Emailing professor: Is my profile good enough for this position?

Question

I am applying for PhD positions nowadays. Recently, few PhDs are announced (in CoQus, Austria) and I am very interested in these positions. But it looks like these positions require very high profile candidates. They have asked about publications (if applicable) in nearly each paragraph of advertisement. It is also written that a candidate can only apply once for PhD in that institute in whole life.

I have written a paper during my M.Sc. but its status is "submitted". So, technically I don't have any publication yet.

I don't want to lose my chance by applying without publication. So, my question is:

Is it a good idea to email professor of my interest asking about if my profile is good enough to have any chance to get this PhD?

Answer 1

The conditions invite potential candidates to self-assess their profiles. The reason is probably that the University receives a lot of applications per post and HRs want to save a bit of time during the shortlisting stage by ensuring that candidates apply only when they are ready. In all fairness, it seems that you want your potential supervisor to do a bit of this work for you. I am not sure it is a good idea.

Answer 2

Normally, a PI wouldn't reply this type of question. But if they do I'm not sure if they would like to hire such an insecure student. I would just send an email introducing myself and showing interest on the PIs lab and questioning some things about the program. But I would never ask if I'm good enough... or show any type of insecurity.