- Use one big portal, one official portal, and company career pages. Not twenty sites.
- Many startups and mid-sized companies post first on their own career pages.
- Simple Google searches can find these pages directly.
- Each European country has an official job portal that most international applicants never open.
Most people I talk to search on LinkedIn and one other site, then wonder why every job has 500 applicants. The jobs are spread across more places than that, and the less crowded ones are often the best.
The big portals
- LinkedIn Jobs. Good for international and English speaking roles. Best used to find people at the company, not only to click apply.
- StepStone and Indeed. The largest general job sites in Germany, with many roles in German.
- XING. A German professional network that some German companies and recruiters still use.
The official portals
- Jobsuche of the Bundesagentur für Arbeit. Germany's official job portal, with hundreds of thousands of listings, many from mid-sized companies.
- EURES. The EU's job mobility portal, with jobs from all EU countries.
- Make it in Germany. The government portal for international professionals, with visa information and job listings.
Company career pages
Many companies, especially startups and the German Mittelstand, publish jobs on their own career page first. They often use applicant systems such as Personio, Greenhouse or Lever, and you can search those directly on Google:
site:jobs.personio.de "data analyst" Englishsite:boards.greenhouse.io Berlin "software engineer"site:jobs.lever.co Munich marketing
Change the role and city to yours. Use Google's "past week" filter to see only fresh jobs.
Official portals in other countries
| Country | Official job portal |
|---|---|
| Netherlands | werk.nl |
| Belgium | VDAB (Flanders), Actiris (Brussels), Le Forem (Wallonia) |
| Austria | AMS job portal |
| Luxembourg | ADEM |
| Denmark | Jobnet |
| Sweden | Platsbanken (Arbetsförmedlingen) |
| Norway | arbeidsplassen (NAV) |
| Ireland | JobsIreland |
Finding English speaking jobs
- Search in English. An ad written in English usually means the team works in English.
- Add words like "English", "international team" or "no German required" to your search.
- Focus on tech, startups, research, and large international companies. These hire in English most often.
A simple weekly routine
- Monday: check all saved searches and the career pages of your 20 target companies.
- Tuesday to Thursday: apply to the best fresh roles, each tailored, and contact people at those companies.
- Friday: follow ups and your tracker.
Quality beats volume. Fifteen tailored applications with outreach usually do more than 100 clicks on "Easy Apply". If you want a team to run this routine with you, look at my 3-month program.
Free PDF: send PORTALS to @swapnil_in_germany on Instagram for "Official job portals of Europe". See all 33 free guides.
I moved to Germany for my master's, collected more than 1,000 rejections, and then got multiple job offers within six months. I work in digital marketing in Germany and help international professionals get hired in Europe. Read my story.