Where to look for IT jobs in Nuremberg

Hi All,

I'm in Nuremberg, working for a rather large company on a freelance contract. The job sucks, so I'm working on the 'every day I stay is an extra days pay' principle, rather than expecting to see out my contract. Unfortunately, I know the key to changing jobs is to speak more german, but my current job does not allow for any social commitment outside of work. Can't remember seeing anything about selling my soul to them in the contract, but it seems to be expected! Shame really, I'm paid by the hour, but don't have the energy to match my financial ambition!

Can anyone offer advice where to look for IT/Telecoms/Engineering jobs in Nuremberg? Is it like Britain where 99% of these positions go through agencies, or are there any website/newspapers to recommend?

Any ideas?

I guess it might also be worth asking about peoples general opinions on working in Germany. I've been assured by a guy here that this isn't the norm and working is usually laid back (compared to Britain) and 35 hours per week typical. Thoughts?

Thanks.

Mat

Hey Mat,

Just read your post as I'm currently looking for work in/around Nuremberg in IT.
Did you manage to find anything decent? How was it?
I'm currently still living in England but my wife has already moved to work for Adidas so I need to start looking!

Hope your still on the forums!

Vin

[quote name='maher' date='Oct 8 2007, 8:21 am' post='1082877']

>Can anyone offer advice where to look for IT/Telecoms/Engineering jobs in Nuremberg?

At the moment the best advice I can give on this is "dont". IT/Telcoms is nosediving around here at the moment. All the big stuff like Grundig is gone and Alcatel/Lucent are just closing their site in Nuremberg so not only are there fewer jobs but there are lots of people with excellent qualifications looking for one. A mate of mine is a Dr. IT with a slew of internationally used patents to his name and has just taken a golden parachute from Lucent which means he wont need to work until at least october. Hes finding he may not have a job even then though. I know a couple of other IT guys who've just moved jobs but they are more on the network admin/programming side.

The most likely people to ask are still Siemens but even they are getting rid of their IT and Telecoms divisons. if you tried Siemens yioud probably better off in Erlangen, up the road and your chances may improve dramatically if you cast your net towards ingolstadt and Munich, where a lot of the new high-tech stuff is happening. Depending on your pain resistance, Munich is just commutable is you get a clear run to the northern part (90 mins on a good day). Anyhwer furtehr north and youre laughing.

If you are talking engineering jobs - Those are going through the roof, but only for very specific areas. It all depends on what exactly your speciality is. There is some demand for networking people and Linux is strong around here with Suse from Fürth and anything with classical electro or mechatronics is desperately needed.

> Is it like Britain where 99% of these positions go through agencies, or are there any website/newspapers to recommend?

Never having worked in the UK, Im not sure what you mean by "agency", but if you mean temping for engineers there are a few good ones around. I have done some work for Yacht, who I was quite happy with although tehy are based in Munich, so tehre is a question of how well they cover Mittelfranken.

There are increasing numbers of headhunters and personnel services companies around (which might also be "agencies" to you) but its only really worth contacting them if you have seen an ad fpor a specific job from them. They may keep your details if they cant use you immediately but they dont, as a rule, collect names and numbers randomly.

My nr. 1 tip would be to sign up to "Xing" (www.xing.com). This is a German-based business networking website that I have had some interesting job offers from. There is a very active Nuremberg group that holds monthly meetings and its worth going to one of those with a pile of visiting cards and just making yourself known. Again, I had some interesting leads from a couple of those meetings.

The local paper, Nürnberger Nachrichten, currently has a load of technical job offers in its weekend edition and reprints most of the ads in its online version. The classic job ad paper for engineers is the VDI-Nachrichten where you will find most of the technical jobs that also get offered in the Süddeutsche Zeitung saturday edition and the FAZ (Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung) which has national jobs for all branches. The advantage of the FAZ/Süddeutsche is that there are lots of ads from headhunters so you may be able to blind apply to some of them.

> I guess it might also be worth asking about peoples general opinions on working in Germany.

Ive been doing it for 20 years now and havent regretted a minute.

> I've been assured by a guy here that this isn't the norm and working is usually laid back (compared to Britain) and 35 hours per week typical. Thoughts?

Hes wrong. My experience, although I have never actually worked as an engineer in the UK, just with them, is that the UK and engineering life there in general is a lot more relaxed than in Germany. I dont know any engineer doing a job worth doing over here who doesnt have a 40 hour week (and mostly a 40 hour contract - I dream of only doing 40 hours, but Im a manager) and anyone doing 35 hours is stuck in a no-responsibility workshop job buried in Siemens somewhwere (been there, done that, resigned). YMM however V.

All the international Job websites such as Monster will allow you to filter at least down to Bavaria if not Nuremberg and if all else fails, the German job Centre ("Agentur für Arbeit") has a surprisingly comprehensive job listing website.

Of course, one problem remains - If you dont speak German, the sooner you learn it, the sooner you have a decent job.

Drop me a PM if you need some more help. Ive just recently changed jobs (albeit as a mech eng) so a lot of this is still fresh ;-)

andy M