My Green Card Story: From Frankfurt to New York

Job Search

Like most people looking for a job, I searched online, read newspaper ads (many jobs were still advertised that way then), and looked for other ways to develop leads (e.g. networking). Mind that this was before the age of social media. With hindsight, I should have settled on a city to narrow my search! Surprisingly, I was not intimidated by the difficulty of conducting this search from Germany, which made it more difficult to connect with companies and recruiters. Throughout the process, I learned about a few subtle and not so subtle differences between German and American hiring. My experience during countless phone calls with human resources people and recruiters included:

After explaining my situation (have work permit, have experience, will move) being asked “wait, you are in Germany, and you want to work here?”
A clear lack of interest in engaging with me, perhaps it sounded like too much work or she couldn't imagine interviewing a foreigner
Fear of high telephone costs
Asked to come in for an interview “in the afternoon” (made impossible by distance)
Not much attention given to resume content
No response whatsoever to a job application
Promised phone calls that didn't happen

Not everyone I spoke to acted like that. Most recruiters and human resources people were professional, even when they couldn't help. Perhaps busy schedules explain why some paid little attention, particularly since the job market was so hot. Of course, there is this cliché, saying that Americans maintain an America-centered perspective. It is said that they may not have much awareness of or interest in foreign cultures, foreigners' backgrounds, foreign countries, and so on. Some of what I experienced can perhaps be explained by a lacking worldly sense. However, most of my contacts sought to understand what I was looking for and did their best to help.

Once I understood the nuances of the recruiting protocol better, I adjusted. For example: resumes are much shorter (no more than two to three pages). Here are a few more things to be aware of:

References are uncommon, do not expect to receive (or be asked to provide) a written statement about past job performance
Employment contracts are not common, most companies make ‘employment at will’ agreements using a simple offer letter
Most hiring decisions are made quite fast and rely on the resume, interview(s), and a background check
The offer letter has to state an offer, a start date, salary/benefits, title, location, probation period, etc.
A two-week notice period is acceptable when leaving a job (expect in most cases to start a new job 2 weeks after accepting the offer)

A persistent cliché is that American companies can hire and fire people at will. With a two-week notice period being common, moving from one job from to the next can happen relatively quickly. But this kind of flexibility in the job market goes both ways and doesn't mean that employers can do whatever they want. Terminating someone with cause (meaning the employee failed to perform or broke company policies) requires the employer in most cases to provide proof.

Back to my search. To generate leads I:

Looked up resumes on the web to understand the style, and reflected the typical layout in my resume
Designed an English resume (translation, layout, structure)
Published an English website with my resume
Listed my website in various search engines
Sent a Word document with my resume to contacts I had made
Submitted my resume to U.S. job boards
Searched and applied for open positions I found on job boards
Browsed online versions of U.S. newspapers for open positions
Browsed German newspaper ads for potential leads to jobs in the U.S.
Contacted recruiting agencies in Germany and in the U.S.
Provided friends with acquaintances or family in the U.S. with my resume, to have it forwarded

Naturally, I told everyone I knew that needed a job in the U.S.! Anywhere!

It took several iterations for my U.S.-styled resume to look presentable. The main style differences include:

Keep it to 2 (never more than 3) pages
Avoid details, skills, early jobs that have nothing to do with targeted role
List past positions in reverse-chronological order
Write succinctly, not conversationally about qualifications/accomplishments
Emphasize accomplishments over anything else
Use active verbs to start sentences, such as 'performed' and 'delivered'
Advertise the skills/experiences that are applicable to the role
Get attention by describing what makes you uniquely qualified
Omit marital status, hobbies, and other unrelated information

Advertising how you stand out from the crowd and getting the reader’s attention are key. If on first look (I now speak based on my own experience as a hiring manager) I cannot find relevant experience on a resume, I typically discard it. Basically, when you prepare a resume, you need to decide not only what to include and how to emphasize it, but also what to leave out.

It is critically important that all content on the resume emphasizes measurable accomplishments that benefitted the organization. Avoid at all costs to only list responsibilities! Only describing what you were responsible for will result in a bland listing of activities. Describing what the job was is necessary, but what results you produced is the real story that needs to be told. Try to highlight project or work results in an outcome-focused manner, using quantitative information. The best way to demonstrate what you achieved is to support what you write with things one can count. Preferably you "saved $x" or "made $y new revenue". Even if you cannot count in currency, find another way to express scale, magnitude, impact, etc. using numbers.

You might as well choose to prepare a resume unique to every job posting that you are qualified for. Ensure that the resume shows the essential key words used in the job description. This way, a recruiter or hiring manager will be quicker to understand whether your background is a match.

Other things to consider in a job search:

Talk to your current employer about an internal transfer if applicable
Travel to the U.S. for a few weeks and apply for jobs
Check magazines related to your profession, look for job postings
Leverage professional/industry associations

This should not be so much of an issue any longer due to the prevalence of VoIP services, but at the time I had to locate a call-back/calling card provider to make cheap calls to the U.S.

Maintaining a social media presence was not a great concern for me in 1998, but times have changed and you need to have relevant profiles on online networking platforms.

Also assume that the hiring process for most positions is competitive and that other candidates will be considered (even when a personal contact led to an interview). It therefore is so important to find a way to explain in the resume how your experience will allow the company to solve the problem it presumably has (otherwise they wouldn’t be hiring). Lastly, be appropriately assertive, follow up multiple times once you applied, and never assume the company knows that you want the job - say it.

I followed up three times with a contact before I stopped pursuing the lead. Since I had not narrowed my search to a city, I targeted specific companies that interested me (mostly large international firms) and distributed my resume widely. My goal was to get a job, anywhere, related to my background - just to get started.

Within 3 months, I had established promising contacts in New York, NY, Boston, MA, Sarasota, FL, and Irvine, CA. While visiting these cities during my interview trip in March 1998, I also checked online for local recruiters and scheduled additional ad-hoc interviews.

There exist important nuances in job interviews in the U.S. Questions directed to the candidate must be about the candidate's qualifications for the job. It is illegal for a hiring manager to ask personal questions (about family, age, hobbies, interests, etc.). Here is why: should a personal question have been asked during an interview but the applicant did not get the job, s/he might sue the company (the U.S. generally is a quite litigation-happy society).

The applicant, in such a scenario, might claim discrimination or preferential treatment of another candidate. Basically, the candidate’s lawyer would argue that the company asked about an issue unrelated to the job, and then disqualified the candidate based on the unrelated issue (whether this was the case or not). Courts may favor that viewpoint. Because of the plausibility of such circumstances, hiring managers may come across as timid during interviews since a slight misstep on their end can have wide-ranging consequences. A spurned candidate might not even sue the company to get hired. Likely, the suit will be about money.

Even if it never crossed your mind how you might get treated in an interview, or if you are of the opinion that it would never occur to you to sue a company you want to work for, only provide personal information on a voluntary basis when it does not cross the lines of appropriateness and common sense, and when the information is relevant to the interview content. Put simply: use good judgment.

There exist other sensitive areas in employee relations (confidentiality, harassment, discrimination, inappropriate humor, etc.) that are not in scope of my writing. Once started in a new job, read the employee handbook, understand the policies, keep your eyes open, and learn fast. As always, common sense is usually a good guide.