to resume) and am really interested in learning more about experimental gravitational physics. I've read several of your papers [1,2,3], and your work is really interesting.
It looks like you might be able to use X to improve your results with Y -- might you have a little time to answer some questions about your group's work and see if there's a way I might be able to help you put X to good use?
This is consistent with my experience as well, as a researcher in industry with a fairly high open source profile. I get a trickle of emails along the lines of, "your work is awesome, can I be your apprentice?" This has never panned out. But if you come to me with specific questions demonstrating that you've read what I've written and are passionate about the ideas, you'll get a mentoring call and an openness to consider collaboration. I've had two such in the last two days, in fact, one through an introduction, the other from a cold IM. For me, academic status is not a factor, but then, I'm not actually in academia.
I hope. I'm waiting for replies from two professors I emailed asking about advice for a PhD and how to pursue it. I even included my proposal and how I'd go about it. One of them, at least, mentioned taking PhD students and the other is at the school that'd be best for it (due to proximity to where I'd be doing field work). Both mentioned a research interest in the topic too. I even emailed from another university in the country's account.
I've also emailed another academic over a month ago about an article he wrote abiut a type of non-profit I'd love to set up, and haven't heard back. Though when I emailed him last year it did take 6 weeks to respond. I just wrote this to say I feel it's very hit or miss, depending on the academic in question.
This correlates with my experience. I hustled my way into a only paid undergrad research assistant role that didn't previously exist at a top-tier infosec lab doing IPS/IDS work and helping grad students fix their code. It was necessary as there were too many applicants for too few menial campus jobs.
The sample approach above was really intended for anyone coming in to academia from the outside (young students need not necessarily have any skill to offer and only need to show clear intent/interest/competence).
If you can bring value to the relationship (sometimes interest is enough, but not always), that will make a big difference.
An HN-specific skill that might provide a mutually-beneficial "in": An ambitious experimental collaboration run by some of my physics colleagues once engaged some CS students to overhaul the collaboration's web-page. The result was one of the nicest research webpages in the (large) department.
Offering something like, "I'd really love to learn a lot more about your research -- I've built out a number of sites [1,2,3]. Could I work with you to improve your research group's page in return for helping me understand the subject-matter better as I go?" may get some replies. Make sure the relationship is mutually-beneficial and not exploitative :) (at a minimum, it can go on your resume).
I haven't been formally mentored but at work and in school I have had a lot of luck with "what you do sounds interesting and I would love to know more about it," including with the Dean of my department who (I assume) is pretty busy.
I imagine there are jerks out there but honestly for a lot of people this is something they have poured a lot of themselves into (especially in academia) and its nice when someone is new but actually really interested.
Worked for me. Cold emailed a prof asking for advice on how to enter a particular field I had never seriously studied before. He hired me as a staff programmer, helped orient me to self-study the topic, and encouraged me to apply for grad school in the same program. He is now my advisor.
I think a lot of PIs in less popular fields struggle to find computationally proficient candidates. There is a massive glut of software talent in certain hot-button domains and a huge shortage in others
I am mentoring at least one researcher because they reached out to me like this. But it's a good point; I'm not sure how successful the strategy is overall
