How to find a job in Germany online

In order to find a job today, it is no longer necessary to queue at the labor exchange, study vacancies in newspapers and advertisements at bus stops and at entrances.

Job search has become more accessible, efficient and faster thanks to the Internet. Through the Internet, you can find work: for this there are many sites, online job exchanges and search engines.

The resume and documents can be sent to the employer by e-mail, and the interview can be done via Skype. Great time and money saver! According to statistics, in Germany every second employer prefers to search and select candidates via the Internet. The larger the company, the more likely it is that the electronic form will be the preferred form of sending a resume.

How to find a job in Germany via the Internet?

1. Employer’s website

If you want to get a job in a certain company and have a clear idea of ​​the desired position, then the surest way is to look for vacancies directly on the website of the company. The larger the company, the more likely it will have a dedicated job search section on the site.

Here you can find not only a list of current vacancies, but also a lot of useful information: about the preferred contact form, phone numbers of contact persons, as well as what the company pays attention to when applying for a job, how the company positions itself, what requirements are imposed on job seekers. (btw, click here for to find out how to write a motivational letter in German)

If a contact person is indicated next to the vacancy and there is a phone number, you should not be too lazy and call this number, asking a couple of clarifying questions – especially if you are already in Germany. In this way, you can show your interest and be remembered by the employer, increasing your chances of a positive response. 

For example, if the goal is to do an internship in a German company, for example, Bosch or Daimler, first of all go to the company’s website and look for the “career” (Karriere) or “work” (Jobs, Jobangebote) sections. Follow the link to the job search form, where you can filter the results by various parameters, indicating the desired position – for example, “internship” or “practice” (Praktikum), specialty or direction (Funktionsbereich) – say, logistics (Logistik) or marketing (Marketing), place of work, etc. Such a job search is suitable for those who are looking for specifics or know exactly where they want to work, and not suitable if you are looking for a job on the principle of “the main thing in Berlin, and in which company it doesn’t matter”. 

2. Online job exchanges and search engines

The Germans themselves prefer to look for work through special search engines and online job exchanges. On such portals you can usually find not only the vacancies themselves, but also useful information about the labor market, salaries, advice on finding a job and paperwork. In general, we can conditionally distinguish three types of job search sites: information, search engines and online job exchanges. 

2.1. Information sites do not publish specific vacancies, but here you can learn a lot of useful and necessary information about the labor market in Germany. Where to start looking for a job, what companies specialize in your field, what are the average salaries, how salaries differ in one region from another, how to draw up a resume, what documents to attach to the application, and much more.

Germany has its own unwritten rules for preparing a resume and cover letter, which are very different from the realities of America. Therefore, students, graduates and young professionals should first of all pay attention to portals like e-fellows.net , where in the section “About career” you can find a lot of useful information on this topic. Otherwise, and with excellent grades and five foreign languages, you can send 50 resumes each and get back only rejections due to “wrong” photo or “wrong” treatment.   

2.2. Search sites scan jobs posted on the Internet at other sites and summarize the results. Pros: in saving time and effort (no need to search on twenty separate pages, you can see everything at once and in one place), minus: as a rule, you cannot post a resume and create your own profile.

Examples of such portals portals: 

• adzuna.de
• jobworld.de
• careerjet.de
• jobanzeigen.de
• jobscanner.de

2.3. Online job exchanges provide candidates with the opportunity to find a job and post their resume, and employers – to post vacancies and look for suitable candidates. Below we will consider in detail the largest of them. 

– Stepstone 

In 1996, the Oslo-based company created one of the first projects of its kind to find work over the Internet. The portal quickly became international, versions in other languages ​​appeared, vacancies from Germany, Denmark, Belgium, Austria, France, Sweden and several other European countries became available. In 2009, Europe’s largest publishing house Axel Springer got interested in the project, after which the project reached a new level. Today it is not only the largest online labor exchange in Germany, where more than 60,000 vacancies are posted, but also a free resume and job search service for candidates. Here you can look for work in a wide variety of fields, as well as subscribe to receive new offers by e-mail.

– Monster 

This portal is the world’s largest online job search resource. Founded in 1994 in New York, the company quickly expanded internationally. In Germany, the portal operates under the domain monster.de and is available in German. Here you can find vacancies for more than 1500 employers and headhunters. For registered users, it is possible to leave your resume and subscribe to the distribution of interesting offers by e-mail. In addition, Monster conducts various surveys each year on topics related to job search and careers, and publishes the results on the site. What is your expected salary and how much did you actually receive? What’s the best way to discuss the topic of salary during a job interview? The site contains a lot of useful information that will come in handy when looking for a job.

– Staufenbiel 

The specificity of this site lies in cooperation with universities and universities in Germany, respectively, the target audience is, first of all, students, university graduates and novice specialists. Plus, not only in the clarity and accessibility of the material, but also in the structure of its presentation: the site has, for example, separate sections for engineers, economists and computer scientists, where you can read about enterprises, vacancies and salaries in your specific area. You can download in electronic format many materials and magazines devoted to the profession you are interested in and career prospects in Germany. Here you can also look for work depending on whether you have a bachelor’s or master’s degree, as well as in a particular region or city. Staufenbiel focuses not on the quantity but on the quality of the vacancies posted: despite the fact that

– Absolventa

Another portal for aspiring specialists and graduates, currently providing about 6,000 vacancies from more than 5,000 enterprises. According to the site’s statistics, over 11 thousand people were looking for work here over the past month. The job search is structured depending on the specialty: in addition to common professions such as doctors, lawyers and economists, vacancies in the humanities, biologists, pharmacists, future HR and media specialists can also be found here. An interesting option that this site provides is a special Netto-Rechner calculator for calculating your future salary after deducting taxes and insurance, which, by the way, are rather big in Germany.

– Jobleads

For those who graduated from the university a long time ago and whose career ambitions require a higher position, and, accordingly, a higher salary, we suggest looking at vacancies on the Jobleads website. Here you can find work at the rate of 50 to 250 thousand euros per year (gross). At the moment, the site contains over 70,000 vacancies and offers from large international companies. Registration on the site is free, but additional functions, such as checking your resume and your documents, personal advice on career growth, contacting an employer, promoting your profile, and others – all this will have to pay. Although with such a salary, this can be considered a justified investment in career growth.  

In addition to these multifunctional portals, there are also many smaller sites for a particular group of professions. Some sites specialize in finding jobs exclusively in IT, others in the field of hospitality and tourism. Below is a list of the most famous ones.

3. Federal Labor Exchange 

For specialists in “demanded professions” (doctors, mathematicians, chemists, technologists, engineers), as well as professions where higher education is not required (technicians, locksmiths, plumbers, painters, nurses, cooks, factory workers, drivers, etc.) it is best to search for vacancies on the website of the Federal Labor Exchange and the German Employment Service . The site is also available in English and French. Conveniently, the site shows how many vacancies in a particular area are found in a particular city at the moment, for example, 80 vacancies for confectioners in Berlin, 250 vacancies for electricians in Cologne, and so on.

There is also an advanced search option (Erweiterte Suche), where you can select the desired form of work, for example, full (Vollzeit) or incomplete (Teilzeit) working day, indicate the size of the enterprise (maybe it is important for someone to work in a company of no more than 100 or 50 people, or, conversely, only in a large company with over 1000 specialists).

4. Social networks 

On Facebook and Instagram, Germans are encrypted, create profiles under fictitious names and in every possible way hide their personal lives from employers. But professional social networks Xing and Linkedin are usually actively used to find work and maintain business contacts. 

In these networks, it is better to create an account under your real name and update it regularly. It is not uncommon for headhunters to find your profile by keywords and write with an interesting job offer. Xing is more suitable for business contacts and job search in German-speaking regions (Germany, Austria, Switzerland), as well as small and medium-sized companies. Linkedin is suitable for those who are looking for a job in an international company, are interested in offers from well-known companies and do not mind working not only in Germany, but also abroad.   

Generally, before you directly start looking for work in Germany, you should start with two points: clean up your social media accounts and collect as much information as possible about the job and company you are interested in. If, when searching for your first and last name on Google in the top ten, a complete collection of photos and comments from your personal life is a big disadvantage for you as a future employee, no matter how brilliant your resume would be. And by collecting as much information as possible, you can interest the employer and better prepare for the interview at the next stage.

We wish you success in your job search! Who seeks will always find 🙂