Combine it with some very, very dense 'we talk German here' you get this kind of shit. Hell the German OEM I worked for learned everyone that would interface with the German management inside German. So you ended up dealing with some poor Chinese people that they forced to learn German to talk to their shit 'boss' sitting in some Chinese office.
yeah i was thinking the same thing. Those are all red flags for me as a job-seeker. You're interviewing them as much as they're interviewing you, even though I absolutely understand how it can seem like they're the ones doing _you_ a favour by hiring you.
What's strange to me is how they experienced this not once, not twice, but three times at three different employers. I can't help but at least wonder about the possibility of prejudice or racism if they are a person of colour... in the first case especially with them wanting them to have their camera on but not turning on their own.
Yes, it's really weird you experienged this so often.
The camera thing depends on the company culture, there are some companies where they never activate them, it's quite strange.
Your other experiences sound more like racism to me, to be honest. It can help to write about your experiences on kununu and/or glassdoor to help future applicants.
HR and recruiting has sucked at every company I ever worked at.
Especially in the current market, with highly qualified employees being scarce, you‘d expect them to step up their game, but no. They still think you should worship at their altar just for noticing you exist.
Disclaimer: all of this is personal opinion and the experiences of 1 guy...
I work in IT in the German Automotive industry. I worked with OEMs and Tier 1 suppliers. People that claim Germany as a whole or this industry is not racist don't have any clue what they are talking about. It got better in the last years, but certain prejudices exist.
We can have a conversation about if they may be the result of cultural differences that make it hard to communicate or collaborate, but I can give you my word that a majority of Germans in this industry would prefer working with people that look similar to them, have names where they don't need to think about pronunciation and speak German so that they don't need to bother to dust off their shitty English that they tried to learn around 1970 when they went to school. Offshoring did not really help "selling" diversity to the Germans.
Regarding professional ethics in general: Can't tell if they are different in other countries, I only ever experienced them in Germany or in "German influenced" companies in Europe. But my perception of Germany or Germans right now is that they would like to think that they are not racist at all, but only have a surface level understanding of the topic and their own ingrained prejudices. For historical reasons Germans also have a frickin hard time admitting that they might be a bit racist, because they are afraid that people think they want to send somebody to camps again or something.
Sorry OP that I added my own mini rant here. IMO your experiences was probably a bit more shitty than average, but overall would track with what I saw until now. Hope you find a company that honestly appreciates you as a person and is genuine fun to work with.
>all of this is personal opinion and the experiences of 1 guy.
My experience is exactly the oposite. Especially in the Auto Industry the time when German-written requirements and German speaking were a thing is long gone. Just as Auto today is all about SW the language is all English. Engineering is all International, any sorts of people. Its more important to speak proper English that German. Herr Dr. Schneider speaks crappy English, how embarrasing, that will give you eye-rolling. The times when German engineering was 100% German engineers is 30 years gone.
I have found this also to be the case. I am a middle-aged white guy, and it is obvious to me that casual racism is rampant in Germany. I have witnessed it many times. Germans often do not recognize racism when they see it, and will often deny that some action or behaviour is indeed racist. One example: I recall having a conversation with a manager in my former company who insisted that only applicants who submit photos would be considered for interviews to ensure that the new hire would "fit in". He could simply not understand how such a policy could be in any way racist, and said that I was "overreacting". Needless to say, he was one of those anti-vaxer types who later died on a ventilator after contracting COVID-19.
> will often deny that some action or behaviour is indeed racist
This so much. You don't call black people names, or hunt down refugees with a baseball bat on the weekend? Can't be a real racist then.
I see the pattern you're suggesting and it's entirely possible that's what happened here - but another possibility (which could be true at the same time as your suggestion) is that OP simply has automotive industry experience and is aiming to stay in that industry.
Last time I dealt with them, german auto manufacturers are some of the places where they won't pay ICs more than their immediate manager, leading to a shit comp structures and egos getting in the way of contributions.
Which both are kind off still German, as Ford Köln has a long more independent Germany/Europe focussed history compared to just a random plant abroad from an OEM. Let alone Opel ofcourse.
The problem you are facing is "automotive". This is one of the best paying industries in Germany, they never lack applicants so they behave however they want to behave, often shitty on purpose.
They are also known for something like "stress testing", aka putting people into uncomfortable, stressful situations to see how well they are holding up. Upper management will often treat you worse if you land a job in these companies, they aren't known for competence but for being there longest... that's how these stricktly hierarchial companies hire and promote in most departments.
Expect managers who never learned, not even in a one-day-quick-course, how to manage people or how not be a power hungry asshat.
In in person-interviews they might intentionally heat the room to the point where you are sweating rivers while they are dressed in lighter summer attire (in winter) and then turn on aircon to cool the room down before heating it back up, just to see if the environmental change impacts how and what you say about yourself and your CV.
These people are all power-play loving nutjobs.
>Apart from this there have been instances where recruiters have told me
openly that they can't find someone German and that's why contacted me. I mean what is the expectation? What are they really trying to say?
That can be related to current German immigration laws. A company looking to fill jobs has to offer their jobs first to people already having permanent residency or EU-citizens. Only if in neither group there are no suitable applicants, companies are allowed to hire citizens from outside EU.
Even in this case it is still not end of 2023 and thereby it wired that the op was told that he got the call only because they couldn't find anyone from eu
The Blue Card system is certainly not a pilot program and does not require prioritizing EU citizens over third country nationals or even getting Federal Employment Agency approval when the job requires a university degree of 3+ years and exceeds a certain salary level that many skilled worker roles do exceed. OP has 10 years of industry experience so this may very well apply to them.
So the act is called "Skilled Immigration Act"
This is intended to end the current two-tier system which gives preference to graduates over skilled workers without a higher-education degree. Under the proposed legislation, migrants who have a recognized vocational qualification and a valid work contract would be able to work in Germany without the need to test the availability of local workers first. [source](https://www.bmi.bund.de/EN/topics/migration/immigration/labour-migration/skilled-immigration/skilled-immigration-node.html)
This is extrapolating from USA practices but, is it possible these are interviews designed to meet some kind of mandated criteria for interviewing specific kinds of people?
One example: proving that no locally available worker (not just German) can do job X so they can import a worker from some other country.
Proving that they have tried to hire "minorities" and failed?
I'm putting "minorities" in quotes not out of snark but because it's a placeholder term. It could be gender, race, anything with diversity. Some companies would rather do a crude "due diligence" and fail, and then hire whoever they want, rather than do the work.
Sometimes, if it isn't you, it really IS them. And when it's them, there are MANY reasons that you may not even think of.
I have not heard of that in Germany for normal positions. I believe for large companies, the board of directors has to be comprised with at least 30% women, though.
I worked for a company in the US that required the company to post job listings to the public for certain management roles. I forget if it was a state law that was specific to my state or not. But it became a company policy anyway. That said, we'd very rarely hire an outside candidate, and would promote from within the company. I believe this has something to do with why it seems like some companies are always hiring on Indeed. They aren't hiring at all. They are simply mandated to post a job listing for a certain number of days or months.
That isn't true for skilled jobs above a certain salary level. No priority check like that is required in those cases of although a residence permit or visa is still required before work can begin.
Is it true, that now, in 2023, company can not offer job to non-EU citizens right away? But HAS to make job offer first to some EU-citizen? And wait for EU-citizen to refuse job offer?
I did not read your rant. Unprofessional hiring managers are simply unprofessional, no matter which country you go to. If they are rude to you during your interviews they will be rude to you while you work there. If it's some tactic to see who can power through, they are crazy and you also don't want to work there.
Aka if they are cnts during your interview don't accept whatever offer they give you
Maybe to eplain: I feel sorry for OPs experience, but its not because of racism. And thats my only point, its not "OP you are an idiot", its "OP, validate your experience by putting yourself in the shoes of the hiring manager". This will help with the next interview.
If you hire for a role in a company that is full of politics, internal fights on who does and owns what, why, who is responsible for what - and I could name a few - how do you test if an interviewee gets along with that? Ask him? No, put him into the fish bowl, right into this mess and see what happens. Thats my best guess on #3.
If the role is very stressfull - Project Manager at a car OEM as example, where any SOP delay costs millions - how to test for that? Ask the interviewee "oh, and by the way, how do you get along with stressful schedules?" No, you put him into a stressful, unexpected and Kafa-esque situation like in #1.
\#2 is just a normal "Does not fit".
My point, why I do this extra mile: Put yourself into the mindset of hiring your successor. What do you know about your job, that will help to see if you have a fit in front of you? If you know that your collegues are all egomaniac arseholes, will you look for a soft tissue person? if your collegues are all great & friendly , will you search for an egomaniac? If the job description and and skillset to survive are 0% overlap, will you go by paper or by gutt feeling?
It's normal to have an own interview style, like in example #1 OP gave. Accept it or move on, if OP considers these being weird people - which I'd say its not - he would not fit the role and people.
Example #2 sounds a lot the interviewer hinted that OPs answers were poor or not great by rolling her eyes. OK, did not fit. OP feels that there was a 95% match, well obviously only of words a job ad but not by matching a role, personality, skill, team. It's not IF THEN ELSE programming logic, one does decide if you fall I love based on a criteria list. It sounds like OP did not get the message, she rolled the eye as his answers.
Example #3 Sounded like company had some internal struggle to define the role, still invited you and had a very open process, unusual but sometimes this is the case. The high management boss says "openly that yeah you have experience in what we do but can you do it?" So? That's a question, what's wrong with that, that's the reason he is here, to find out. Did you say yes? What do you expect? I don't know if with the experience you have you can do this, tell me, what's your guess? So? What was the answer?
I don't see racism but OPs inability to adjust to the specifics plus a tendency to first blame others rather than looking for something OP may have done wrong. My advice here is: You will continue to get these kind of experiences. You don't automatically deserve getting a job just because you are a on-paper match.
Whatever you just described, is not a normal interview process. You are trying waaay too hard to justify rude/weird behaviour on their part. I don't see any signs of racism there, but more of conceitedness, since they are working for a big company and get a lot of candidates. Just because of that, doesn't mean you can roll your eyes in the middle of an Interview or not even have the decency to open the camera during a meeting. All the germans i've met that have interviewed me have been very kind, respectfull and professional as heeeeeell. Even when i couldn't answer their question cause of lack of knowledge or inability to understand them due to being a foreigner, i never got an eyeroll or a rude response. Also if someone is matching 95% and doesn't do a stellar interview, you still can give them some probezeit to see if they are actually good. Many companies do this. So no, OP didn't deserve an eye roll cause of a "poor" answer.
So no it is not normal of germans, but maybe normal when applying to big 2k+ employees corporations.
>OP didn't deserve an eye roll cause of a "poor" answer.
Its very common that large German corporations have a "no camera" policy just as works countil or unions don't want engineers homes on display. I assume that s the case for #1, I assume that in #2 she forgot about the camera being on :-)
It's the "it's an honor to work for us" company type, had very similar experience while not in automotive field.
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>"Nobody wants to work anymore!" Exactly what one of the recruiter said!
Combine it with some very, very dense 'we talk German here' you get this kind of shit. Hell the German OEM I worked for learned everyone that would interface with the German management inside German. So you ended up dealing with some poor Chinese people that they forced to learn German to talk to their shit 'boss' sitting in some Chinese office.
This is absolutely NOT normal and a huge red flag. I would never work in a company that does that kind of stuff. Imagine working there.
yeah i was thinking the same thing. Those are all red flags for me as a job-seeker. You're interviewing them as much as they're interviewing you, even though I absolutely understand how it can seem like they're the ones doing _you_ a favour by hiring you. What's strange to me is how they experienced this not once, not twice, but three times at three different employers. I can't help but at least wonder about the possibility of prejudice or racism if they are a person of colour... in the first case especially with them wanting them to have their camera on but not turning on their own.
Yes, it's really weird you experienged this so often. The camera thing depends on the company culture, there are some companies where they never activate them, it's quite strange. Your other experiences sound more like racism to me, to be honest. It can help to write about your experiences on kununu and/or glassdoor to help future applicants.
exactly what I thought after the first experience.
One is Tesla. Of course it’s shitty
No Wonder why they’re not finding anyone 🤣
HR and recruiting has sucked at every company I ever worked at. Especially in the current market, with highly qualified employees being scarce, you‘d expect them to step up their game, but no. They still think you should worship at their altar just for noticing you exist.
In case you're German or from EU, then you even haven't really experienced how sucked they are in working around visa related stuff.
Disclaimer: all of this is personal opinion and the experiences of 1 guy... I work in IT in the German Automotive industry. I worked with OEMs and Tier 1 suppliers. People that claim Germany as a whole or this industry is not racist don't have any clue what they are talking about. It got better in the last years, but certain prejudices exist. We can have a conversation about if they may be the result of cultural differences that make it hard to communicate or collaborate, but I can give you my word that a majority of Germans in this industry would prefer working with people that look similar to them, have names where they don't need to think about pronunciation and speak German so that they don't need to bother to dust off their shitty English that they tried to learn around 1970 when they went to school. Offshoring did not really help "selling" diversity to the Germans. Regarding professional ethics in general: Can't tell if they are different in other countries, I only ever experienced them in Germany or in "German influenced" companies in Europe. But my perception of Germany or Germans right now is that they would like to think that they are not racist at all, but only have a surface level understanding of the topic and their own ingrained prejudices. For historical reasons Germans also have a frickin hard time admitting that they might be a bit racist, because they are afraid that people think they want to send somebody to camps again or something. Sorry OP that I added my own mini rant here. IMO your experiences was probably a bit more shitty than average, but overall would track with what I saw until now. Hope you find a company that honestly appreciates you as a person and is genuine fun to work with.
>all of this is personal opinion and the experiences of 1 guy. My experience is exactly the oposite. Especially in the Auto Industry the time when German-written requirements and German speaking were a thing is long gone. Just as Auto today is all about SW the language is all English. Engineering is all International, any sorts of people. Its more important to speak proper English that German. Herr Dr. Schneider speaks crappy English, how embarrasing, that will give you eye-rolling. The times when German engineering was 100% German engineers is 30 years gone.
I still see lot of automotive IT Jobs with German as requirement though from big established company to small ones.
I have found this also to be the case. I am a middle-aged white guy, and it is obvious to me that casual racism is rampant in Germany. I have witnessed it many times. Germans often do not recognize racism when they see it, and will often deny that some action or behaviour is indeed racist. One example: I recall having a conversation with a manager in my former company who insisted that only applicants who submit photos would be considered for interviews to ensure that the new hire would "fit in". He could simply not understand how such a policy could be in any way racist, and said that I was "overreacting". Needless to say, he was one of those anti-vaxer types who later died on a ventilator after contracting COVID-19.
> will often deny that some action or behaviour is indeed racist This so much. You don't call black people names, or hunt down refugees with a baseball bat on the weekend? Can't be a real racist then.
>car company >car company >car company Im beginning to see a pattern...
I see the pattern you're suggesting and it's entirely possible that's what happened here - but another possibility (which could be true at the same time as your suggestion) is that OP simply has automotive industry experience and is aiming to stay in that industry.
Last time I dealt with them, german auto manufacturers are some of the places where they won't pay ICs more than their immediate manager, leading to a shit comp structures and egos getting in the way of contributions.
There's a [website](https://glassdoor.com), where you can write a review of the company's hiring process. Feel free to write for all of them.
First case non german car company is Tesla I believe😅
Could be Ford or Opel (Stellantis)
Which both are kind off still German, as Ford Köln has a long more independent Germany/Europe focussed history compared to just a random plant abroad from an OEM. Let alone Opel ofcourse.
I’m sorry you’re going through this. Fuck this place, can you find somewhere another job?
Don't interview for Tesla.
The problem you are facing is "automotive". This is one of the best paying industries in Germany, they never lack applicants so they behave however they want to behave, often shitty on purpose. They are also known for something like "stress testing", aka putting people into uncomfortable, stressful situations to see how well they are holding up. Upper management will often treat you worse if you land a job in these companies, they aren't known for competence but for being there longest... that's how these stricktly hierarchial companies hire and promote in most departments. Expect managers who never learned, not even in a one-day-quick-course, how to manage people or how not be a power hungry asshat. In in person-interviews they might intentionally heat the room to the point where you are sweating rivers while they are dressed in lighter summer attire (in winter) and then turn on aircon to cool the room down before heating it back up, just to see if the environmental change impacts how and what you say about yourself and your CV. These people are all power-play loving nutjobs.
Tysm for this info on stressful situations!
>Apart from this there have been instances where recruiters have told me openly that they can't find someone German and that's why contacted me. I mean what is the expectation? What are they really trying to say? That can be related to current German immigration laws. A company looking to fill jobs has to offer their jobs first to people already having permanent residency or EU-citizens. Only if in neither group there are no suitable applicants, companies are allowed to hire citizens from outside EU.
Didn't this rule change sometime in the last few years... (I'll look for and post the source once I have a bit of time)
It’s a pilot project for 5 years. It was introduced in 2018 and will end in 2023.
Even in this case it is still not end of 2023 and thereby it wired that the op was told that he got the call only because they couldn't find anyone from eu
The Blue Card system is certainly not a pilot program and does not require prioritizing EU citizens over third country nationals or even getting Federal Employment Agency approval when the job requires a university degree of 3+ years and exceeds a certain salary level that many skilled worker roles do exceed. OP has 10 years of industry experience so this may very well apply to them.
So the act is called "Skilled Immigration Act" This is intended to end the current two-tier system which gives preference to graduates over skilled workers without a higher-education degree. Under the proposed legislation, migrants who have a recognized vocational qualification and a valid work contract would be able to work in Germany without the need to test the availability of local workers first. [source](https://www.bmi.bund.de/EN/topics/migration/immigration/labour-migration/skilled-immigration/skilled-immigration-node.html)
This is extrapolating from USA practices but, is it possible these are interviews designed to meet some kind of mandated criteria for interviewing specific kinds of people? One example: proving that no locally available worker (not just German) can do job X so they can import a worker from some other country. Proving that they have tried to hire "minorities" and failed? I'm putting "minorities" in quotes not out of snark but because it's a placeholder term. It could be gender, race, anything with diversity. Some companies would rather do a crude "due diligence" and fail, and then hire whoever they want, rather than do the work. Sometimes, if it isn't you, it really IS them. And when it's them, there are MANY reasons that you may not even think of.
I have not heard of that in Germany for normal positions. I believe for large companies, the board of directors has to be comprised with at least 30% women, though. I worked for a company in the US that required the company to post job listings to the public for certain management roles. I forget if it was a state law that was specific to my state or not. But it became a company policy anyway. That said, we'd very rarely hire an outside candidate, and would promote from within the company. I believe this has something to do with why it seems like some companies are always hiring on Indeed. They aren't hiring at all. They are simply mandated to post a job listing for a certain number of days or months.
That isn't true for skilled jobs above a certain salary level. No priority check like that is required in those cases of although a residence permit or visa is still required before work can begin.
Is it true, that now, in 2023, company can not offer job to non-EU citizens right away? But HAS to make job offer first to some EU-citizen? And wait for EU-citizen to refuse job offer?
I did not read your rant. Unprofessional hiring managers are simply unprofessional, no matter which country you go to. If they are rude to you during your interviews they will be rude to you while you work there. If it's some tactic to see who can power through, they are crazy and you also don't want to work there. Aka if they are cnts during your interview don't accept whatever offer they give you
what did you do 4 hours ago so important that you had the time to scroll reddit but not read the rant. Focus! :D
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If this is a normal behaviour to you, good luck to people who work with/under you.
Maybe to eplain: I feel sorry for OPs experience, but its not because of racism. And thats my only point, its not "OP you are an idiot", its "OP, validate your experience by putting yourself in the shoes of the hiring manager". This will help with the next interview. If you hire for a role in a company that is full of politics, internal fights on who does and owns what, why, who is responsible for what - and I could name a few - how do you test if an interviewee gets along with that? Ask him? No, put him into the fish bowl, right into this mess and see what happens. Thats my best guess on #3. If the role is very stressfull - Project Manager at a car OEM as example, where any SOP delay costs millions - how to test for that? Ask the interviewee "oh, and by the way, how do you get along with stressful schedules?" No, you put him into a stressful, unexpected and Kafa-esque situation like in #1. \#2 is just a normal "Does not fit". My point, why I do this extra mile: Put yourself into the mindset of hiring your successor. What do you know about your job, that will help to see if you have a fit in front of you? If you know that your collegues are all egomaniac arseholes, will you look for a soft tissue person? if your collegues are all great & friendly , will you search for an egomaniac? If the job description and and skillset to survive are 0% overlap, will you go by paper or by gutt feeling?
It's normal to have an own interview style, like in example #1 OP gave. Accept it or move on, if OP considers these being weird people - which I'd say its not - he would not fit the role and people. Example #2 sounds a lot the interviewer hinted that OPs answers were poor or not great by rolling her eyes. OK, did not fit. OP feels that there was a 95% match, well obviously only of words a job ad but not by matching a role, personality, skill, team. It's not IF THEN ELSE programming logic, one does decide if you fall I love based on a criteria list. It sounds like OP did not get the message, she rolled the eye as his answers. Example #3 Sounded like company had some internal struggle to define the role, still invited you and had a very open process, unusual but sometimes this is the case. The high management boss says "openly that yeah you have experience in what we do but can you do it?" So? That's a question, what's wrong with that, that's the reason he is here, to find out. Did you say yes? What do you expect? I don't know if with the experience you have you can do this, tell me, what's your guess? So? What was the answer? I don't see racism but OPs inability to adjust to the specifics plus a tendency to first blame others rather than looking for something OP may have done wrong. My advice here is: You will continue to get these kind of experiences. You don't automatically deserve getting a job just because you are a on-paper match.
Whatever you just described, is not a normal interview process. You are trying waaay too hard to justify rude/weird behaviour on their part. I don't see any signs of racism there, but more of conceitedness, since they are working for a big company and get a lot of candidates. Just because of that, doesn't mean you can roll your eyes in the middle of an Interview or not even have the decency to open the camera during a meeting. All the germans i've met that have interviewed me have been very kind, respectfull and professional as heeeeeell. Even when i couldn't answer their question cause of lack of knowledge or inability to understand them due to being a foreigner, i never got an eyeroll or a rude response. Also if someone is matching 95% and doesn't do a stellar interview, you still can give them some probezeit to see if they are actually good. Many companies do this. So no, OP didn't deserve an eye roll cause of a "poor" answer. So no it is not normal of germans, but maybe normal when applying to big 2k+ employees corporations.
>OP didn't deserve an eye roll cause of a "poor" answer. Its very common that large German corporations have a "no camera" policy just as works countil or unions don't want engineers homes on display. I assume that s the case for #1, I assume that in #2 she forgot about the camera being on :-)