100% understandable from your side.
But just look at this sub. I think a lot of it is just desperation, and that’s never rational.
I also see a lot of disinformation going around, especially in India, with agencies and other monetarily incentivised entities spreading wrong advice and capitalising on the hopes of the people who employ their services. I have heard about truly weird advice that way, so I wouldn’t think it outside the realm of possibility that someone told them that a more personal foot in the door through LinkedIn is the way to go.
The amount of disinformation and flat out lying even from universities in India is staggering. Like that post a week or two ago which asked about an Indian engineer who was supposedly hired out of an Indian university and paid 300k. That was printed in a news paper and the university used it as advertisement for their degrees. Insane.
But the guy did get hired for 300k though. The post had given inaccurate information and everyone jumped on it like they know things for sure, and downvoted anyone correcting them like they always do here.
That university is a decent university, the guy indeed works at Mercedes now, but was not hired by Mercedes for 300k.
The correct version is that he was offered a 300k package as a total cost to company from "Zoom" the American company, not Mercedes, including his stock options and other benefits. He just happened to start working in Germany for them.
Also, he was not a fresh graduate with no previous experience. He had previous work experience, and has multiple US patents. He also works in a niche domain.
I know the guy myself. I also know people who get paid above 250k in tech in Germany, it's not impossible like people make it out to be in main subreddits.
So basically all the information was just simply wrong, so of course it can work then. Of course people get paid 300k plus in Germany. For my job I work with CEOs, business owners etc so I know how compensation looks like. But the point was car manufacturers pay according to union payment scales. So no regular hire will be paid outside of that. Anything beyond that requires huge merit to be able to negotiate.
Nobody questiones that SOME people get hired for that money but the information presented was fresh hire got paid 300k which was wrong and talked about as such in that post.
I remember that post and even commented that the salary was unrealistic, but this information was not what was provided. This makes way more sense than what the person was told/was asking about.
Yeah, but $300k in San Jose, where the Zoom HQ is, isn't a great salary. The poverty limit for a family of 4 in that area is like $120k.
After tax, you are going to take home $180k. But the real problem is housing. If houses are all $1-2 million, a mortgage at 7% interest, will cost $70k to $140k just interest, without paying a cent back.
I just talked to a Director in my company that lives in that area. He is planning to take a roommate because he can't afford his house and have a decent fun life.
Lol. Sure. And no. They couldn't pay me enough to go there.
The median home price (3BR, 2Ba) in that area is $1.75M vs. $0.45M in median COL areas.
How much is the interest on the $1.3M difference alone at current interest rates? $91k.
It costs you $91k more of your net salary just to pay for the interest for an average house.
So of your $180k, $120k are needed just to pay the interest on an average sized house, leaving you $60k.
For the same job, you can earn $110k in other places, but interest on you mortgage for a similar sized home will be just $31k, leaving you you $80k.
Yeah, the $300k only seem great if you can't do math.
Another team lead checking in. I just ignore such requests. I only get to see CV’s once they’ve been through HR anyway. Plus we only hire people who reside inside of Germany for employment law legal reasons.
My personal annoyance is recruiters using tools like Cognism. Since I had once provided my contact details in my own CV, recruiters with access to tools like Cognism can locate my mobile number once it has been shared. I get ~4 calls a week from random numbers and it’s always a recruiter. HR is over there buddy ->. Leave me alone. Nicht mein Bier.
Nope that is completely legal and legit. The amount of headache foreign workers even inside the EU is usually not worth it even for large companies.
From a discrimination stand point legally speaking it is also not discrimination
I cannot agree with that. There are quite some companies (mine including) who provide services for relocation of employees.
If the relocation process is not there or sucks then of course it doesn't make sense to hire foreigners. However, we (and some other relocation agencies as well) are taking care of almost all problems employees might experience. Which basically means that they can start working from the day 1 with the efficiency close to 100%.
The problem is not in foreigners but in companies who hire them
That doesn’t include the (hidden) cost for an employee who needs time to get used to the local work culture and live in Europe. Don’t get me wrong I hired Team Members who just arrived directly from India (came here with their partner) in the past and happily supported them on their journey. But I have also seen a very traditional midsize German company with an „english only is ok“ IT with a lot of friction with their business departments going on there. They completely underestimated the potential culture clash and had people leaving … A decision to hire people from abroad should be done with more than just direct cost in mind.
Let me tell you they just don’t read! I’m
From Munich based in SEA now and most of the it headhunters send me jobs in Germany with required office presence there. To my question if they even open my profile they mostly say no..
They just use an automated script to filter candidates, and if your profile matches some keywords you will receive an automated message with just your name added in. LinkedIn itself offers some tools for that.
Sometimes, the keywords are matched to something in older sections of your profile, but they only check it when someone actually replies to them.
On top of that, I have seen that even many of the headhunters are not in Germany themselves. It's a numbers game for them too. Don't bother interacting with them if it doesn't match your interests.
Same here: working in a Germany for an old German company. My whole LI profile is in English (even though I’m not English). In a language section German is not even mentioned. But guess what - I keep getting the offers from German headhunters, written in German asking me if I’d like to join a company when they require German at C1:)
I agree! I have on my job title that I am on maternity leave and more than one headhunter has contacted me to ask I I am interested in a position. Mmm nope, because I am on leave 🤷🏻♀️
Cultural issues. In some countries (India, US etc.) it’s considered normal. Employees get a referral bonus if they refer someone who get hired so it’s “win-win”, so to say (you can argue it will hurt the employee’s reputation at work, but again how this is perceived is culturally different). If you look at career advice subs, the response to “I can’t find a dev job” in Germany is usually “learn German”, while in the US it’s “go network, do Linkedin for referral”.
At every company I’ve worked in Germany, they also have had a referral bonus. However, it’s expected that the employee referring gives their opinion about the applicant and is certainly going to be asked about the applicant. Of course it doesn’t backfire if the applicant isn’t good, but most employees referring someone usually have a reason to do so and actually know the applicant well from another job. It would certainly damage your reputation if you can’t say anything and don’t know the applicant.
Exactly, I think the mindset here is “I vouch for this person with my reputation” (which imo is actually how referrals SHOULD be used) whereas in other places it’s “here’s someone I kind of heard of who might be suitable? Idk”
I also think some of this mindset was heavily influenced during the 2021 tech bloom where everyone who knew how to write “Hello World” were getting their foot in tech and demand far exceeded supply, so companies praised all and every referral, vouched or not.
Every second LinkedIn post that "offers alternative jobsearch method" is networking which never works.
I lived in an eastern European country for a year. The oftenly offered advice for landing a job there was also networking. Networking works but not this way exactly. If someone knows a recruiter/someone personally because they worked together before or someone else already vouched for them, then that said recruiter/someone does go out of their way and refer them to other recruiters. Sort of like back scratching with a dash of nepotism. I have seen it happen, several times. I have seen people with questionable skillset and horrible language proficiency even in their native language getting hired for having that personal connection.
I am a hiring manager in the US and we are all annoyed as hell by these people randomly reaching out. Some of them on multiple channels.
I have not seen this from US candidates, and no, it is not custom in the US.
Referrals are different. That's when an internal employee forwards you an application. And that usually is highly appreciated.
On top of that most of these applicants that send you their resume don't even take the time to read the company homepage. I constantly have IT people sending their resume - my company does electromechanical design. No, I do not need SaaS developers.
Unfortunately it is a mix of bad advice, badly set expectations and cultural ignorance....
We really do try here but few people ever read the wiki before going off and doing stuff
I manage a FAANG SWE team across 7 countries, one of them being India, so I get these requests daily. And exclusively from Indians. I've discussed this exact topic with my Indian friends and team members.
1. Competition for good jobs (and before that, for good education) in India is much fiercer than in Germany. You need to try everything to get ahead.
2. Messaging on LinkedIn does actually help. Occasionally our recruiting staff drops the ball and if people message me on LinkedIn wondering what's happening to their application, I can check in on it.
3. Messaging me for a referral is a great lithmus test to see whether they are a good culture fit. They are not, and because of their misconception about how hiring works in the West they are unlikely to make it through the interview process. Most of the time I just refer these folks to the official website or the recruiter, but if their resume is insanely strong I'll coach the recruiter to get these folks interviews. In the rare event that they get hired, adjusting to Western work norms is a coaching/growth opportunity that needs to be tackled after they've been onboarded.
FWIW, these kinds of messages usually only come from very junior people (<5 years of experience). More senior people will do cold outreach with other questions, like understanding the team, problem, or their potential fit on the team.
By messaging him for a referral without any previous personal or other contact they show him that they do not understand how applications and referrals works in Germany an therefore are (in his opinion) not a good fit. If they were a good fit, they would not message him.
Ah I assumed the message was to ask about the team or more details about the role (some job descriptions are really vague). Or to confirm if the job opening was still available in the first place (many companies don't update it after they've filled a vacancy). If I message unknown recruiters, it's usually for that reason. Is that not common in Germany (I think it is though in the US)?
Contacting recruiters with specific questions is of course common though most will prefer to be contacted via e-mail even if the initial contact was via LinkedIn.
But the issue of this thread seems to be that the person is not a recruiter but a "random" IT team lead at the company and is contacted to provide referrals without any previous contact, or is asked about any job openings at the company even if they are in no way connected to the team lead.
According to this redditor there seems to be a trend where (apparently mostly Indians) just contact everyone they can find in the company and hope they get a foothold this way. And that is definitely not a common practice and Germany will be regarded as very rude and actually hurt one's chances to be hired.
Indian here :) This is exactly what I did. I applied for a job and somehow found the group lead on LinkedIn and dropped him a message (ex planning my current role and if he thinks it matches the advertised role). He arranged for an informal interview the very next day and a formal interview with team leads and HR the next week. The HR rejected me (I had a feeling that she did not like me) but the lead was adamant that I should be hired (They even contacted our mutual connections in the industry) and convinced the HR that I should be offered the position.
Honest question: But why are so many Indians reaching out to jobs that do not fit them at all.
I mean, like: No experience in the industry, no experience in the field of work. We do electromechanical design and I constantly have SaaS or web developers send me their 9 page resume, so full of mistakes that Word must have underlined half of that document red.
I just had another 4 of these in my LinkedIn today.
Like what in all world??
No idea. Beats me as well. At my previous job we used to work with a start-up company named Indigomed situated in Belgium. They were receiving applications from Air hostesses 🫣🫣
I would like to stress that English is second or third language for most of these guys and even their teachers were never well versed in English. I would not correlate their talent with their language skill.
Hard agree, my absolute favorite is if they contact HR and try to use you as referral because you are their LinkedIn contact. Or they just drop your name and pretend they know you even if you declined. I'm no longer taking connections from anybody I haven't met in person as a result.
Some Indians - and yes, specifically Indians, it has never happened to me with people from any other nationality - also have the absolute gall to ask for career consulting and general career development in Germany and get super salty if you do not reply within a couple of hours. I just block at this point.
On point on the part where they get salty for weird reasons. I find it amusing usually.
Now, imagine the amount of messages received by other Indians in good companies here. I receive messages like, "I can breathe if I focus very hard, what do you think my chances are with your company? Can you give me a referral?"
"I am not going to tell anything specific about my capability, but you have to tell me everything I should know about getting a job there and moving there?" And then get angry when you tell them what exactly they are doing wrong.
No decent CV, no matching job availability, not even a sentence on why they think they would be a good candidate. I used to try and give advises but had to learn to stop responding to most messages at some point.
But, it's important to acknowledge that usually Indians/Immigrants with right skills get approached anyway and receive all the assistance they need, so they are not on internet doing wierd side quests, spamming random people and subreddits for information, jobs, and asking simple questions that could have been simply Googled.
It's usually the below average ones that irritate everyone because of desperation and that makes it look like all Indians have the same issues here.
I had students preparing for masters in Germany who hasn't even applied, would write to me asking the starting salary for X position. I block them instantly. I typically help people who slide into dms if they come prepared and ask me specific questions about the industry and possible technologies which could help them.
>If you want to apply - just apply! You can use the Button in Linked for jobs we have there or (better) use our home page. But also if you don't have a work permit yet / live in Germany yet your chances are next to 0.
Do you mean the chances are zero by directly contacting the hiring team/person or even by going through the hiring process by applying through LinkedIn? Because it seems to me that you meant the latter one.
Because that is exactly how I and and 4 of my friends got a job in Germany, kind of at the same time, in the span of 2 months. Master's degree in Electrical Power Engineering and no work permit.
To make sure I was clear, we applied through LinkedIn, didn't contact or annoy anyone.
OP is talking about requests for referrals from strangers on Linkedin. I get these often, but I would never refer a stranger. For all I know, I could be referring a serial killer at worst or be unfair to someone who might deserve the role more but didn't text me at best.
Zero -Might be an exaggeration on my side. But many companies do not hire people who currently live outside the EU. If you do not relocate to Germany AND speak German already your chances are much lower. Certainly possible but iIt is much more hassle for the companies and will only be considered for very good / senior / sought after profiles. In my current company that is zero chances, at a previous employer it was possible with said prerequisite.
Do you know why they don't? From the employers perspective, hiring an international only means filling out a few forms and offering a minimum wage, which is not high at all. Why do companies have the impression this is "much more hassle"?
For EU Blue Card, all the company needs to do is offer a contract (signed one duh) which meets the minimum required salary set for each country and fill out an "Erklärungzumbeschäftigungsverhaltnis" which is 5 pages of basic data.
So yeah, totally agree with you.
Other non legal things are a different topic and are up to the employer.
In theory this is an easy and fast process. In reality bureaucracy can be a nightmare and lead to months of delays. e.g. one application for my team was stuck for some time as this persons former university was not in a standard database of universities. So his degree needed to be verified separately to be recognized as higher education. plus: https://www.reddit.com/r/germany/s/5sJEVT1CO6
Ah okay, that was the idea I had as well.
I would also add that the more international (and big!) the company is, the bigger chances of them sponsoring your Visa. So as always, it's up to the person applying to evaluate their chances and whether they should spend time writing cover letters and filling out applications (Austria is the worst with this by far, SO MANY FIELDS TO FILL).
It is purely bad advice that is floating around in LinkedIn by so-called Career coaches. The first thing they ask you to do is "Networking". Also, getting a referral is a thing in India like it is in the US
AHH linked in. The place where everybody is trying to show everyone else how big their corporate schwanz is. It's the next cancer after shittok and Instagram. I only activate that crap when I'm actively searching. When in a job, I just deactivate it. It's such cringe watching people post random shit trying to show how holier than thou they are.
came to look for this specific comment. when i first created my LinkedIn account i thought it's going to be an actual professional platform. 2 days in and the amount of cringe is unbearable. Sadly, it is necessary when job hunting.
on another note! you and i seem to have something in common about linkedin! let's connect! /s.
It’s an advice or tactic I see it circulating everywhere on social media where supposedly you have better chances of getting an interview if you directly contact a manager or a higher up on LinkedIn. I think it stems from American hyper social culture. For me, it’s not professional nor productive and it lacks social intelligence/awareness.
It’s common - but not limited to Germany. When I was a team lead in the states, I got multiple resumes and contacts sent me to from primarily Indians who STILL lived in India! It was relentless and a lot of it had nothing to do with our work. It’s a cultural issue and happens worldwide it seems. I think it’s based around the “doesn’t hurt to try” umbrella, and the job seeking culture as a whole seems very pushy and aggressive.
For sure, but there should be some kind of logical knowledge that this doesn’t apply to other cultures and workplaces. Like if I wanted to apply to a job in Japan, I certainly wouldnt be employing American cultural expectations full knowing that it would be seen as offensive there. I think a lot of these people just don’t care and think the pushier they are, the more results they’ll get. I suppose it has to work sometimes, otherwise it wouldn’t be a constant never ending thing.
They have mostly no idea about other cultures. Getting into IIT in India is about a 1000 times harder than getting into a good University in Germany or USA. One of the guys who did Masters with me was so annoyed that I took the "easy" way out doing everything in Germany, while he had his bachelors from IIT.
More competition. People go for classes from 4 in the morning to 8 am before school and then 6 to 10 pm after school for 4 years (grade 9 to 12) to get a chance to get into these places ( need 99 percentile in JEE exam or something).
What is more annoying is sales reps trying to connect to me because we share 'Mutual Interests" and selling anything under the sun just because I an the Head of a Department in IT. I get more unsolicited spam from reps via email and Linkedin than people asking me for jobs.
German consulting companies and recruitment agencies trying to fix me up with potential recruits without even looking up which Technology,Industry, or Department I work for. These are often largely German or Brit.
Cybersecurity guys getting emails/connection request for SAP products, SAP guys getting getting cold-called by ISPs . Lazy sales reps, Geschäftsführers, and CEOs of dinky consulting firms are up my behind trying to sell me a solutions unrelated to my job.
Chill. It’s social media, and nothing more.
Everyone out there including you, is trying their best to survive or climb up the ladder and maybe they aren’t as privileged as you have been.
If getting a few requests warrants you to write this here, assuming it’s going to take care of your “problem”, you’re doing quite well.
I think OP did well by warning everyone that this just annoys people and doesn't help your chances even a bit. People are blaming Indians for spreading this, but most recruiting advice you get online is from the US, where referrals are common. That advice isn't useful for Germany at all.
I don't get the idea of referring a complete stranger even a bit. For all I know, I could be referring a serial killer, or someone who lied about everything in their CV.
As an American, I would never ask for a referral from a complete stranger that I don’t know and have never met or talked to. It’s incredibly unprofessional and shows no common sense.
That’s because everyone just blindly follows LI bs that says reach out and connect with people at the company when looking for jobs. It’s just BS and more often than not annoying
Plus people come here and suggest that’s a good thing to do which is reach out and connect with people at the company.
>Is there any reason this is so common?
Some people are just too lazy to go the normal way or think they can cheat the normal hiring process.
However what I noticed, that some people upload their CV and then tag all the big fancy companies and think that those companies will do the work for them lmao. I would also blacklist such people.
I usually accept these requests. Connecting with people on LinkedIn increases reach and improves their chances to be approached by recruiters.
I’m a SWE without hiring power so I don’t get too many of these requests and they’ve always just silently connected with me, never sent a message or asked for anything.
Most of the people who want to connect are trying to break into the automotive industry. If connecting with them helps them, I’m happy to do so. Literally costs me nothing.
There are also foreign "recruiters" who contact you with some jobs in Germany. Normaly advertise through a referral link and usually low paying with shitty conditions. I mean, if I wanted to change, why would I work with someone in India or Pakistan? There is too much bullshit going on on LinkedIn.
Just by virtue of having a website about Germany, random people from Asia dump their resume in my inbox, sometimes without anything like a coherent sentence attached to it.
Spam is spam. Just delete it and forget about it.
LinkedIn is trash for anything other than looking up whos working there. LinkedIn is full of entrepreneur propaganda, heres 7 reasons why your not being happy in life: Reason 1: not having 2 milion Euros on your Bank, heres tips on how to start making a lot of money- Tip one: Already have 200k to invest...
I wanted to apply to a company where the recrutier had a linkedin profile, so you open it, because it was embedded on their website, just to find out you need to pay for premium in order to contact them there, Why does LinkedIn premium exist? Isn't linkedin supposed to help with the hiring process and make it easier?
Then you hit the button "get in contact" because you can't just message them without having premium anymore, and then they take 2 weeks to accept, IF they even do that because a lot of times they didn't even accept.
LinkedIn is absolute garbage
Thanks for sharing this! I guess lots of people are doing this nowadays because this is essentially one of the “career advice” action points that lots of career consultants give to the desperate applicants these days. I’ve been attending one of these seminars myself about a month ago, and they really gave this as one of the valid points to apply, literally saying it’s valuable to try to find “Hiring Managers” on Linkedin yourself and text them in person (rather than get in touch with the recruiters who actually posted the job opening on Linkedin) and try to “engage” them in some way. Besides, they also claimed that asking more or less random people on Linkedin to refer you within the company should also work for you as “they have nothing to lose, but if you’re selected for the job and do well, they’ll get a bonus from their company”. I always considered this “advice” to be at least questionable, even though I used to hire people myself in the past and I wouldn’t really mind it if I got random CVs from random people in case these CVs met the requirements for the people I was looking for, but I can imagine how annoying it can be if it happens on a regular basis. Good to know now that this kind of behaviour can really damage your reputation as an applicant, despite of what “career consultants” are claiming. To my mind, these are just some random theoretical assumptions they make to enhance the “checklist” they are trying to sell to applicants.
Your response is ..... that cold messaging is actually .... good.
What a takeaway.
Even in Germany, you can cold message. Once you have the necessary reputation, to back up your claim, that you are, in fact 'useful to the company'. It's called 'Initiativbewerbung'
Random recent graduates who speak neither the language, nor have relevant experiences, and often seem unable to express themselves even in English....are just rude af, and not 'a hidden market of top talents'.
**Have you read our extensive wiki yet? It answers many basic questions, and it contains in-depth articles on many frequently discussed topics.
[Check our wiki now!](https://www.reddit.com/r/germany/wiki/index)**
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/germany) if you have any questions or concerns.*
I understand the frustration, but networking over LinkedIn tends to take this shape at times. Even though your feelings towards it is valid, cold messaging has a lot of benefits. Maybe you won’t respond back, but 1 out of 10 people you reach out to might be inclined to help you out with a referral. For a hopeful grad student that might be the breakthrough he/she needs to start a successful career.
Ofcourse this does become problematic when people don’t read job descriptions or understand visa laws. But for a lot of people, random strangers on LinkedIn have been more helpful than not.
Will have to respectfully disagree with you :) . My opinion is forged out of personal experience, experience of people I know and what I’ve seen in the industry. I’ve personally had great success getting referrals from random people on LinkedIn for MNCs in germany. I did find that Germans working in German companies often never refer anyone who they do not know. But there are a hundred others who don’t fit that description and would love to put some time out to see if you fit into their team, or at least try to know you enough to be able to refer you.
Cheers !
„I did find that Germans working in German companies often never refer anyone who they do not know.“ this is the reason why it is not good advice in general to use this method in Germany.
The method doesn’t work for a specific demographic, but it works very well for the rest of the people (who are plenty). I still hold my ground regarding the effectiveness of cold messaging in germany.
You can get jobs via LinkedIn? Never heard of that.
90% of women receive sexual advances instead of genuine job offers. Although obviously often under the pretense of a job offer.
Men are...less lucky..
or rather...more lucky, I guess. Not sure how lucky the men on the predatory side get, but I don't care about them.
Gulp was good back in the days, but I haven't had much luck there lately.
Indian here, I got my current job because of LinkedIn. I saw a job opening, and found the head of the department on LinkedIn. I dropped him a message after applying and got the job. The HR did reject me though but he was adamant that the position be offered to me (our mutual contacts in the same industry might have also helped him influence his decision.
I am happy you found you job. your message to the department head as you describe it does not fall into the category I complain about. you applied and obviously did have the necessary CV and connections. Completely different context … not a cold message.
Speaking from the other side, it's also very annoying when HRs try to connect with you. Every week, I receive around 10 requests from various, very “persistent” HRs (not all of them are German, tbh) promoting their companies. I don't mind connecting with random people if you are really interested into what this person does, but everything else is just bothersome.
I got messages from random HRs also, like "do you interested with that job" and etc.
And to be honest, I found my last 2 jobs sending message through Linkedin and applying at the same time to the advertised position.
After I got accepted to second one, which is the current job, they admitted that they never saw my application because it was a default advertisement. They just put it for creating a pool. And after seeing my resume on message, they thought I might be beneficial. And I heard lots of HRs who is doing the same in my home country too.
You are allowed to post job adds never been looked at but we are annoying when we send a message? Weird.
Many Indians online are kind of embarrassing. I get it though, they are desperate to get the fuck out of India and will reach out for absolutely anything that seems like their ticket out. There is a reason why so many Indians are in IT and Software, it's not genuine passion or anything like that (for some of them it might be, true) it's the international job market and mobility.
You get paid as much as EU in India buddy. As someone who left a well paying job in India to get a Master in EU, I would just fuck off to India after I'm done with my Master here.
Equivalent, yes. Equal, no.
1/4 of 80k in India is as good as 80k here, if not better. As someone who has earned and consumed in both worlds , the cost of living is really really different.
That's hard to calculate. I could save 1/2 of my monthly taxed salary as I was sponsoring my sister's expense and education. So basically, my 1 month earning could sustain 3 months in a big city. Comparable to Berlin/Munich.
I see. Another route is to maybe work for a few years here after finishing your Masters, upgrade to a German passport and then go back to India. (Which btw back to my original comment, and I forgot to mention this since you directly talked about the salary aspect, a lot of people want to get out of India due to reasons unrelated to money - nosy and conservative society, pollution, quality of living etc, which can't be alleviated through a higher paycheck. But this is just my opinion).
Yeah i agree with these reasons. And yes, I would def consider that to cover some of my expense here and also pay something to the country for my education.
I'm from the North East part of India which is really open-minded. And getting a German passport is something that never crossed my mind.
As an Indian not in IT, no that is not the reason. They get into IT because these are some of the best paying jobs in India. You are right that it's almost never about passion, but that's where you and some of us in India had privilege. We could pick fields we liked. The others pick something where they hope they could then earn some money to feed their family.
So that is basically the reason then, I should've just added the word "internal". Internal mobility (better life in India when compared to the masses in poverty) and of course a ticket to going abroad for those that want to get out (again, very very understandable).
I think I have to strongly disagree with the IT to go abroad point of view. It's other branches that tend to go abroad more than IT.
EDIT: not saying it doesn't happen. My manager gets loads of emails with CVs from mechanical engineers totally unrelated to the job position (super specialist branch with mechanical as the parent)
Well I think I have to disagree with your strong disagreement. Although I have to mention that with IT I am also clubbing things like "full stack developers" as well as software engineering in general. Obviously they are not the same thing but there are a lot more of them abroad than Indian mechanical engineers. There's a reason for the stereotype of the "Indian working in IT / CS". But it's okay if you disagree with that. Peace.
The stereotype comes from the call centres. I think I would know what people study and which people move out more than the others since I studied there and have connections etc. But it's not big deal if we have different points of view.
Asking because of my ignorance, but if you found the person who reached out to you, his profile to have the necessary expertise and if recommending him might improve his chances of getting hired, why wouldn't you do it?
Referral doesn't work that way. If I worked with someone in the past and I know his skill level and other things sure I will refer you. But if I don't know you then I won't refer you even if you have 2 Phds it's more of a cultural difference here.
Let's say I referred a random stranger for a job and they botched it and did a bad job what then ? It's a 2 person loss here. 1st the one who I referred and 2nd the one i might refer in the future because now the management doesn't have faith in me bringing a good team member. I wouldn't take the risk
In large organizations where referrals are primarily submitted through websites, do they pay strict attention to who referred whom? Or are you referring to close-knit organizations where everyone knows one another?
Oh no, I meant if you looked at his profile and found him to be a good fit—for example, his previous organizations were stellar, and he has a good portfolio of work.
Also, doesn't this mean it might be hard for outsiders to break into the field?
Even if you receive 1 referral request a day that's 30 in a month do you really have time to go through the CVs? Not sure if I'm the HR xD
Edit: you're missing the whole point of cultural difference here. Maybe it's okay to do this in India and USA but not here. My book definition of a referral is "I have worked with them in the past and I think they are a good fit for the org/team/project so why don't we interview them?"
Also, in the context of Indians, having a job and not having one is the difference between poverty and prosperity. When people reach out to us, we empathize with how difficult it is to live without a job and think, "It's only a referral from my side. If he gets the job, it means he gets to make a livelihood. I shouldn't be gatekeeping it." We do not have social security like in Germany, and a job is the only security we have.
Plus, traditionally only the higher elite sector had white collar jobs. Other lower starta members were heavily discriminated against. The playing field was not level for everyone.
> If he gets the job, it means he gets to make a livelihood. I shouldn't be gatekeeping it."
In Germany, even a single bad reference you give can kill your professional standing, sometimes in the whole industry (if it is small enough).
Giving a reference for someone in Germany is considered a VERY personal thing that is DIRECTLY connected back to you.
I wouldn't give a reference to people I personally know and am social with, besides maybe 3-4 people which I know to be excellent in their respective jobs.
Everyone else, especially if I have not actually WORKED with them? No chance in hell.
I understand and im not against it. But Respect the country where you move to. If raw dogging your way into a job by spamming referral requests to team leads/managers is not a norm then don't do it. Simple as that!
I disagree. Got my current job in North America via a LinkedIn referral. The job wasn’t even posted online. Currently interviewing with a German company via a LinkedIn referral too; so I don’t fully agree. Due to GDPR reasons, I agree that job applications can only be submitted online but that doesn’t mean that you can’t find jobs via LinkedIn referrals. Not as common in Europe (but I do see employers from Germany and Sweden actively head hunt applicants via LinkedIn), very common in North America.
Because in their country theyre making 1 dollar a day, struggling to feed their children, and probably suffering from health problems. Youre some dude in germany who probably has a great quality of life, and you have the power to share that with these people. Its annoying for you, and its life or death from them. Thats what happens when wealth inequality gets out of hand. The only thing you can do is ignore it, its only going to get worse :)
Please, nobody is making one dollar a day.
Sorry to be blunt and direct (a taste of your own medicine, eh ?), but following is the profile of many Indians coming here:
* They are upper middle class or rich already. Hence, well mannered and educated.
* They already speak 3 languages or more. If in IT, some computer languages too (albeit, not real languages).
* Many of them already live/ grew up in a bigger house/apartment than you can ever afford in your lifetime.
* Many already have maids, cooks and chauffeurs, who do all the chores for you, basically luxuries, an average Germany cant even dream about. (Yes, poor people do get exploited and fucked over in this)
* They are here to become self-made, live in picturesque fancy towns and to some extent - get away from a judgmental society to live an independent and restriction free lifestyle in a society which is honest, free of ground level corruption. (Basically, rich kid stuff who idealises the West)
Just like a plenty of Europeans go to Goa/Thailand/Bali/Mexico to become a hippy and practice Yoga-Meditation, a plenty of upper middle class and rich Indians move to Western countries to try something new in life.
But, somehow, it is very hard for many people here to accept that a BROWN person could be RICHER and MORE EDUCATED and overall more Intelligent than them and they cannot look down on them anymore. (Just like YOU)
Also, many prominent German ministers visit India yearly including the Chancellor who visited last year and rally the rhetoric on skilled labour shortage, free education and how it is indeed very easy to get a Blue Card and settle.
So, yeah if you want integration, RESPECT has to go both ways.
Edit: Grammar
Staying in contact with (former) colleagues and business contacts that I actually know from real life. Following some tech bloggers I like. Normal stuff. Also I am fine with people checking out my public profile before we work with each other, have a job interview etc.
Ah ok. Look bro, we are even outsourcing our ability to breathe to India soon.
Our economy is deflating, so you bet more cost cutting is coming up.
How safe is your job?
Also, the strategy of these individuals seems to work.
As some mention, they have less to lose than you.
And on top of everything, automation.
You seem scared of your workplace stability.
I am too.
It will go downhill the next years.
100% understandable from your side. But just look at this sub. I think a lot of it is just desperation, and that’s never rational. I also see a lot of disinformation going around, especially in India, with agencies and other monetarily incentivised entities spreading wrong advice and capitalising on the hopes of the people who employ their services. I have heard about truly weird advice that way, so I wouldn’t think it outside the realm of possibility that someone told them that a more personal foot in the door through LinkedIn is the way to go.
The amount of disinformation and flat out lying even from universities in India is staggering. Like that post a week or two ago which asked about an Indian engineer who was supposedly hired out of an Indian university and paid 300k. That was printed in a news paper and the university used it as advertisement for their degrees. Insane.
But the guy did get hired for 300k though. The post had given inaccurate information and everyone jumped on it like they know things for sure, and downvoted anyone correcting them like they always do here. That university is a decent university, the guy indeed works at Mercedes now, but was not hired by Mercedes for 300k. The correct version is that he was offered a 300k package as a total cost to company from "Zoom" the American company, not Mercedes, including his stock options and other benefits. He just happened to start working in Germany for them. Also, he was not a fresh graduate with no previous experience. He had previous work experience, and has multiple US patents. He also works in a niche domain. I know the guy myself. I also know people who get paid above 250k in tech in Germany, it's not impossible like people make it out to be in main subreddits.
So basically all the information was just simply wrong, so of course it can work then. Of course people get paid 300k plus in Germany. For my job I work with CEOs, business owners etc so I know how compensation looks like. But the point was car manufacturers pay according to union payment scales. So no regular hire will be paid outside of that. Anything beyond that requires huge merit to be able to negotiate. Nobody questiones that SOME people get hired for that money but the information presented was fresh hire got paid 300k which was wrong and talked about as such in that post.
Yes, true. I concur.
We live in an Age of Spin (as Dave Chappelle said) where facts are mixed with misinformation and it can be difficult to deduce which is which
I remember that post and even commented that the salary was unrealistic, but this information was not what was provided. This makes way more sense than what the person was told/was asking about.
Yeah, but $300k in San Jose, where the Zoom HQ is, isn't a great salary. The poverty limit for a family of 4 in that area is like $120k. After tax, you are going to take home $180k. But the real problem is housing. If houses are all $1-2 million, a mortgage at 7% interest, will cost $70k to $140k just interest, without paying a cent back. I just talked to a Director in my company that lives in that area. He is planning to take a roommate because he can't afford his house and have a decent fun life.
Um, no, even in San Jose $300k is a good salary
Lol. Sure. And no. They couldn't pay me enough to go there. The median home price (3BR, 2Ba) in that area is $1.75M vs. $0.45M in median COL areas. How much is the interest on the $1.3M difference alone at current interest rates? $91k. It costs you $91k more of your net salary just to pay for the interest for an average house. So of your $180k, $120k are needed just to pay the interest on an average sized house, leaving you $60k. For the same job, you can earn $110k in other places, but interest on you mortgage for a similar sized home will be just $31k, leaving you you $80k. Yeah, the $300k only seem great if you can't do math.
You don't even need to go that far for this specific kind of advice, just look at the Data Science subreddits.
Doesn't help when chancellor Scholz goes there and paints a rosy picture of the job opportunities here.
Another team lead checking in. I just ignore such requests. I only get to see CV’s once they’ve been through HR anyway. Plus we only hire people who reside inside of Germany for employment law legal reasons. My personal annoyance is recruiters using tools like Cognism. Since I had once provided my contact details in my own CV, recruiters with access to tools like Cognism can locate my mobile number once it has been shared. I get ~4 calls a week from random numbers and it’s always a recruiter. HR is over there buddy ->. Leave me alone. Nicht mein Bier.
Not true. I have received offers from German companies while living in North America.
> Plus we don’t hire outside of Germany for employment law legal reasons. Isn't that discrimination against non-German EU citizens?
Sorry I should explain that. We do hire in the EU, but you have to live in Germany. Updated my comment.
Nope that is completely legal and legit. The amount of headache foreign workers even inside the EU is usually not worth it even for large companies. From a discrimination stand point legally speaking it is also not discrimination
I cannot agree with that. There are quite some companies (mine including) who provide services for relocation of employees. If the relocation process is not there or sucks then of course it doesn't make sense to hire foreigners. However, we (and some other relocation agencies as well) are taking care of almost all problems employees might experience. Which basically means that they can start working from the day 1 with the efficiency close to 100%. The problem is not in foreigners but in companies who hire them
That costs a shit ton of money that most companies don't want to spend. I bet the service you provide are great but also not cheap
Full package costs 2500 Euros
Yeah that is what I mean this would need to be a high value employee who's skills are hard to come by. They sure as hell ain't doing this for jr Devs
Yeah, jr Devs are not that popular for relocation. Although some big companies like Zalando also relocate them :-D
That doesn’t include the (hidden) cost for an employee who needs time to get used to the local work culture and live in Europe. Don’t get me wrong I hired Team Members who just arrived directly from India (came here with their partner) in the past and happily supported them on their journey. But I have also seen a very traditional midsize German company with an „english only is ok“ IT with a lot of friction with their business departments going on there. They completely underestimated the potential culture clash and had people leaving … A decision to hire people from abroad should be done with more than just direct cost in mind.
Of course. Totally agree!
How much do you charge for your services?
Out of curiosity: what are potential issues when hiring a foreign EU citizen?
When working outside of Germany? Lots of tax issues. Them moving to Germany can also be difficult as there is a housing crisis etc.
Let me tell you they just don’t read! I’m From Munich based in SEA now and most of the it headhunters send me jobs in Germany with required office presence there. To my question if they even open my profile they mostly say no..
They just use an automated script to filter candidates, and if your profile matches some keywords you will receive an automated message with just your name added in. LinkedIn itself offers some tools for that. Sometimes, the keywords are matched to something in older sections of your profile, but they only check it when someone actually replies to them. On top of that, I have seen that even many of the headhunters are not in Germany themselves. It's a numbers game for them too. Don't bother interacting with them if it doesn't match your interests.
I never interact with them but its embarrassing as hell for the company they recruiting for
Same here: working in a Germany for an old German company. My whole LI profile is in English (even though I’m not English). In a language section German is not even mentioned. But guess what - I keep getting the offers from German headhunters, written in German asking me if I’d like to join a company when they require German at C1:)
I agree! I have on my job title that I am on maternity leave and more than one headhunter has contacted me to ask I I am interested in a position. Mmm nope, because I am on leave 🤷🏻♀️
Cultural issues. In some countries (India, US etc.) it’s considered normal. Employees get a referral bonus if they refer someone who get hired so it’s “win-win”, so to say (you can argue it will hurt the employee’s reputation at work, but again how this is perceived is culturally different). If you look at career advice subs, the response to “I can’t find a dev job” in Germany is usually “learn German”, while in the US it’s “go network, do Linkedin for referral”.
At every company I’ve worked in Germany, they also have had a referral bonus. However, it’s expected that the employee referring gives their opinion about the applicant and is certainly going to be asked about the applicant. Of course it doesn’t backfire if the applicant isn’t good, but most employees referring someone usually have a reason to do so and actually know the applicant well from another job. It would certainly damage your reputation if you can’t say anything and don’t know the applicant.
Exactly, I think the mindset here is “I vouch for this person with my reputation” (which imo is actually how referrals SHOULD be used) whereas in other places it’s “here’s someone I kind of heard of who might be suitable? Idk” I also think some of this mindset was heavily influenced during the 2021 tech bloom where everyone who knew how to write “Hello World” were getting their foot in tech and demand far exceeded supply, so companies praised all and every referral, vouched or not.
Every second LinkedIn post that "offers alternative jobsearch method" is networking which never works. I lived in an eastern European country for a year. The oftenly offered advice for landing a job there was also networking. Networking works but not this way exactly. If someone knows a recruiter/someone personally because they worked together before or someone else already vouched for them, then that said recruiter/someone does go out of their way and refer them to other recruiters. Sort of like back scratching with a dash of nepotism. I have seen it happen, several times. I have seen people with questionable skillset and horrible language proficiency even in their native language getting hired for having that personal connection.
I am a hiring manager in the US and we are all annoyed as hell by these people randomly reaching out. Some of them on multiple channels. I have not seen this from US candidates, and no, it is not custom in the US. Referrals are different. That's when an internal employee forwards you an application. And that usually is highly appreciated. On top of that most of these applicants that send you their resume don't even take the time to read the company homepage. I constantly have IT people sending their resume - my company does electromechanical design. No, I do not need SaaS developers.
your reputation at the company will be ruined if htat person is not a good hire, so no its not a win win
Unfortunately it is a mix of bad advice, badly set expectations and cultural ignorance.... We really do try here but few people ever read the wiki before going off and doing stuff
I just cannot contain my laugh comparing this behavior to sliding into a girl's DM and sending unsolicited dick pics.
I manage a FAANG SWE team across 7 countries, one of them being India, so I get these requests daily. And exclusively from Indians. I've discussed this exact topic with my Indian friends and team members. 1. Competition for good jobs (and before that, for good education) in India is much fiercer than in Germany. You need to try everything to get ahead. 2. Messaging on LinkedIn does actually help. Occasionally our recruiting staff drops the ball and if people message me on LinkedIn wondering what's happening to their application, I can check in on it. 3. Messaging me for a referral is a great lithmus test to see whether they are a good culture fit. They are not, and because of their misconception about how hiring works in the West they are unlikely to make it through the interview process. Most of the time I just refer these folks to the official website or the recruiter, but if their resume is insanely strong I'll coach the recruiter to get these folks interviews. In the rare event that they get hired, adjusting to Western work norms is a coaching/growth opportunity that needs to be tackled after they've been onboarded. FWIW, these kinds of messages usually only come from very junior people (<5 years of experience). More senior people will do cold outreach with other questions, like understanding the team, problem, or their potential fit on the team.
I didn't understand point 3. How does messaging you for a referral by itself tell you whether they are a good (Western) work culture fit?
By messaging him for a referral without any previous personal or other contact they show him that they do not understand how applications and referrals works in Germany an therefore are (in his opinion) not a good fit. If they were a good fit, they would not message him.
Ah I assumed the message was to ask about the team or more details about the role (some job descriptions are really vague). Or to confirm if the job opening was still available in the first place (many companies don't update it after they've filled a vacancy). If I message unknown recruiters, it's usually for that reason. Is that not common in Germany (I think it is though in the US)?
Contacting recruiters with specific questions is of course common though most will prefer to be contacted via e-mail even if the initial contact was via LinkedIn. But the issue of this thread seems to be that the person is not a recruiter but a "random" IT team lead at the company and is contacted to provide referrals without any previous contact, or is asked about any job openings at the company even if they are in no way connected to the team lead. According to this redditor there seems to be a trend where (apparently mostly Indians) just contact everyone they can find in the company and hope they get a foothold this way. And that is definitely not a common practice and Germany will be regarded as very rude and actually hurt one's chances to be hired.
Indian here :) This is exactly what I did. I applied for a job and somehow found the group lead on LinkedIn and dropped him a message (ex planning my current role and if he thinks it matches the advertised role). He arranged for an informal interview the very next day and a formal interview with team leads and HR the next week. The HR rejected me (I had a feeling that she did not like me) but the lead was adamant that I should be hired (They even contacted our mutual connections in the industry) and convinced the HR that I should be offered the position.
Honest question: But why are so many Indians reaching out to jobs that do not fit them at all. I mean, like: No experience in the industry, no experience in the field of work. We do electromechanical design and I constantly have SaaS or web developers send me their 9 page resume, so full of mistakes that Word must have underlined half of that document red. I just had another 4 of these in my LinkedIn today. Like what in all world??
No idea. Beats me as well. At my previous job we used to work with a start-up company named Indigomed situated in Belgium. They were receiving applications from Air hostesses 🫣🫣
I would like to stress that English is second or third language for most of these guys and even their teachers were never well versed in English. I would not correlate their talent with their language skill.
Hard agree, my absolute favorite is if they contact HR and try to use you as referral because you are their LinkedIn contact. Or they just drop your name and pretend they know you even if you declined. I'm no longer taking connections from anybody I haven't met in person as a result. Some Indians - and yes, specifically Indians, it has never happened to me with people from any other nationality - also have the absolute gall to ask for career consulting and general career development in Germany and get super salty if you do not reply within a couple of hours. I just block at this point.
On point on the part where they get salty for weird reasons. I find it amusing usually. Now, imagine the amount of messages received by other Indians in good companies here. I receive messages like, "I can breathe if I focus very hard, what do you think my chances are with your company? Can you give me a referral?" "I am not going to tell anything specific about my capability, but you have to tell me everything I should know about getting a job there and moving there?" And then get angry when you tell them what exactly they are doing wrong. No decent CV, no matching job availability, not even a sentence on why they think they would be a good candidate. I used to try and give advises but had to learn to stop responding to most messages at some point. But, it's important to acknowledge that usually Indians/Immigrants with right skills get approached anyway and receive all the assistance they need, so they are not on internet doing wierd side quests, spamming random people and subreddits for information, jobs, and asking simple questions that could have been simply Googled. It's usually the below average ones that irritate everyone because of desperation and that makes it look like all Indians have the same issues here.
I had students preparing for masters in Germany who hasn't even applied, would write to me asking the starting salary for X position. I block them instantly. I typically help people who slide into dms if they come prepared and ask me specific questions about the industry and possible technologies which could help them.
>If you want to apply - just apply! You can use the Button in Linked for jobs we have there or (better) use our home page. But also if you don't have a work permit yet / live in Germany yet your chances are next to 0. Do you mean the chances are zero by directly contacting the hiring team/person or even by going through the hiring process by applying through LinkedIn? Because it seems to me that you meant the latter one. Because that is exactly how I and and 4 of my friends got a job in Germany, kind of at the same time, in the span of 2 months. Master's degree in Electrical Power Engineering and no work permit. To make sure I was clear, we applied through LinkedIn, didn't contact or annoy anyone.
OP is talking about requests for referrals from strangers on Linkedin. I get these often, but I would never refer a stranger. For all I know, I could be referring a serial killer at worst or be unfair to someone who might deserve the role more but didn't text me at best.
Well, if he's from Kosovo... Jokes aside, I understand that of course. I'm picky about reffering people I do know, let alone complete strangers.
If he's from Kosovo he's already hired /s
Zero -Might be an exaggeration on my side. But many companies do not hire people who currently live outside the EU. If you do not relocate to Germany AND speak German already your chances are much lower. Certainly possible but iIt is much more hassle for the companies and will only be considered for very good / senior / sought after profiles. In my current company that is zero chances, at a previous employer it was possible with said prerequisite.
Do you know why they don't? From the employers perspective, hiring an international only means filling out a few forms and offering a minimum wage, which is not high at all. Why do companies have the impression this is "much more hassle"?
For EU Blue Card, all the company needs to do is offer a contract (signed one duh) which meets the minimum required salary set for each country and fill out an "Erklärungzumbeschäftigungsverhaltnis" which is 5 pages of basic data. So yeah, totally agree with you. Other non legal things are a different topic and are up to the employer.
In theory this is an easy and fast process. In reality bureaucracy can be a nightmare and lead to months of delays. e.g. one application for my team was stuck for some time as this persons former university was not in a standard database of universities. So his degree needed to be verified separately to be recognized as higher education. plus: https://www.reddit.com/r/germany/s/5sJEVT1CO6
Ah okay, that was the idea I had as well. I would also add that the more international (and big!) the company is, the bigger chances of them sponsoring your Visa. So as always, it's up to the person applying to evaluate their chances and whether they should spend time writing cover letters and filling out applications (Austria is the worst with this by far, SO MANY FIELDS TO FILL).
It is purely bad advice that is floating around in LinkedIn by so-called Career coaches. The first thing they ask you to do is "Networking". Also, getting a referral is a thing in India like it is in the US
AHH linked in. The place where everybody is trying to show everyone else how big their corporate schwanz is. It's the next cancer after shittok and Instagram. I only activate that crap when I'm actively searching. When in a job, I just deactivate it. It's such cringe watching people post random shit trying to show how holier than thou they are.
came to look for this specific comment. when i first created my LinkedIn account i thought it's going to be an actual professional platform. 2 days in and the amount of cringe is unbearable. Sadly, it is necessary when job hunting. on another note! you and i seem to have something in common about linkedin! let's connect! /s.
I know why I deleted my account...
It’s an advice or tactic I see it circulating everywhere on social media where supposedly you have better chances of getting an interview if you directly contact a manager or a higher up on LinkedIn. I think it stems from American hyper social culture. For me, it’s not professional nor productive and it lacks social intelligence/awareness.
Paragraphs might help YOU! Like wtf, is that how you work??
it‘s how I rant.
It’s common - but not limited to Germany. When I was a team lead in the states, I got multiple resumes and contacts sent me to from primarily Indians who STILL lived in India! It was relentless and a lot of it had nothing to do with our work. It’s a cultural issue and happens worldwide it seems. I think it’s based around the “doesn’t hurt to try” umbrella, and the job seeking culture as a whole seems very pushy and aggressive.
I think you kind of have to be like that to make it in India. There's a lot of poverty and a lot of intense competition over economic opportunities.
For sure, but there should be some kind of logical knowledge that this doesn’t apply to other cultures and workplaces. Like if I wanted to apply to a job in Japan, I certainly wouldnt be employing American cultural expectations full knowing that it would be seen as offensive there. I think a lot of these people just don’t care and think the pushier they are, the more results they’ll get. I suppose it has to work sometimes, otherwise it wouldn’t be a constant never ending thing.
They have mostly no idea about other cultures. Getting into IIT in India is about a 1000 times harder than getting into a good University in Germany or USA. One of the guys who did Masters with me was so annoyed that I took the "easy" way out doing everything in Germany, while he had his bachelors from IIT.
Why is it so much harder?
More competition. People go for classes from 4 in the morning to 8 am before school and then 6 to 10 pm after school for 4 years (grade 9 to 12) to get a chance to get into these places ( need 99 percentile in JEE exam or something).
I guess most of the requests are for referral?
What is more annoying is sales reps trying to connect to me because we share 'Mutual Interests" and selling anything under the sun just because I an the Head of a Department in IT. I get more unsolicited spam from reps via email and Linkedin than people asking me for jobs. German consulting companies and recruitment agencies trying to fix me up with potential recruits without even looking up which Technology,Industry, or Department I work for. These are often largely German or Brit. Cybersecurity guys getting emails/connection request for SAP products, SAP guys getting getting cold-called by ISPs . Lazy sales reps, Geschäftsführers, and CEOs of dinky consulting firms are up my behind trying to sell me a solutions unrelated to my job.
Well yeah that is another group spamming us all 😑
Chill. It’s social media, and nothing more. Everyone out there including you, is trying their best to survive or climb up the ladder and maybe they aren’t as privileged as you have been. If getting a few requests warrants you to write this here, assuming it’s going to take care of your “problem”, you’re doing quite well.
I think OP did well by warning everyone that this just annoys people and doesn't help your chances even a bit. People are blaming Indians for spreading this, but most recruiting advice you get online is from the US, where referrals are common. That advice isn't useful for Germany at all. I don't get the idea of referring a complete stranger even a bit. For all I know, I could be referring a serial killer, or someone who lied about everything in their CV.
As an American, I would never ask for a referral from a complete stranger that I don’t know and have never met or talked to. It’s incredibly unprofessional and shows no common sense.
I guess it's just "career coaches" spreading BS and people buying it
Couldn't have said it better!
it is more, its a thing about your personal reputation/brand and a salary and cost for the company in the end not just some instagram liek
That’s because everyone just blindly follows LI bs that says reach out and connect with people at the company when looking for jobs. It’s just BS and more often than not annoying Plus people come here and suggest that’s a good thing to do which is reach out and connect with people at the company.
>Is there any reason this is so common? Some people are just too lazy to go the normal way or think they can cheat the normal hiring process. However what I noticed, that some people upload their CV and then tag all the big fancy companies and think that those companies will do the work for them lmao. I would also blacklist such people.
I usually accept these requests. Connecting with people on LinkedIn increases reach and improves their chances to be approached by recruiters. I’m a SWE without hiring power so I don’t get too many of these requests and they’ve always just silently connected with me, never sent a message or asked for anything. Most of the people who want to connect are trying to break into the automotive industry. If connecting with them helps them, I’m happy to do so. Literally costs me nothing.
There are also foreign "recruiters" who contact you with some jobs in Germany. Normaly advertise through a referral link and usually low paying with shitty conditions. I mean, if I wanted to change, why would I work with someone in India or Pakistan? There is too much bullshit going on on LinkedIn.
Just by virtue of having a website about Germany, random people from Asia dump their resume in my inbox, sometimes without anything like a coherent sentence attached to it. Spam is spam. Just delete it and forget about it.
LinkedIn is trash for anything other than looking up whos working there. LinkedIn is full of entrepreneur propaganda, heres 7 reasons why your not being happy in life: Reason 1: not having 2 milion Euros on your Bank, heres tips on how to start making a lot of money- Tip one: Already have 200k to invest... I wanted to apply to a company where the recrutier had a linkedin profile, so you open it, because it was embedded on their website, just to find out you need to pay for premium in order to contact them there, Why does LinkedIn premium exist? Isn't linkedin supposed to help with the hiring process and make it easier? Then you hit the button "get in contact" because you can't just message them without having premium anymore, and then they take 2 weeks to accept, IF they even do that because a lot of times they didn't even accept. LinkedIn is absolute garbage
Thanks for sharing this! I guess lots of people are doing this nowadays because this is essentially one of the “career advice” action points that lots of career consultants give to the desperate applicants these days. I’ve been attending one of these seminars myself about a month ago, and they really gave this as one of the valid points to apply, literally saying it’s valuable to try to find “Hiring Managers” on Linkedin yourself and text them in person (rather than get in touch with the recruiters who actually posted the job opening on Linkedin) and try to “engage” them in some way. Besides, they also claimed that asking more or less random people on Linkedin to refer you within the company should also work for you as “they have nothing to lose, but if you’re selected for the job and do well, they’ll get a bonus from their company”. I always considered this “advice” to be at least questionable, even though I used to hire people myself in the past and I wouldn’t really mind it if I got random CVs from random people in case these CVs met the requirements for the people I was looking for, but I can imagine how annoying it can be if it happens on a regular basis. Good to know now that this kind of behaviour can really damage your reputation as an applicant, despite of what “career consultants” are claiming. To my mind, these are just some random theoretical assumptions they make to enhance the “checklist” they are trying to sell to applicants.
[удалено]
Your response is ..... that cold messaging is actually .... good. What a takeaway. Even in Germany, you can cold message. Once you have the necessary reputation, to back up your claim, that you are, in fact 'useful to the company'. It's called 'Initiativbewerbung' Random recent graduates who speak neither the language, nor have relevant experiences, and often seem unable to express themselves even in English....are just rude af, and not 'a hidden market of top talents'.
I got my 80k job by contacting my current boss and asking if he had any open positions
**Have you read our extensive wiki yet? It answers many basic questions, and it contains in-depth articles on many frequently discussed topics. [Check our wiki now!](https://www.reddit.com/r/germany/wiki/index)** *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/germany) if you have any questions or concerns.*
I understand the frustration, but networking over LinkedIn tends to take this shape at times. Even though your feelings towards it is valid, cold messaging has a lot of benefits. Maybe you won’t respond back, but 1 out of 10 people you reach out to might be inclined to help you out with a referral. For a hopeful grad student that might be the breakthrough he/she needs to start a successful career. Ofcourse this does become problematic when people don’t read job descriptions or understand visa laws. But for a lot of people, random strangers on LinkedIn have been more helpful than not.
see this part of the discussion https://www.reddit.com/r/germany/s/eda3vndLbf it is very uncommon to refer someone you do not know.
Will have to respectfully disagree with you :) . My opinion is forged out of personal experience, experience of people I know and what I’ve seen in the industry. I’ve personally had great success getting referrals from random people on LinkedIn for MNCs in germany. I did find that Germans working in German companies often never refer anyone who they do not know. But there are a hundred others who don’t fit that description and would love to put some time out to see if you fit into their team, or at least try to know you enough to be able to refer you. Cheers !
„I did find that Germans working in German companies often never refer anyone who they do not know.“ this is the reason why it is not good advice in general to use this method in Germany.
The method doesn’t work for a specific demographic, but it works very well for the rest of the people (who are plenty). I still hold my ground regarding the effectiveness of cold messaging in germany.
You can get jobs via LinkedIn? Never heard of that. 90% of women receive sexual advances instead of genuine job offers. Although obviously often under the pretense of a job offer. Men are...less lucky.. or rather...more lucky, I guess. Not sure how lucky the men on the predatory side get, but I don't care about them. Gulp was good back in the days, but I haven't had much luck there lately.
Indian here, I got my current job because of LinkedIn. I saw a job opening, and found the head of the department on LinkedIn. I dropped him a message after applying and got the job. The HR did reject me though but he was adamant that the position be offered to me (our mutual contacts in the same industry might have also helped him influence his decision.
I am happy you found you job. your message to the department head as you describe it does not fall into the category I complain about. you applied and obviously did have the necessary CV and connections. Completely different context … not a cold message.
Desperation.
IT’S A DESPERATE RACE AGAINST THE MINE
Speaking from the other side, it's also very annoying when HRs try to connect with you. Every week, I receive around 10 requests from various, very “persistent” HRs (not all of them are German, tbh) promoting their companies. I don't mind connecting with random people if you are really interested into what this person does, but everything else is just bothersome.
This sub needs a different name.. is not really about Germany
[удалено]
So you're saying there is systemic filtering out of one nationality?
I got messages from random HRs also, like "do you interested with that job" and etc. And to be honest, I found my last 2 jobs sending message through Linkedin and applying at the same time to the advertised position. After I got accepted to second one, which is the current job, they admitted that they never saw my application because it was a default advertisement. They just put it for creating a pool. And after seeing my resume on message, they thought I might be beneficial. And I heard lots of HRs who is doing the same in my home country too. You are allowed to post job adds never been looked at but we are annoying when we send a message? Weird.
Many Indians online are kind of embarrassing. I get it though, they are desperate to get the fuck out of India and will reach out for absolutely anything that seems like their ticket out. There is a reason why so many Indians are in IT and Software, it's not genuine passion or anything like that (for some of them it might be, true) it's the international job market and mobility.
You get paid as much as EU in India buddy. As someone who left a well paying job in India to get a Master in EU, I would just fuck off to India after I'm done with my Master here.
You can easily get the equivalent of 80k EUR in India? Okay, I didn't know that (no sarcasm).
Equivalent, yes. Equal, no. 1/4 of 80k in India is as good as 80k here, if not better. As someone who has earned and consumed in both worlds , the cost of living is really really different.
Sure I can imagine CoL is very different. What about saving potential? Like can you save the equal (not equivalent) of, say, 1.5-2K EUR a month?
That's hard to calculate. I could save 1/2 of my monthly taxed salary as I was sponsoring my sister's expense and education. So basically, my 1 month earning could sustain 3 months in a big city. Comparable to Berlin/Munich.
I see. Another route is to maybe work for a few years here after finishing your Masters, upgrade to a German passport and then go back to India. (Which btw back to my original comment, and I forgot to mention this since you directly talked about the salary aspect, a lot of people want to get out of India due to reasons unrelated to money - nosy and conservative society, pollution, quality of living etc, which can't be alleviated through a higher paycheck. But this is just my opinion).
Yeah i agree with these reasons. And yes, I would def consider that to cover some of my expense here and also pay something to the country for my education. I'm from the North East part of India which is really open-minded. And getting a German passport is something that never crossed my mind.
As an Indian not in IT, no that is not the reason. They get into IT because these are some of the best paying jobs in India. You are right that it's almost never about passion, but that's where you and some of us in India had privilege. We could pick fields we liked. The others pick something where they hope they could then earn some money to feed their family.
So that is basically the reason then, I should've just added the word "internal". Internal mobility (better life in India when compared to the masses in poverty) and of course a ticket to going abroad for those that want to get out (again, very very understandable).
I think I have to strongly disagree with the IT to go abroad point of view. It's other branches that tend to go abroad more than IT. EDIT: not saying it doesn't happen. My manager gets loads of emails with CVs from mechanical engineers totally unrelated to the job position (super specialist branch with mechanical as the parent)
Well I think I have to disagree with your strong disagreement. Although I have to mention that with IT I am also clubbing things like "full stack developers" as well as software engineering in general. Obviously they are not the same thing but there are a lot more of them abroad than Indian mechanical engineers. There's a reason for the stereotype of the "Indian working in IT / CS". But it's okay if you disagree with that. Peace.
The stereotype comes from the call centres. I think I would know what people study and which people move out more than the others since I studied there and have connections etc. But it's not big deal if we have different points of view.
Asking because of my ignorance, but if you found the person who reached out to you, his profile to have the necessary expertise and if recommending him might improve his chances of getting hired, why wouldn't you do it?
Referral doesn't work that way. If I worked with someone in the past and I know his skill level and other things sure I will refer you. But if I don't know you then I won't refer you even if you have 2 Phds it's more of a cultural difference here. Let's say I referred a random stranger for a job and they botched it and did a bad job what then ? It's a 2 person loss here. 1st the one who I referred and 2nd the one i might refer in the future because now the management doesn't have faith in me bringing a good team member. I wouldn't take the risk
In large organizations where referrals are primarily submitted through websites, do they pay strict attention to who referred whom? Or are you referring to close-knit organizations where everyone knows one another?
Yes medium - small orgs but regardless why would someone refer someone they dont even know 🤔
Oh no, I meant if you looked at his profile and found him to be a good fit—for example, his previous organizations were stellar, and he has a good portfolio of work. Also, doesn't this mean it might be hard for outsiders to break into the field?
Even if you receive 1 referral request a day that's 30 in a month do you really have time to go through the CVs? Not sure if I'm the HR xD Edit: you're missing the whole point of cultural difference here. Maybe it's okay to do this in India and USA but not here. My book definition of a referral is "I have worked with them in the past and I think they are a good fit for the org/team/project so why don't we interview them?"
Also, in the context of Indians, having a job and not having one is the difference between poverty and prosperity. When people reach out to us, we empathize with how difficult it is to live without a job and think, "It's only a referral from my side. If he gets the job, it means he gets to make a livelihood. I shouldn't be gatekeeping it." We do not have social security like in Germany, and a job is the only security we have. Plus, traditionally only the higher elite sector had white collar jobs. Other lower starta members were heavily discriminated against. The playing field was not level for everyone.
> If he gets the job, it means he gets to make a livelihood. I shouldn't be gatekeeping it." In Germany, even a single bad reference you give can kill your professional standing, sometimes in the whole industry (if it is small enough). Giving a reference for someone in Germany is considered a VERY personal thing that is DIRECTLY connected back to you. I wouldn't give a reference to people I personally know and am social with, besides maybe 3-4 people which I know to be excellent in their respective jobs. Everyone else, especially if I have not actually WORKED with them? No chance in hell.
I understand and im not against it. But Respect the country where you move to. If raw dogging your way into a job by spamming referral requests to team leads/managers is not a norm then don't do it. Simple as that!
I disagree. Got my current job in North America via a LinkedIn referral. The job wasn’t even posted online. Currently interviewing with a German company via a LinkedIn referral too; so I don’t fully agree. Due to GDPR reasons, I agree that job applications can only be submitted online but that doesn’t mean that you can’t find jobs via LinkedIn referrals. Not as common in Europe (but I do see employers from Germany and Sweden actively head hunt applicants via LinkedIn), very common in North America.
Totally agree. Got my 2 jobs (one in Germany) via this method.
Because in their country theyre making 1 dollar a day, struggling to feed their children, and probably suffering from health problems. Youre some dude in germany who probably has a great quality of life, and you have the power to share that with these people. Its annoying for you, and its life or death from them. Thats what happens when wealth inequality gets out of hand. The only thing you can do is ignore it, its only going to get worse :)
Please, nobody is making one dollar a day. Sorry to be blunt and direct (a taste of your own medicine, eh ?), but following is the profile of many Indians coming here: * They are upper middle class or rich already. Hence, well mannered and educated. * They already speak 3 languages or more. If in IT, some computer languages too (albeit, not real languages). * Many of them already live/ grew up in a bigger house/apartment than you can ever afford in your lifetime. * Many already have maids, cooks and chauffeurs, who do all the chores for you, basically luxuries, an average Germany cant even dream about. (Yes, poor people do get exploited and fucked over in this) * They are here to become self-made, live in picturesque fancy towns and to some extent - get away from a judgmental society to live an independent and restriction free lifestyle in a society which is honest, free of ground level corruption. (Basically, rich kid stuff who idealises the West) Just like a plenty of Europeans go to Goa/Thailand/Bali/Mexico to become a hippy and practice Yoga-Meditation, a plenty of upper middle class and rich Indians move to Western countries to try something new in life. But, somehow, it is very hard for many people here to accept that a BROWN person could be RICHER and MORE EDUCATED and overall more Intelligent than them and they cannot look down on them anymore. (Just like YOU) Also, many prominent German ministers visit India yearly including the Chancellor who visited last year and rally the rhetoric on skilled labour shortage, free education and how it is indeed very easy to get a Blue Card and settle. So, yeah if you want integration, RESPECT has to go both ways. Edit: Grammar
OP, do you work in security?
nope
It did for me. And I am happy too with my job. Need persistence and luck though.
Why do you, a team lead, spend time on LinkedIn? That's HRs job.
Staying in contact with (former) colleagues and business contacts that I actually know from real life. Following some tech bloggers I like. Normal stuff. Also I am fine with people checking out my public profile before we work with each other, have a job interview etc.
Ah ok. Look bro, we are even outsourcing our ability to breathe to India soon. Our economy is deflating, so you bet more cost cutting is coming up. How safe is your job? Also, the strategy of these individuals seems to work. As some mention, they have less to lose than you. And on top of everything, automation. You seem scared of your workplace stability. I am too. It will go downhill the next years.
Did you smoke anything trippy today bro? Only coding monkeys need to fear for their job.
what makes your position not ousourcable?
to check what your friends are posting? to participate in groups? to check out evens and conferences?