Please read ahead if you are planning to relocate from India to Germany for work purposes. I recently went through the same process and my intent is to help those who are traveling the same path. I will go directly to the story.
I was a Software Engineer with 3 years of experience working in a big MNC in Bangalore. I hold a B.Tech degree from an NIT. I wanted to relocate to Germany for personal reasons. Hence I started searching for a job in Germany. Below are the stuff that I did to get interview calls from German employers
- Updated my LinkedIn Profile. Changed my status to ‘actively searching’ and updated my location preferences to Germany. Also I made sure my skills and resume is up to date.
- I registered in www.stackoverflow.com/jobs. This was super helpful to find employers who are willing to sponsor visa. Also there are many startups which posts there job openings here.
- I got in touch with a friend’s friend of mine to get a referral to his company. This will be the easiest option to get an interview call.
I started applying for jobs in LinkedIn and stackoverflow/jobs. Then I waited. I got reply from almost all of them but most of them where rejection mails. I was overwhelmed by the rejection rate (about 80% rejected). But I kept trying. I attended the online interviews of the very few positive replies and none of them turned out well for me. Then one day my friend’s friend called me about the opening in his startup. He referred me, interview went fine and I got a call letter. They wanted me to join as soon as possible.
For Germany, we have to go through the visa process ourselves but our employer will help us with the process. First, try to get a visa appointment in the German consulate in your jurisdiction. For me, it was Bangalore. The visa slots will be open for 3 months from current month. We have to go to the consulate website and get a visa appointment for National Visa Employment. All the slots are almost always booked and you really have to be patient and determined to get an appointment in Bangalore consulate. I used to wake up at 3.30 am (12 pm German time), when the consulate site refreshes and few cancelled slots become available. After trying my luck for few days, I got an appointment 2.5 months later.
Based on the visa interview date, other things were planned. My interview was on13th September. Visa process usually takes around one month. Hence I requested my employer to postpone the joining date to a safe date of November 1. They booked the flight ticket and an airbnb accomodation for October 24. Also a hard copy of the offer letter was sent to me by post.
For the visa interview, you have bring many documents as given in the consulate website. Given below are few of them which needs attention
- Get a certificate of health insurance from your German employer. This is just a paper without any signature from the insurance company which states that you will be covered from your date of joining.
- Take few biometric photos. There is a particular specification (size, background etc..) for the photos you have to submit. There are few photo studios which are recommended in the consulate website (Gkwale in Bangalore for example)
- Your original degree certificate, passport.
- Visa fees — DD taken at any nationalized bank (including SBI). The DD amount should be exactly the same as mentioned in the consulate website. Its better to take it one or two days prior to interview after checking the website since this rate might change sometimes due to EUR -> INR conversion rate changes.
- Download the visa application form for National Visa from the consulate and fill it will all the details you have.
- Take 2 copies of all the documents.
- Make sure you keep 2 sets of documents in the same order as mentioned in the consulate website document check list.
On the interview day.
Dress properly. Reach on time. Prepare all documents in order. Carry an id card. Your documents will be verified, a few simple questions will be asked (eg: What will be your salary there etc..). All the documents + original degree certificate + original passport will be taken. You will get an acknowledgement slip. Now its the wait time. It usually takes from 2 weeks to 6 weeks. But if your joining date is near, I guess it will come faster. For me it took around 3 weeks. After you get the confirmation mail from consulate to collect your passport with stamped Visa, you can go to the consulate with the acknowledgement slip. Hurry, now you have your Visa.
I resigned from my current post after my visa interview day (notice period was 1 month).
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