How to write a German resume

Learn how to write the perfect resume in Germany, otherwise known as a CV or a Lebenslauf, with helpful tips, requirements, and examples.

If you’re looking for a job in Germany, you need a good resume, otherwise known as a CV or a Lebenslauf. The requirements are a little bit different here, but the same basic principles apply.

Whether you’re a new grad looking for your first job or a seasoned veteran of the job hunt, you know that a clear, well-written resume is essential to getting an interview and eventually getting employed. If you’re from the US or Canada, you’ve probably used the word resume to describe the document that you send to apply for jobs. If you’re from Europe or other English speaking countries, you’ve probably used CV, which is short for curriculum vitae. In this article, I’m going to be using the word CV because we’re in Germany, but I’m referring to them interchangeably.

What’s different in Germany

The equivalent of a CV in Germany is the Lebenslauf, and there are some conventions about those that you should follow. The first is the section about your personal details, which should go at the very top of your page. This should include the following:

• Your name
• Your phone number
• Your date of birth in day-month-year order
• Your place of birth
• Your nationality

On the opposite side of the page, a Lebenslauf typically includes a photo. This is a point of contention for non-Germans who aren’t accustomed to it. If you have a professional LinkedIn photo that you’re happy to show off, or any decent high resolution picture of yourself from the chest up that shows your face in good lighting, be confident and include it. If you’re against the idea of showing your face on a job application, take some time to think about it. This won’t automatically disqualify you from being hired at companies that are getting applications from an international talent pool, but it may influence a recruiter’s decision to review your application thoroughly.

The other major difference is the length — a Lebenslauf is less restrictive than an American resume where experts strictly recommend a single page. I’ve seen 8-pagers in size 16 font, double-spaced, with a ton of empty space. I don’t recommend this. However, if you have enough substantive content that you consider necessary to include in your CV, go ahead and use a second page.

What this CV building guide is all about

There isn’t a single best CV template or best CV design that you should just copy. There’s certainly no best German CV template either. Don’t fall into the trap of downloading a template from a 2 minute Google search and calling it a day. You can use resume building services that help you lay out your content in an orderly way, but there’s no quick fix that will magically build a winning CV. There’s no such thing as a single perfect CV format, but this guide will help you think deliberately about your work experience and accomplishments so you can present the best version of your professional self. Note that this guide is all about English language applications for English speaking jobs in Germany.

Companies in Germany that use English as their business language are looking for English language talent for a variety of roles, and are moving towards a more international style of CV. The answer to how to write the perfect CV in Germany isn’t much different from how to write a good resume in the US, or wherever else you’ve previously worked. Big companies often use application tracking software (ATS) that automatically parses out the content of applicant CVs to retrieve contact information and search for keywords and phrases. Some even score CVs and prioritize them for recruiters, so your CV may not even be seen by a person if the ATS can’t read the format or gives you a low score. With that in mind, let’s get into the five German CV tips to help you get hired.

Don’t know where to start? These five steps will help you write a successful CV.

Step one — use a simple text-based layout

While there are exceptions to the rule, particularly if you’re applying for a designer position, strong CVs from highly qualified candidates are “boring” in that they’re mostly text, mostly black and white, and are written in generic typefaces. What they get right is the content of the document itself. Don’t let your actual qualities get lost in poor presentation. The last thing you want is for your CV to be disqualified immediately because of a bad first impression, or because it’s in a format that an ATS can’t read.

• Use a basic sans serif typeface like Arial in size 11 or 12 font.
• Set one inch margins.
• Don’t include additional images, graphics, charts, or tables. A chart that shows your “skills” with little dots is a waste of space. Your skills will be self-evident in your experience and achievements. We’ll get to this later.
• Use color sparingly, if at all.
• Don’t use two columns or any creative layout tricks.
• Don’t use headers and footers in Word.

Step two — follow some common sense formatting and writing rules

After you establish a visual structure for your CV, you can format your content. The key is to help the recruiter read highlights of your past accomplishments as quickly as possible, so a clean and consistent style is mandatory.

• Use standard section headings with terms like Experience, Education, Skills, Accolades, etc. No one will give you bonus points for trying to be clever by calling these sections My Career So Far, My Degrees, What I’m Best At, and What People Are Saying About Me.
• Make it easy to read the names of the companies you worked at, the dates you were there, and the job titles you held there.
• Write about your achievements in reverse chronological order from the present to as far as back as relevant in your experience.
• Write in bullet points, not paragraphs.
• Don’t include more than 3–5 bullet points about every role. You should be able to distill the most important parts of the experience into a few cohesive statements.
• Keep consistent sentence formatting.
• Write in the first person.
• Write about your present job in the present tense and past jobs in the past tense.
• If you’re using any acronyms or abbreviations, spell them out first. This helps with being read by an ATS but it also clarifies for recruiters who may not be experts in your field.

Step three — mirror the language used in the job description

If you’re not sure how to start writing about your work experience in bullets, try borrowing the language used in the job description itself. This doesn’t mean you should just copy the job requirements, but the language should remind you of the work you’ve done and help you communicate it back in simple terms.

• Rephrase a job requirement if it describes one of your existing job responsibilities or summarizes one of your previous projects.

For example, if a job listing says “Lead the development of quarterly social media content calendars,” your bullet point could say “Lead ideation, creation, and implementation of social media content calendars” or “Develop content calendars for social media channels including Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn.”

• Consider the fact that an ATS might look for certain keywords in your CV, but recognize that it’s going to scan for everything that a real person would look for anyway. You should already be writing in a way that builds a direct connection between your experience and the open position. Don’t think about it as stuffing keywords — think about it as using persuasive language to illustrate your work experience, highlighting successful projects and achievements.
• If you’re making a career change or you’re applying for a role that’s different from your previous roles, adjust your language to reflect the competencies of the role you want. You can’t expect to get an interview for an Affiliate Marketing Manager position if your CV is all about customer service.

This is one of the only times where I would recommend creating a “personal statement” section so you can write about the role you want and use some of that language. For example, you could say you’re an “experienced customer success manager with affiliate marketing experience running a personal blog for 5 years — looking to apply my affiliate expertise full-time.”

Step four — be honest, but persuasive

This is the most important part. People tend to under or oversell themselves in their CVs, so you have to strike a balance between being honest and persuasive. Be truthful about your experience, communicate the value of your work in positive terms, and show that you’re a team player.

• Start every bullet point with an action word (a verb), and stay consistent with your formatting of each bullet. Consider the following examples:

1. Led the development of…
2. Managed quarterly budget of…
3. Directed strategy for…
4. Created a series of…
5. Delivered reports on…
6. Implemented campaigns for…
7. Founded a resource group for…
8. Executed new techniques to…

• Lead with the bullet point that best works as a summary of your role, or is the most important function of your role.
• Create a section called “Projects” for each job you’ve had and just list specific projects and their outcomes.

For example: “Implemented a new attribution model that increased accuracy by 16% from previous year.”

• Include concrete details about the outcomes of projects you’ve been involved with, including any data that show growth or improvement.
• Don’t make things up because you think no one will check.
• Don’t include competencies that are irrelevant for the role you’re applying for.
• Don’t include competencies you don’t actually have. Knowing how to organize rows and columns in a spreadsheet is not the same as knowing how to run analyses and pivot data in Excel.
• Don’t just list the topic or category of work you did. A bullet point that just says “social media” isn’t useful.
• Don’t try to wow the hiring manager with your interests unless they’re directly applicable to the role and/or the company. You will have plenty of opportunity in the interview process to show off your personality.
• Don’t include quotes or testimonials about yourself in your CV.

Step five — pay attention to the finer details

Check off these final steps before you press submit.

• Rename your file with your full name and CV and maybe the job title. For example — “JohnSmith-CV-Product Manager.docx”
• If you’re sending your CV directly to a recruiter or employer via email, it’s fine to send as a PDF. It will preserve your formatting so you know it will look exactly the same on that person’s computer. If you’re submitting your application on a website and you’re confident it’s going into an ATS, read the fine print to see if the page accepts PDFs. If not, you’re better off submitting in .docx format so the ATS can read it.

Summary

The future of work and recruiting may evolve beyond the need for document-based CVs, but before we get there, it’s important to think critically about your CV and put in the time to make it work for you. Now that you know how to write a resume in Germany, check out these articles about relocating to Germany including “how to get health insurance in Germany” and “how to be a freelancer in Germany.”