Welcome back to another article! I hope you guys are all doing well today and always. Why am I so awkward? Alright, for today’s article, I want to talk about how to find an English-speaking job in Germany. As many of you guys know, in some previous article a few article back, I talked about how I recently got a new job in Germany, an English-speaking job. So, I wanted to share with you some tips on how you can also find an English-speaking job here because I know how stressful, irritating, and demoralizing sometimes it can be to look for a job. It’s such a time-consuming process that makes you question everything about yourself, and I just want to make this as easy as possible for you guys because, yeah, it is tough out there to find something quickly, something that’s suited for you. I just want to make sure that you guys have all of the tips that have helped me.
I’m specifically going to talk about sites that I use and certain things that I did in order to help me land a job here. If you are interested in more of my background story and visas and all of that good stuff, I do have a bunch of article where I’ve talked about this in the past, and I also do offer one-on-one coaching calls where we can chat about your specific situation. So, these are just going to be more general tips on how to find an English-speaking job in Germany, and yes, it is definitely possible. Now more than ever, so many people are moving to Germany to find English-speaking jobs, and the German government is encouraging it as well. So, it’s actually a lot easier, I think, compared to even five years ago when I first moved here to work in Germany. So, yeah, hopefully, these tips will help you guys out!
1. Job Search Sites: Know Where to Look
Starting off with three of the main sites that you definitely want to have a tab for on your browser, and these job search sites are just general search engines for jobs. I’m sure we all know these sites, but I just want to point them out because they are still very important in Germany: we got LinkedIn, we got Indeed, and we got XING (or Zing). I’m never quite sure how to pronounce it; I think it’s Zing, but please correct me if I’m wrong. These are massive, of course, job search sites, and XING more specifically is for the German market as well, in case you haven’t heard of it.
My tip here for navigating through these sites to find English-speaking jobs is to get as specific as possible once searching for a job. If you just do a general search, you are going to be so overwhelmed because you’re going to see so many jobs that populate in German and that require German, and you may just think there’s nothing out there for you. So, you want to get very, very specific when searching for the job. So, of course, enter your title into the job field or to the search bar, I should say, followed by words such as English, English-speaking, International, experience. These are really, really important keywords that you want in order to filter down the list and actually find English-speaking jobs. It can be as simple as just adding the keyword “English” to your job search, and you’ll see that so many options will populate. So, that’s going to be my first tip. Make sure you check out those three sites, that you’re constantly looking on them, setting up alerts for jobs that match your criteria, and make sure that you do get very, very specific with the search search bar, search field, whatever you want to call it.
2. Local Job Websites and Facebook Groups
My second tip would be to check out local sites for jobs. There’s a lot of local sites. For instance, in Berlin, there’s jobs.berlin.de, and I’ll go ahead and leave other ones down below, but most major cities will have sites where you can search for jobs, or they’ll post jobs to that area that are local to that area, and many, many of them are in English as well, and they even break it down sometimes by a specific field too. So, make sure that you are constantly checking out those sites. Even there are other websites like Make it in Germany, among other ones, that have their own job boards where they also post jobs too in English. So, make sure that you are checking out those sites. I would also recommend checking out things like Facebook groups. So, do a search for your city and then your field or your industry and try to get into some Facebook groups and see what’s popping there. A lot of people will oftentimes post jobs because they may work for the company, and they may get some type of referral bonus. So, it’s always good to check out to see what is available on Facebook as well.
3. Network, Network, Network!
Alright, now for the third tip is to network, network, and network. I cannot say this enough. You want to network both online and in real life. Online, I highly recommend sending out messages through LinkedIn, sending out messages to recruiters, to companies as well that you may be interested in. Send out messages to the management team. Don’t be afraid to actually put yourself out there. It’s not frowned upon in Germany to do that, and if you truly want something bad enough, then just put yourself out there because the worst thing that could happen is you don’t hear back from them, but you may open up yourself to a different opportunity or an exciting opportunity. This happened to me when I first applied for a job in Germany. I applied while I was still living in Canada. I found a company that I really thought was super cool, really interesting. I went to their website, and they didn’t have any jobs that met my criteria, but I decided to actually send an email to them, send them my CV, my cover letter, and they liked what I had to offer, and they actually opened up a position for me, and that’s what allowed me to move to Germany.
So, that was a really amazing thing that happened. It was something that was unexpected because, like I said, I didn’t see any postings on their site, but I am so glad that I actually emailed them and I put myself out there. So, I always advocate to put yourself out there because really the worst thing that can happen is you don’t hear back from anybody, but you may, and that may be your ticket to Germany, or it may be your ticket to a new job opportunity if you’re already here. So, yeah, network for sure is super important. LinkedIn is a great resource for that. I would also recommend if you are living in Germany, go to any local meetups that you can, any networking events for your specific industry. I know a lot of co-working spaces also have events too, so check those out to see what types of events align with your industry and what you’re looking to do, because it’s a great way to meet people and also not only build a professional network but, of course, you can build friends that way as well. And at least in Berlin, in a way, it is sort of like a small community too in the job market. Everyone seems to know somebody who works somewhere. Everyone seems to be really well connected, so it’s always good to go to these networking events just to figure out what else is out there for you.
4. Apply in English, But Use the German CV Format
Now, my fourth tip, and this is probably the most important tip, and I have talked about this before, and I’ll go over this over and over and over and over again because it is so important, but it is to apply in English. Do not send a CV in German if you don’t speak German, and if you are not looking for a German-speaking job, it is perfectly okay for you to send out your CV in English. But also, make sure that you are sending it in the German CV format way. I have a whole video on this as well, which I will link down below, but it is super important for you to set the expectations for the employer that you speak English but at least have the formatting in German. Because a lot of the times if you don’t have the formatting in German for your German CV, then it will get disregarded, and you will not even have that opportunity to get that job. So, this is extremely important. It’s something that often gets overlooked by foreigners. They just send out the typical CV format that they have from back home, and they don’t bother switching things up, or what they’ll do is they just send it out in German. They translate it all, and then, you know, it’s just so obvious that you don’t speak German because if you’re just using a translator tool, it’s not going to translate it correctly, and then what’s even worse is, let’s say you get the interview, you jump on a call, and they’re expecting you to speak German, and you don’t. It’s just, why put yourself through that? So, yeah, just set the expectations. Be clear with the employer. I feel like transparency is always the best way to go, so just send out the CV in English but at the very least put it in the right German formatting.
Final Thoughts
So yeah, those are the four tips that I wanted to share with you guys. I really hope that you found these helpful, and if you are going through the job search process right now, I’m wishing you all of the luck. I know it’s a very stressful process and can often be discouraging, but you’ve got this. Follow these tips, and honestly, spend a lot of time every single day applying for jobs. I always like to say, even on the coaching calls, it’s a numbers game. The more applications you send out, the higher the chances are that you are going to hear back from a company. But also, don’t be afraid to put yourself out there, network, and just reach out to the companies that you’re truly interested in, even if you don’t see opportunities. And create a really good, solid CV and cover letter to go along with that.
But yeah, I’m wishing you guys all the luck. You got this, and thank you again to Wonder Tax for working with me on this video. Make sure to check them out, you guys, when it comes to doing your taxes in Germany. And if you are new to the channel, make sure to stick around, hit subscribe, and I will talk to you all in my next one. Cheers!
