How to find research work after Master's application rejections

Question

I'm a computer science student about to finish a year long research related co-op (more similar to a research software engineer position than research assistantship) and graduate with a BS with high GPA in a top 50 international school. My intention up until recently has been to complete an ME at my current university, but I made a mistake and didn't check the course content of the ME that I was accepted to 4 years ago. I applied to competitive MS programs given my ability to take the ME as a fallback option, but was rejected on all my applications. I am not interested in pursuing the ME anymore at my university after I discovered that the ME has a finance/industry focus where I'd like to continue into academia under a taught research focused MS degree. I am applying for the few MS programs that are still accepting applicants, but I am not too hopeful this late in the admissions cycle.

For these reasons I would like to know what my options are in terms of full-time work that will make my application better for the next graduate admissions cycle. Ideally there would be some nice term that was the BS holding version of the PhD requiring "Research Scientist" (My current aspiration) title for computer science, or some job board to find research assistantships in academia that will accept my qualifications. Anything that would during the course of the work result in some authorship on some publication is what I am looking for with little success.

I hope the context can help to generate a better answer for someone in my situation, but an answer to my more common question will also help: What are my options for full-time work in computational science research for someone rejected from all MSCS programs during the graduate admissions cycle?

Answer 1

If you were in my field, the best bet would be to work in a university lab that already knows you and liked your work as an undergraduate - maybe that's a possibility where you did your internship.

I don't know if these positions exist in your field, but it's difficult to find them by title since titles vary so much by institution. Some examples are Research Intern, Junior Scientist, Technician, Research Specialist. The same title could be a completely different level at a different institution. Practically, though, if you don't have any connections and your CV isn't enough to get you into a MS program (unless perhaps you've only applied to very competitive programs), I think you will struggle to find anything in the academic world - there just aren't a lot of these sorts of positions.