Recently I had an opportunity to attend a Career workshop held at Career Service der Technischen Universität Dresden in association with Intap - Das internationale Talentprojekt für Dresden. This article is a summary of all the points that I got from this workshop and hope that this will be helpful to others who are also looking for applying jobs/intern/thesis in Germany.
German language:
If you're planning to work in Germany, then you should be able to speak German. Point. You may apply for the job openings in the 'multi-national corporations', but still your colleagues will be mostly from Germany and it will be easier for you to integrate and work as a team. On the other hand if you're in the Eastern part of Germany, you need to know that more than 90% of the companies are SMEs(Small & Medium scale enterprises) with a majority of native Germans. If you, as an International are looking for a job in these sector, then you need to speak German. For example, Dresden is one of the prime industrial location in Eastern Germany which comprises of 99% of SMEs.
How to find jobs?:
Most of the companies have shifted over to the digital market with respect to job postings. But one of the recruiter in this event mentioned that, there are still companies who put up their advertisements in the traditional way(physical job boards, newspapers, etc.,) It was suggested to keep our eyes open and look out for 'jobbörse'.
"A study found that on average HR specialists spend only 6 SECONDS on your CV"
When it comes to the digital market, there are lot of ways to search for the job openings. Some of them are:
Career fairs & Networking events:
Do not think career fairs as a place to give an interview and get the job on the next day. These events are more of a chance for the candidates to speak to the recruiters and understand the company culture and expectations. Most of the time, this may not provide you with any leads as such, but you can use this as an opportunity to connect with them and later when you apply for a job in that company, you can state that you had already contacted the HR recruiter, which gives your application a more of a personal touch.
Internet & Websites:
There are lot of job portals where you can find out job openings listed. This is one of the best source to find out the job openings across the country. Some of the job portals are:
LinkedIn:
The other way to find jobs is via LinkedIn and it is always recommended to have an updated LinkedIn profile, since many of the recruiters have started using LinkedIn in the recent years. Also, when you have met some recruiter in a Career fair(Job Messe) and you can also get in touch with him/her via LinkedIn and introduce yourself which adds as a personal touch.
Related: Does it take more than 100 applications to get an internship?
Unsolicited applications:
If you're going to apply for a 'big company' then, these unsolicited applications will be useful and sometimes, you might want to work with a specific company due to their work culture or the field of work and then you can use this type of application. On the other hand, the unsolicited applications will not do much good, if the company is pretty small.
Job application language:
In this event, they also touched some points on suggestions about the language you shall use for applying to jobs. It was said that, if the job posting is in German and then the company likes to receive applications in German or sometimes there would be a requirement to speak 'Fluent German' and then the company would like to receive the application in German. On the other hand, if there is requirement for 'good English' in the job posting then one could apply in English.
On the whole, this was a really good event and was kind of an eye-opener for most of the participants, with respect to the current job scenario. "intap" is a project that is in collaboration with 'Fachkräfte Allianz Dresden' and 'Freistaat Sachsen'. One could find more information about this at their website: intap
On the whole, this was a really good event and was kind of an eye-opener for most of the participants, with respect to the current job scenario. "intap" is a project that is in collaboration with 'Fachkräfte Allianz Dresden' and 'Freistaat Sachsen'. One could find more information about this at their website: intap
Great post .Keep up the good job ,much appreciated.
ReplyDeleteCheers