Paper applications remain strong in Germany
12 July 2012
Even in the age of the applicant tracking system, the jobsite, and smartphone apps for searching and applying for jobs, there is still a place for the paper application in Germany, Recruiter learns.
Thu, 12 Jul 2012
Even in the age of the applicant tracking system, the jobsite, and smartphone apps for searching and applying for jobs, there is still a place for the paper application in Germany, Recruiter learns.
Mareike Tönges, engineering firm Atkins’ aerospace HR manager for mainland Europe, namely Germany and the Netherlands, says: “It’s mostly still that German candidates would send a whole application folder. They would send it via regular mail and I would say Germans have the best quality CVs I know. You learn in school how to do an application.”This applicant portfolio would include a professionally taken photo and be placed in a specific type of folder, she adds, calling it “very professional, very thought through, comprehensive”, although adding that this is labour intensive: “As a company we have to send back the CV, the whole folder.”
Tönges was speaking to Recruiter for the Global Spotlight: Germany on p17 of the July edition of the magazine, out this week.
The role of paper is strong in other areas too, with Tönges describing the extensive job sections that would be seen in weekend papers. However, this is not an avenue she uses with Atkins.
“We used to do it and we got a really bad response, I mean zero, so we stopped. It’s just a different business and in our business [aerospace] I’d say job boards and job sites are number one,” she says.
Meanwhile, Tönges uses other online methods, saying: “What I’m using quite broadly Europe-wide is LinkedIn. Unfortunately there is something similar that’s only in Germany and that’s called Xing,” which has meant that for the moment at least, it hasn’t been so easy to get Germany workers via LinkedIn.
According to LinkedIn’s corporate website, it has over 2m members in Austria, Germany and Switzerland, a region with nearly 100m people. By contrast, it has over 9m UK members out of a 62m population. France’s population is about 2.5m higher and it has over 3m members in that region, and the same number again in the Netherlands, Tönges’ other major territory, despite it having less than 17m inhabitants. LinkedIn launched in the German language in 2009.
Even in the age of the applicant tracking system, the jobsite, and smartphone apps for searching and applying for jobs, there is still a place for the paper application in Germany, Recruiter learns.
Mareike Tönges, engineering firm Atkins’ aerospace HR manager for mainland Europe, namely Germany and the Netherlands, says: “It’s mostly still that German candidates would send a whole application folder. They would send it via regular mail and I would say Germans have the best quality CVs I know. You learn in school how to do an application.”This applicant portfolio would include a professionally taken photo and be placed in a specific type of folder, she adds, calling it “very professional, very thought through, comprehensive”, although adding that this is labour intensive: “As a company we have to send back the CV, the whole folder.”
Tönges was speaking to Recruiter for the Global Spotlight: Germany on p17 of the July edition of the magazine, out this week.
The role of paper is strong in other areas too, with Tönges describing the extensive job sections that would be seen in weekend papers. However, this is not an avenue she uses with Atkins.
“We used to do it and we got a really bad response, I mean zero, so we stopped. It’s just a different business and in our business [aerospace] I’d say job boards and job sites are number one,” she says.
Meanwhile, Tönges uses other online methods, saying: “What I’m using quite broadly Europe-wide is LinkedIn. Unfortunately there is something similar that’s only in Germany and that’s called Xing,” which has meant that for the moment at least, it hasn’t been so easy to get Germany workers via LinkedIn.
According to LinkedIn’s corporate website, it has over 2m members in Austria, Germany and Switzerland, a region with nearly 100m people. By contrast, it has over 9m UK members out of a 62m population. France’s population is about 2.5m higher and it has over 3m members in that region, and the same number again in the Netherlands, Tönges’ other major territory, despite it having less than 17m inhabitants. LinkedIn launched in the German language in 2009.
