How should I respond to "no research position available" from a cold email?

Question

Yesterday, I sent a "cold" e-mail (i.e., an unsolicited email to someone I do not know) to inquire about whether a professor has open research positions. Today I got the reply as shown below. Obviously, it is not positive.

Thank you for your interest in my lab – unfortunately while your skill set looks to be ideal for the lab – I currently do not have any positions available.

The answer is not very surprising. But how should I respond positively? Because we are in the same city, and probably one day I would have a chance to work in that lab.

Answer 1

There’s no need to respond.

An (uninvited) question has been asked and (kindly) answered. Answering required the professor’s time. There’s no need to follow up, because that will require more of the professor’s time.

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Obviously, [the answer] is not positive.

I don’t know whether you mean “the professor answered that the lab has no open research positions” or the professor does not see you as a promising candidate or similar. Regarding the latter, you should not be concerned. The professor probably receives many such requests and simply doesn’t have the time to provide lengthy replies. (That’s why I recommend not to respond.)

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Why would a professor waste their time with evaluating the suitability of a candidate if there are no positions available

The professor might not have even read the email, let alone evaluated the suitability of the candidate. Indeed, the professor might be using canned responses, which can be sent almost as quickly as an email can be deleted/archived and are perhaps better than non-responses.

Answer 2

I don't agree that one should not respond. It's always good to respond and appreciate the time that was spent to review your CV. I wouldn't write the email in a way that needs to be answered. But a nice email can save your CV for feature opportunities.

Answer 3

That's a great answer because he answered. As others said, it is a good idea to provide a concise positive answer, stating your interests in future openings: he may remember your availability in 3/6 months. There are no opening, correct, but are you looking for a research positions? opening comes with funding, and funding come with proposals.

If I were you, I would offer to give a presentation to the group about your work done and your interests, to explore potential future collaboration (to the professor say explicitly "I can/am interested in cooperating towards applying for fundings").

Regarding your expectations (if I read them correctly)

Because we are in the same city, and probably one day I would have a chance to work in that lab.

That has almost zero value in the Academia world, it may give you a bit of edge, but do not count on that. It would surely help you in visiting the group investing little time&money, maybe getting some helpful connections to other people in the professor's group.