There's an expat community who make great use of www.toytownmunich.com - an online forum for English-speaking people.
On it someone asked about how a non-German could go about getting jobs in the city. Although others have already written quite a lot about this on the forum I gave some advice based on what I've been doing.
Here's what I wrote:
- use the Monster web site
- try the Jobserve.co.uk web site
- try stepstone.de (might be better for you than it has for me)
- www.mbade.com if you're in IT
- www.satzsoft.de if you're very techie (especially if you know about SAP, sadly I can't even spell it)
- leverage your contacts in Siemens, at least the ones not under police investigation
- get on www.xing.com, rather popular here (but it will only add marginally to your chances, nevertheless it's popular, I've just been put forward for an IT management role because of it)
- read Süddeutsche Zeitung, don't just look at their online job-börse, get the Saturday paper and check out the careers section. If a big multi-national company if recruiting, not even in your area, they may have other openings for you
- get your face around Toytown (e.g. Tuesday drinks, Wednesday curries, Friday drinks etc), a minor but useful networking activity
- ensure you have a German handy* so recruiters can get to you quickly (I'm assuming you live in Germany). Also ensure you can readily check your email. You don't need a Blackberry but being able to deal with your emails at least daily is useful if you're in the market.
- tone-down a bit any guerrilla-marketing approaches you might have used in the UK. Some of them will be appropriate here, for multi-nationals, but the whole place is a bit more conservative.
There is a market here for people with Anglo-Saxon approaches to business (e.g. in IT, project management etc).
It's also a mattter of luck, but remember that the harder you work the luckier you get.
* "handy" is German for mobile-, or cell-, phone but is often used by English-speaking people in the country too.
A diary based on my latest attempts to get a job; this time in Munich. I'm an engineering graduate (and chartered engineer) with more than 10 years' experience in IT. Over five of these years have been spent in team leading and project management roles both in the UK and abroad.
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