Finding a job in a foreign country is more difficult than just knowing what field you want to go into – it is also crucial to familiarize yourself with the labour culture and laws of your new home. Below is Expatica’s in depth guide to job searching in Germany. Whether you have questions about how to prepare your CV or how employment contracts work, Expatica is here to help.

For a more succinct overview of job searching in Germany, make sure to read our article “Looking for work in Germany: The abbreviated version.”

Finding Work
Whenever you apply for a full-time position, employers will expect a thick package that documents your entire educational and professional career and is based on your CV or resume, known as a Lebenslauf. Like any CV, the Lebenslauf should include a listing of all your previous positions and responsibilities, in reverse chronological order, as well as any degrees and outside activities and your final grades. However, Germans also expect you to include your marital status, sex, birth date, number of children and a recent photo. Since these things are a required part of any CV, it’s hard to believe prospective employers don’t use the information to sort candidates by sex or age.

Alongside the CV, applications should include written recommendations from all previous employers and copies of any degrees or awards. Employers want to know everything about you and omitting any of the above could keep you out of an applicant pool, especially if the other job-seekers are predominantly German.

When applying for positions with a broader international scope, hiring managers are forgiving as long as they can paint a fairly complete picture of you and your past. Since it’s unlikely you can cobble together a complete application package, find everything you can, make copies and send it over – put only the details you feel comfortable divulging on your CV. Once they’ve found the right candidate, employers will send the package back to you. If you decide to go through a recruitment agency, they’ll be able to help you figure out which documents are vital and which are unnecessary. They will also be able to say what your expected salary will be and discuss in detail any additional benefits.

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