Subject: CV Order: How Not To Compete For Work In Germany.
From: CV@
Sender: CV@

PS most written few years ago, employment picking up a bit by 2007.

"Comply with German expectations: List your resume chronologically !"
That's Bad Advice for technologists such as experienced
freelance computer consultants, for whom the last job & skill is
most important & should list on front page in reverse order.

Suspect other bad ill thought out advice from those who may
advise the reflex adoption of the standard German employee resume
chronological listing method, inappropriate to us.
 
Locals often fail to "think outside the box" or have objective outlook.
Some foreigners are gullible too & fall for bad advice to conform, but
ask yourself: Advisers may mean well, but are they competent to 
advise ? or blinkered ?

  While America & Britain & China & India etc are growing economically,
  Germany is an over regulated, low birth, ageing nation, with what
  in ~ 2004/5 had still been a many year moribund economy,
  strike burdened, run by incompetent politicians who've spent 15+
  years since the post `wall down' artificial boom, never learning
  "It's the economy, Stupid!", who obsessed on how to shuffle taxes
  & social `benefits', rather than liberalising the economy, to
  remove over regulation, & trigger growth.

  For many years it was no longer even a sensible business cost effective decision
  to Come to Germany (once was, but not after), let alone
  `invest' working time learning the language of what was a dormant economy.
  (Freelancers see peaks and troughs of demand employees don't,
  employees often say "the economy's not so bad" - They wouldn't
  know!  Ask freelancers how's the economy compared to the past !
  Learning German language & culture may be socially interesting,
  but time spent on it isn't a wise Business investment,
  but a leisure time activity.  A wiser investment of time
  would be to move to a more buoyant economy.

People advise: "Learn German first, & apply German style!"  Wrong
!  Either go where where you know the language & customs already,
or offer here's what's needed: specialist tech.  skills
& a more flexible approach.  Germany's got millions of people fluent
in German, Unemployed; Why make your life & theirs harder by competing
in the standard German market ? Sell something different !

Work in countries, companies, & market sectors that pay a premium
for skills & business practices you have.  eg much of the world
wants to do business in International English, ideally with native
English speakers where possible, to avoid a double language barrier
of eg Chinese customer talking English to a German, with higher
chance of misunderstanding. Other good chances: working with people
in ex British empire, native English speaking countries, inc. eg
America Canada, Australia, NZ, India, & English speaking industries
eg aviation, & other high percent English speaking peoples, eg from
Nordic nations, and the aviation industry etc.

Skip trying to integrate into standard German internal job market,
where English is not financially rewarded as a useful extra skill.
Avoid or at least be aware of market sector where 
Germans have advantages over eg English speakers, eg:
   Lots of Japanese trade in English, but a  surprising number
   (compared with other Asians) also work direct in German (Japan
   & Germany were in a common war axis in 1945, I guess some habits
   of learning German remain, & maybe Japanese & Germans formality
   increases empathy ?)
   
   East Germans & East Europeans often used to learn Russian, before
   the Soviet empire collapsed. Russian is an advantage to some
   `Ozzies', except with those ex Soviet block countries who prefer
   to avoid Russian.

   Americans & British etc are are aliens, so less likely to be
   used in certain areas, eg national security sensitive computer
   work.  One mid size  engineering company in Munich once even had
   a policy of preferring Bavarian software houses (not even German,
   but Bavarian!) yet they didn't seem to care about nationality
   of the technologists, just the nationality of the bosses/ owners.

Would a European go to Thailand to open a Thai restaurant ? Not
likely!  So don't learn German language & adopt German methods just
to compete for standard German work, market other skills, a different way!

Ask fellow contractors, eg at Computer Contractors Group
http://www.berklix.org/mecc/ which market sectors are relatively open
and closed.

The author works for a specialist computer services & consultancy
company http://www.berklix.com   His resume: http://www.berklix.com/~jhs/cv/