What to consider when moving to Germany and applying for jobs?
With the global workforce increasingly moving across borders, cultural knowledge becomes more and more important for both applicants and managers. We want to give some tips from our personal experience to both groups:
As applicants, in our experience, the single most important local factor (aside from technical/occupational qualifications) when managers consider a hire in Germany, is language. Despite being an economic powerhouse on the global stage, Germany, especially in mid-size companies and/or blue-collar industries, still places huge importance on language skills to facilitate integration into the workforce. Obviously, speaking the same language.
This is not to say that it is impossible to land a job without very good German language skills since especially start-ups are open to operate exclusively in English, but it will definitely make your life easier. Our tip is to make a dedicated decision beforehand: am I going to try and study German in-depth, or am I going to walk the path of (seemingly) least resistance?
Culturally, Germany is not necessarily the easiest place to start a life, at least compared to other cultures, as a lot of daily life revolves around work and career. So, learning the language on a daily basis, ideally practicing with a native speaker online, developing clear pronunciation, grammar, and skills in writing, will make your life easier.
What to consider when hiring from abroad?
For managers (and HR departments that want to be at the forefront of the fight for talent), on the other hand, understanding that language skills are much easier to teach than technical skills and offering learning opportunities, while keeping an openness towards candidates with diverse backgrounds, is definitely going to be the new way of working.
Simultaneously, managers ought to freshen up on their own English language skills, as this will open up a vast new set of highly skilled talents and make departments, and in turn companies, much more competitive on the job market. Apart from English language courses, there are tons of options to improve language skills – we particularly recommend talking to native speakers on a daily basis, even if you just started out, e.g., in a tandem format through online calls.