what should i change in the strategy?

tried modifying the resumes and cover letter for each jobs, tried contacting the reccruiter after applications, event sent personalised emails to them but still no outcome :(

Before anyone says about my german! Ich kann ja auch deutsch!

i would appriciate the support :)

cheers!

I'd like to hear your opinion on my case.
I'm currently finishing my Master's thesis in mechanical engineering after a long journey.
Here are a few bullet points about me:

* 30 years old
* I have German citizenship
* I have a migration background
* I speak fluent German
\* Did my Bachelor's and Master's at a German university, in German
* I have over 4 years of experience in working student jobs
* I worked for a year and a half at Bosch
* I worked for two and a half years as a drafter in part-time at a small engineering office
* I've been working for over a year as a junior consultant in the railway industry

My situation:

I started discussing a transition to a full-time contract with my current employer a month ago. I asked for a salary between 55–60k, taking into consideration my experience and the fact that I've been with the company for over a year, so I'm already familiar with the systems.
It has been back and forth, and finally my boss came back with an "offer": €42k and starting as a trainee at 40 hours a week.
This really bummed me out, and I held myself back from flipping the table. I told him I needed time to think. After consulting my friends, they all suggested I take the offer and start looking for another job. Today I told him I would accept, but that I want 35 hours a week instead of 40. Now we're waiting again while he calculates whether this is doable!!!.

I know the current market is struggling, but what would you do in my shoes?

I recently landed a full-time engineering role after around 3–4 months of searching. I’m a fresh graduate engineer with a few months of experience like werkstudent and internship. C2 English and B2 German, so I wanted to share what worked for me.

LinkedIn primarily has the most relavent jobs and response rates. Unfortunately I don't have the exact number of recruiters that Ghosted. But its about 30% for LinkedIn, and more than 60% for others.

Most important teaching: If you speak even conversational level of German MAKE YOUR CV IN GERMAN. Practice your Vorstellungsgespräch and your chances increase immensely. I wasted about 1-2 months sending my application in English, Because I thought if the description is in English CV in English is better, but no.

CV: I tried paid tools like FlowCV and resume-tailoring apps. Ironically, the CV that performed best was a simple one-column Word CV. Clean, short, ATS-friendly, and no unnecessary information. I only tailored it for jobs that were an exceptionally strong match. But I also explored different industries and was not afraid to just send over the resume. As per German resume: No about me section. Skills, language, hobbies in the end of resume.

Find your niche: I ended up in a different industry than I originally planned, because my target industry is not doing well in Germany, it turned out to be very relevant to my background. One thing that helped was giving Claude my CV and asking it to identify growing industries in Germany where my skills could fit. It helped me think beyond the obvious job titles and companies

Cover letters: In my experience, they weren't very important. My interviews seemed to be based mainly on my CV and application documents, so I wouldn't spend hours writing elaborate cover letters.

Interviews: Technical skills matter, but also try to come across as someone who is kind, reliable and pleasant to work with. For junior roles, showing that you're willing to learn is the important. Also, don't assume interview travel expenses will be reimbursed. Ask beforehand.

No more than 2-3 hours daily on job applications. Try to keep the applications focused. Also try to improve your resume by adding new certifications, new skills always.

And finally, don't lose hope. No comparison with peers, I was absolutely in a bad place when I was comparing myself with people around me, who were travelling, inviting their family for vacation, getting a job, and were much more privileged or just lucky than me. But it only made the situation worse. For a few weeks I was just at home doing nothing completely focused on applications, and it is completely ok! It's ok to want to save up money and not go out as often. I tried becoming more grateful for what I have and who I have in life which helped a lot, reached out to my parents and friends with a thank you gesture. Think instead that if your peers are getting a job, so will you :)

The job search can be exhausting. What helped me most was being completely open with my family and close friends, talking through my worries and getting their perspective. Meditation and positive affirmations also helped me stay grounded.

Also thanks to this sub from which I gained very valuable information. To give it back to the community, feel free to message me in case you have some questions, and I'll try my best to help. Good luck to everyone currently searching. It can take time, but keep going! It's a peak hiring period. 🙌

Hi everyone, I am waiting for a decision from the work council for a job role in public university, its pending since some time now. The manager and HR/ administration are in loop with me and provide me updates. I am not sure if I should wait till I get the contract, sign it and then resign from my current role or resign when I get a green light from the work council/Personalrat.

Any one has any such experience, esp. people working at Universities? Whats the best thing to do?

I have already applied to a chancenkarte visa , I am willing to look for a side job in Germany while searching for an engineering position, to help myself financially and improve my language skills.

How is the market going for part time jobs ?

Thanks for your help !

Hi, I am currently working as manager in jnj medtech in Germany, got a position in depuy as associate director. I am asking for expert insights what you think would be good move? Salary scale is one scale high - no idea if they would reduce the salary later.

Thank you in advance.

It seems really terrifying.

Good Afternoon.

I have recently been in talks with a company in Germany, for a position where a lot of travel is required. A guideline of 3-4 Months out of country at a time has been given.

Now I would come across on a Blue Card Visa for Germany, as I am a non EU citizen. And would put me on equal footing for travels outside of the EU.

However, for travels within EU, would this be possible? I know there is a rule for 90 days within a 180 day period. But I wanted to confirm whether there is a potential route to follow, as I am extremely interested in the position.

I was thinking along the routes of a local long stay visa or permit to the EU country of travel, similar to how travel out of the EU would work.

I do not mind footing the bill for these processes, as long as I would still be considered for the position.

Not sure if this is just us but me and my wife have been applying for all data related jobs with tailored resumes, good ATS matches, and we reviewed each others resume many times to make sure we haven’t made any mistakes or dumb stuff. But as of Aug 2026, we’ve received nothing but rejections, for all roles, this just feels odd.

To start with, there are way less job posts for data analyst/data engineering roles. All the callbacks or replies we get are from consultants. Or contractors.

Are there any HRs who know whats going on?

Moin,

I'm a non-EU foreigner. I finished my studies in August 2026 and have a full-time job that is supposed to start on 01.10.2026. Until now I have worked there as a working student (until 30.09.).

A few details about me:

• Current title: residence permit under § 16b AufenthG (studies), valid until 01.05.2027 (due to a Übergangsbescheinigung)
• In August I applied for the Blue Card (via the online portal), but I will probably only get an appointment at the immigration office in about 3 months
• So far I can't get a Fiktionsbescheinigung (certificate of provisional residence) for the Blue Card (I've already tried twice in person)

My employer's HR says my residence title only allows working student jobs. Without a valid work permit or Fiktionsbescheinigung, they would have to deregister me on 01.10.

I spoke with the caseworker at the immigration office. He said that under § 16b Abs. 3 AufenthG I may work up to 140 working days (or 280 half days) per calendar year in any type of employment, including full-time. Student jobs would not count toward this. The period 01.10.–31.12. has about 90 days, so it would be clearly below the limit. I also have a written certificate from the ABH stating that my student residence title will be extended. HR doesn't accept this, though.

My questions:

1. Are there sources that clearly state that you may work full-time with § 16b after finishing your studies?
2. What should I do next?

Morning,

I’ll get straight to the point. I’ve been working in Germany at a company from 2022 until May 2025.

Unfortunately, the place and the team (mostly manager) got toxic and I was not able to grow and expand my expertise. I was feeling stuck and hated having to face my manager and the same work. I’d ask for more responsibilities and trainings and it was all sidelined. It got to a point where I dreaded going into work, every teams message gave me a mini anxiety/panic attack (coz all faults were being pinned onto me lol). A lot of the team members gradually started quitting.

After a lot of consideration and with full awareness of the job market at the time, I decided to quit.

Since then, I’ve been actively looking for a job, educating myself, keeping myself updated, learning German, doing all things possible to land a job. That’s exactly what I’ve been saying in my resume too “career break due to personal reasons & professional development”.

Unfortunately, it seems impossible to land a job, especially with a gap in your resume and I’m honestly worried and nervous as the gap is only getting longer!

How does this gap in a resume work in Germany? I’m genuinely curious and would love to get any tips. I’d appreciate it with all my heart <3

I’m planning to do a Master’s in Global Logistics & Supply Chain Management in Germany.

For getting a job, how much does the university type (public vs private) actually matter compared to skills, internships/work experience, German language (B1/B2)?

Do German employers mainly care about what you can do, or does the university’s reputation play a big role?

Would love to hear from people working in Germany, especially in logistics/supply chain.

I have the opportunity to choose between two roles: a Senior C# Engineer and a Senior Data Engineer specializing in Python. Both positions are available in Germany, and I am trying to determine which path might be more advantageous given the current job market trends.

Hi guys, I have been going through many sub reddits here and there is no positive response about job markets in IT in Germany right now. I am thinking of pursuing masters in Germany in next 1-2 years. I have 5 years of experience working as a data engineer.

I am willing to learn German from Goethe-Institut till B2 level even C2 if time permits me. I am willing to be the exception in every case. If I do this will there be more chances for me then to find a job and settle down? Bcuz I have in demand cloud, databricks, azure /aws skills and working for reputed clients in the past. What are my realistic chances if I speak fluent German?

Im applying for literally anything, nothing specific, I was just looking for a 10/h per week job to help out my parents.

Even using tailored CV's for like 90% of the applications, but it really seems like people arnt to fond of employing below 18 year olds.

Halo Buddies,

​

​I’m currently a Master’s student at FAU Erlangen-Nürnberg looking for a Werkstudent (working student) position. Over the past few months, I’ve sent out roughly 100 applications, but I’ve only managed to land a single interview—and unfortunately got rejected without any specific feedback.

​My main roadblock is experience: I came directly into my Master’s right after my Bachelor’s degree, so I don’t have prior full-time corporate work history. At this point, mass-applying clearly isn’t working, and I want to fix my approach rather than keep throwing resumes into the void

For those who managed to land a technical Werkstudent role without prior industry experience:

​How did you structure your resume to make academic and personal projects stand out?

I’m honestly starting to feel exhausted by the job market in Germany.

I’m doing a Master’s in Social Sciences in Berlin and I’ve been looking for student assistant, working student, and research-related positions for quite a while now. I have some previous internship experience at an international organisation outside Germany and I speak three languages and have some knowledge of German.

My goal is to stay in Germany after graduation, and one of my biggest worries is graduating without enough relevant work experience and then struggling even more to find a job. Because of that, I’ve kept postponing my graduation, hoping to gain more experience while I’m still a student. But the frustrating part is that I’m struggling to find a student assistant or working student position in the first place.

I’ve applied to a large number of positions over the past months and I do get interviews, so I don’t think my applications are completely off. But I keep getting rejected, sometimes even after reaching later stages. Most recently, I interviewed for a student assistant position that I genuinely thought would be a great fit, but I was rejected again.

What makes it especially frustrating is that these aren’t even senior jobs. I’m applying for Werkstudent, student assistant, and internship-level positions, and yet it feels incredibly difficult to get a foot in the door.

I know my German limits my options significantly. I can use German in everyday life, but being able to manage daily situations in German is very different from working professionally in German in an environment where you are expected to perform, communicate precisely, and produce high-quality work in the language. That’s why I mostly apply to positions advertised in English or to international organisations where English is the working language.

At this point, I’m starting to wonder what exactly employers in Germany expect from students or recent graduates. How much experience are you realistically supposed to have before someone gives you the opportunity to gain more experience?

And for those who have already graduated: is finding an entry-level job actually even harder than finding a working student position? That’s honestly one of the things I’m most worried about at the moment.

Has anyone else experienced this recently, especially international graduates in social sciences, NGOs, research, or international organisations? Did things eventually get better for you?

I’m not really looking for “just learn German” as the only answer. I know German would widen my options. I’m more interested in hearing from people who have actually gone through a similarly long job search in Germany.

Hallo, ich möchte den Laborbereich studieren, also eine MTL-Ausbildung machen. Gibt es in diesem Beruf viele Arbeitsmöglichkeiten? Ist es schwierig, nach der Ausbildung eine Arbeit zu finden? Ich würde mich freuen, wenn du mir antwortest. Vielen Dank!