Get Job in Germany: Your nationality doesn’t really have to do much with the hiring process in any German company unless I’m tripping on acid and we’re back in the 1990s.
If not nationality, then what matters? There are ONLY 2 THINGS that truly matter for Indians or any other South Asians wanting to get a job in Germany.
- Your skillset (including German)
- Your legal status for working in Germany.
Nothing else. Period.
Skill Set
This shouldn’t be a surprise. If your skillset is at par for the job requirements, then trust me there’s nothing stopping you from being hired in this position. UNLESS (some would argue)…
Your German skills fail you.
While it’s true that many client-facing jobs require/prefer you to be able to sufficiently communicate in German, I have seen countless examples of South Asian people being hired at top corporates – KPMG, McKinsey, Allianz, etc and top startups in Germany – Flixbus, Auto1 Group, N26, TIER, etc without even being able to formulate a proper sentence in German.
It’s amazing if you can converse in German – you will have a lot more options and I really encourage you to learn the language but I wouldn’t see it as the holy grail for getting a job in Germany.
Your skillset is your priority. Focus on it, you will be a super desirable candidate. As far as language goes – trust the process of learning a language and it will come to you.
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Legal Status
Bull Case – You’re a student who graduated from a German university and is looking for a job.
This was my case and I can tell you, life is easier. You get an 18-month job-seeking visa to find a job and once you do, it’s super easy to convert it into a long term work visa. Plus, if you have been studying in Germany for a bit, you have a general understanding of the language.
Okay Case – You have a job seeker visa for 6 months.
This allows you to be physically present in Germany to specifically look for a job. Once you do get an employment contract, you can convert this visa to a long term work visa. I am personally not a huge fan of this solely because of the sheer amount of capital you’ve got to have to survive the 6 months in Germany. Think around ~ 5000 EUR.
Bear Case – Applying to German companies from India/Other South Asian countries with no German visa.
My point around having a valuable skill set remains the same. If you’re skilled, you WILL get hired even if you’re in India with no favorable German visa. However, you definitely are at a slight disadvantage because:
- There are a lot of companies, especially early-stage startups, that tend to not have systems in place to support you, as a foreign applicant, to move to Germany to work for them. Not because they don’t want to but because they can’t (administratively).
- You really have to be an exceptionally outstanding candidate for a company to leave all the talent they can access in Germany without visa hassle and prioritize you. For this to happen, you would ideally have a solid experience of 4-5 years and are in the top 5% of your field.
SMEs that have been around for a while are a different story, they have systems in place where, in most cases, they can sponsor your visa. So if you belong to this category, I would suggest sending in applications to such companies.
The bottom line is, work on your skills and have realistic expectations depending on your visa status. If you’ve got major credible experience on your CV, go for applying directly from your country. If you’re somewhat junior, I’d recommend opting for a Masters and then jumping in the market from there.
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P.S. I deliberately left out a huge aspect of this answer i.e. the way you send in your applications to German companies because that’s a topic of its own. Let me know if that interests you and I can put up an answer for that 🙂
