We can answer this question from another perspective. Arun Mahajan has been involved in hiring process during the 6 years he has been working in Germany.
During 2018 - 2020, he met a lot of (Indian) students, who are doing their masters or have finished and are looking for jobs or are already employed. For the purpose of this answer, we assume that the job search is with focus on your education and experience.
His observations were :
Students from good institutes did not have issues finding a job. Now the question is which are the good institutes? Few that Arun has come across are :
Technical Universities (spread across Germany),
For MBA, schools like ESMT, Mannheim Business School and LMU, Munich,
For Phds, Charite, Heidelberg University, Gottingen University,
any other universities : make sure to check the quality of the course and institute, talk to their alumni about their experiences,
Students pursuing relevant good quality courses :
There is demand for the technical courses (automotive, engineering etc)
Generalist course such as MBA is in demand if done from a good quality institute,
Specialized courses such as Data science, AI, Online marketing and similar,
German language : Even if the Masters course was in English, there is a high probability that the job will require fluent German skills. This is especially true for roles in :
Finance, accounting, operations, supply chain, HR, sales,
If the language skills are lacking, then finding a relevant job will be seriously difficult,
Only 5% - 10% of the jobs in Germany are English speaking.
All the expats (not just students) are competing for these jobs,
The remaining 90% of the German speaking jobs are struggling for qualified and professional talent,
Know the market : A vast majority of the German companies are traditional. Due to this, they expect you to know the German ways of hiring - from CV to interviews to the whole process (which can take upwards of 1.5–2 month), and of course, German language,
Network : If you have been able to develop a great network during your course, then finding a job will be a cake walk. In one case, there was a candidate, who wrote directly to the CEO and got an internship opportunity in the company,
Real job skills : What a lot of students do not realize is that finishing a course does not mean you are qualified for a job. If the depth of knowledge and understanding of the basics is lacking, then none of the companies will hire. I have met candidates who could not answer fundamental questions.
Role/profile focus : Be sure of what job roles you want to focus on. Just don’t go about applying for a finance and accounting and operations and marketing roles in the same company. In smaller companies, team leads talk to each other and they know that you are applying to every job. This does not leave a good impression on the hiring manager. To find a job like this will be difficult,
These are some of my observations. Having said that, for all the deserving students, there are more than enough jobs in Germany, As per the Federal Employment Agency, there are about 1,500,000 job openings across different profiles in Germany.
For all the students reading this post : I will repeat, please check the quality of the course and institute you enroll in, talk to their alumni about their experiences. I have met students in Berlin, where they were the first batch in the course and even the text boxes were not finalised.
The experts you meet and discuss your career with are guided by their financial interests. German companies will go through 10 rounds of interviews and still not hire if they do not find a suitable candidate with depth of knowledge.
It always helps to have a mentor, who has worked and lived in Germany for some of the best brands. For personal consultation with Arun Mahajan, book a time with him.
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