The Germany Expat Business Show
A podcast that shares knowledge, stories and inspiration for anyone starting, running or growing a business as a non-German in Germany.
The Germany Expat Business Show
Dedicated to make moving to Germany and finding work easier with Cheryl Howard
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A Canadian in Berlin for 10+ years, Cheryl has the unique experience of moving to Berlin – not once, but twice. During her time in Berlin, she's had five different visas and worked as both a freelancer and a permanent employee for numerous German companies.
Her day jobs include working as a hiring manager, overseeing the recruitment of countless individuals, as well as a team coach helping people work better and find happiness in their careers.
The combination of her personal and professional experience means she knows exactly what it takes to move to Germany and find work. In 2021, she created the The Berlin Life, with a mission to help make moving to Germany and finding work easier. The Berlin Life provides guides to life in Berlin, career coaching services, and connections to a wider community.
In our conversation we covered:
- How and why Cheryl started The Berlin Life
- How she balances The Berlin Life as a side hustle with her full-time job.
- How she focuses on organic SEO for growth
- Some pracitical tips for crafting powerful CVs and cover letters tailored to the German market
- Why she switched form ConvertKit to Substack for her newsletter
- How she generates revenue with the website and newsletter
- The current state of the German job market and broader economic trends
- Whether or not you can find a job in Germany just speaking English
- How to find more efficient ways to manage time and the idea of reducing regular working hours to focus more on a hustle.
Where you'll find Cheryl and The Berlin Life:
The Berlin Life website
The Berlin Life Instagram
The Berlin Life Facebook Group
The Berlin Life on LinkedIn
You can find this episode and all episodes as well as show notes for each at https://thegermanylist.de/the-germany-expat-business-show-podcast/
Starting or running a business in Germany as a foreigner? Already running an online business in Germany as an expat? Wanting to grow your German-based business? Working as a freelancer in Germany? You'll love my guide with over 30 resources for expat business owners in Germany.
Hi, I'm Eleanor Meyerhofer, a native Californian designer and digital strategist. In October of 1999, a few years after graduating from design school, I flew from San Francisco to Munich with a fistful of Deutschmarks, a dial-up connection and an extremely vague plan. Twenty-plus years later, after a 10-year stint at a global agency freelancing and launching two online businesses, I'm still here. Now I'm talking to other expat business owners to share knowledge, stories and inspiration for other non-Germans running businesses in Germany. I am here with Cheryl Howard of the Berlin Life, which you may have heard of, and I am going to kick it off by asking you the question, cheryl, that I ask everybody, which is what is the two-minute story of how you ended up in Germany and where are you?
Speaker 1:from Okay. So hi, thanks for having me on. I'm originally from Toronto, canada, and I first came to Berlin in 2011 on one of those working holiday visas and I came without really much of a plan. I was on career sabbatical. I wanted to do something different, so I decided I would move to Europe, and Germany seemed to be the most attractive location because it had job prospects and other things like that and being in Central Europe and really conducive for traveling. I was pretty excited about that. So, yeah, I came in May of 2011.
Speaker 1:And for the first six months, I was just continuing my career sabbatical, got used to living to life in Berlin, meeting people, traveling a lot. So I was in Italy, I was in Spain, I was all around. And then, yeah, after about six months, money started to run out and I knew I needed to find a job or come back home to Canada. And, yeah, I ended up becoming a freelancer. So I did a mix of IT project management, which was what I did as a day job before, and I was also doing some travel, blogging and writing for a local hotel, so it was a good mix.
Speaker 1:And then, yeah, things got complicated, so I ended up moving back home to Canada after 18 months and I stayed there for two years, but the whole time I I was there, I was plotting my way back, so I was learning German, I was seeking job, coaching, and I just moved back when I found a job and I didn't have to. I didn't like the freelancing life and like unpredictable income and late invoices and all this stuff and all the hustling that you have to. So, yeah, I came back with a full-time job and since then I've worked as a scrum master and agile coach and in more recent years I work as like a team coach. And then on the side I run the Berlin Life and, yeah, I kind of call myself like a co-founder of Berlin Life. The mission is to help people move to Germany and find work, and more specifically Berlin if they want, and yeah, so I also offer some career coaching services through there. So, yeah, that's why I'm here, and now this year I'll celebrate 10 year anniversary of Berlin Life. Wow.
Speaker 2:Well, so, OK. So let's launch into that the berlin life. Why don't you tell the folks at home what it is and how you got the idea for?
Speaker 1:it. Yeah, sure, um, so, so yeah, I guess, like when I had first moved here, I was writing not only about travel but also what it was like to live in berlin, and I was just sharing my personal experiences more than anything. So I was writing about, like how you make friends in a new country and what was working for me, how to find a job, and that's the one that really changed everything, because back then, by no means was I an expert at finding a job. I just shared the things that worked for me, especially as I moved back. So and it became really popular and yeah, it was like I think for a while it was the most popular page on my, on my travel blog, and or it was like a travel and kind of like I don't like the word anymore but expat living. So, yeah, and like finally, I think like during pandemic, our company wasn't doing well because they were a travel company, so the revenues quickly plummeted and so we were all on Kurtzer Byte. So like that short term, no-transcript. I was also on the other side of it.
Speaker 1:I kept working for startups that were either going out of business or like reorganizing and laying people off, so I had to find a job a lot, and so I kind of took all the content that I had and I moved it to the Berlin Life. I moved it off of my travel blog. So I started just writing guides like okay, here's how to find a job, here's how to do a cover letter, here's how to do a CV. That's kind of like relevant for the German market and also showcases you know people's I don't know the best version of themselves. Like a lot of people make mistakes, like they just list out their duties for their job, which is really boring. But like say, for example, if you're whatever you are a product manager or a marketing manager the tasks tend to be the same and especially if you've done it for a long period of time, so you need to focus more on other things that you did, like projects that you led or like results that you have.
Speaker 1:So I get, I help people kind of explore those things you know, kind of teach them how to make it relevant to their job and those types of things, so it ends up showing a much more impactful version of themselves that really reflects who they are. And yeah, so it's a combination of those guides, career coaching services, as well as like a community. So we host, like monthly events. So sometimes we have like for lack of a better name, I don't know what else to call it, but like a ladies networking dinner, where you just meet other professional women in Berlin and have a nice dinner, chatting, chatting. Or we have one at the end of the month in a beer garden which is for everyone and again it's the same just for people to come out and connect with others, especially if they're new and lonely here. Yeah, so I think that's about it.
Speaker 2:It's a lot of things, but it's cool all right, I have some like a bunch of follow-up questions, but the first one is so when you started posting, was this just like a, a blog, and then did it become a newsletter Like? Can you tell me how that started?
Speaker 1:Sure, yeah, so in the beginning it was more like a blog with just career guides and then, yeah, right around the same time that I formally launched the site, I also started a newsletter and, yeah, it's kind of morphed and changed a lot over the years, but I was always trying to share like hey, here's some companies that are hiring right now, here's like I don't know startup news who got funding recently. It could be good places to look for jobs and advertising the events, and sometimes sharing brands, like how, I don't know how, it's kind of like a practice in Germany to add photos to your CV, right, and there's like a whole thing around that. So sometimes I would give out advice like don't feel pressured to put your photo on your CV if you don't want to. So just things like that. Okay.
Speaker 2:And did you find? Okay, so sorry, what year was it when you started this?
Speaker 1:It was kind of unofficially started in 2020, but officially in 2021. So like it was happening on my old website, but then I finally shifted everything over to the BerlinLifecom in 2021.
Speaker 2:Okay, and you used a com, not a me. Was that deliberate? Or you just picked com? I don't know, I like com. Okay. And you used a com, not a me. Was that deliberate? Or you just picked com? I don't know, I like com, okay, okay.
Speaker 1:So I just picked com.
Speaker 2:Yeah, okay, and did it just grow organically or did you try and like optimize it for SEO? I mean, how did you A, how did it grow, and did you do any intentional things?
Speaker 1:grow and did you do any intentional things? I guess mostly it's from, like, organic SEO. So I I'm it took. It took a little while, but, like, maybe after a few months, like the, a lot of the posts that I was writing started to get more traction and more traffic. So that, yeah, so that was just through writing search engine optimized posts.
Speaker 2:You did optimize the posts. You didn't just pull up to your desk and start banging out whatever. Yeah, Okay, okay.
Speaker 1:And yeah, but I never did like any SEM, like any search engine monetization, so I've never done like Google ads or Facebook ads or anything like that. And then the rest, I guess, has just been through like mostly like word of mouth and also sharing things on social media, so like on Twitter or I think before. I think just mostly on Twitter and Facebook. And at the moment I'm trying to focus on growing other social properties because I know Google searches a little bit, or at least Google organic searches on its way out. So I want to be ready for that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, interesting times Interesting. Okay, so you did that and this is totally only interesting, maybe, to me. But can I just ask what platform the site was on and what your newsletter is on?
Speaker 1:yeah, so my website is on WordPress, okay, and then I also use an add-on to WordPress, divi, which helps, makes building the site a little bit easier and maybe a little bit nicer. Well, I don't know if building the site is easier, div easier and maybe a little bit nicer. Well, I don't know if building the site is easier. Divi is a bit complicated, but once you get the hang of it, it gets easier with time, and originally it was on ConvertKit for the email newsletter ConvertKit. They have a lot of great features, but they're really expensive, like after you get over a thousand subscribers, and then it goes up again if you go over 3 000 subscribers. So I switched to stop sub stack and I'm kind of just testing it out for a while. But the the number one reason I switched over is because it saves me 50 euros a month yeah I.
Speaker 1:I've heard that there's maybe some disadvantages with them, but they don't have feature parity with convert. But it's like good enough and the ConvertKit features that I still need I can use under their free plan.
Speaker 2:So okay, okay, Thanks for indulging so well. Last question and you said do you have also like an online membership or is it like an in-person? Did you mean a membership is more of the meetups kind of?
Speaker 1:yeah, it's, or it's not a membership per se, but just a community. Okay, we have different informal ways of doing that. I have a facebook group with a lot of people in it, but facebook is really terrible with reach. Like there's 8 000 people in the group and you can post something and 30 people will see it. Oh, really, in the groups, even. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Ah you can't pay to amplify in the group either. You can kind of do these annoying at everyone comments. I do it like once a week. If you abuse it, then people will just leave. Yeah, will just leave, yeah. So I do it once a week when, just as a way to kind of amplify the reach of the newsletter to get like other people reading it, okay, but yeah, the participation is in. It is really low. Probably at some point I may look into like getting a volunteer who can help with like community engagement to see if we put some life to it.
Speaker 1:And we also have a small Slack group. Oh, I'm in that group, yeah, and participation there is always varied. It's really hard and it's probably like the lowest on my list of items to look at because I'm usually like working on writing the newsletter, developing or updating content. But yeah, that's something I like to look into more. And then of, of course, we have like the, the in-person events, which are which are really nice. So far all of them have been pretty good. We keep them small, casual, it's not like big, it's not a big party, it's not big. Sponsored meetups yeah, it's just like really chill chances just to connect with other people, hopefully other people who are either working or looking themselves. So it's a nice way for people to meet one another and, you know, just establish that some connections in Berlin, so yeah, you?
Speaker 2:is this your? Is this your main job, or is it a side hustle? It's a side hustle. Okay, that's a lot yes, it is.
Speaker 1:I have no life. I need to. I need to find some ways to become a little bit more efficient with my time. But I mean, like I, my employer, my full-time employer, is pretty good. You just have to let them know that you have a side business and there's numerous people who who have them. We have another colleague who has like a, I think he prints t-shirts or something you know, and another colleague who also does coaching. So they're pretty good as long as you let them know and you have to sign some sort of agreement to say it's not like interfering with your work. So yeah, I guess that's one nice perk about living in Germany. If you do everything officially and you declare your taxes and you get okay from your employer, it's great that they're so open to that and not like conscriptive about it or something yeah and okay.
Speaker 2:So let's go back to your. The people reading your newsletter and obviously the people in your community are already there in Berlin, but do you like what percentage of your readers are within Germany and what percent are without? I'm actually not sure.
Speaker 1:That's probably something I should look into. I think it's a mixture, because it's not just for helping people move here, it's also for helping people find work. So a lot of people who are subscribed to the newsletter might be already here looking for a job. So I would say it's a pretty good. It's a pretty good mix. But yeah, I should probably look into that more and maybe segment the newsletter a bit but can you get those stats?
Speaker 2:because I no longer I can no longer see where people are in my. I mean, I do not use a sophisticated email tool, I just use a squarespace one. But yeah, I, I wasn't sure if that's like a data privacy thing. Now you can't see where people are I have.
Speaker 1:I have, like some, the back end of substack offers, like they have like some stat but I would have to look into it more but they do have something on the back end that kind of gives you like a general distribution of where people are at. Yeah, it's not, it's not coming up yet, but yeah, I think there's. Yeah, it would be a good question to ask readers too, because perhaps it segment them a bit or something.
Speaker 2:Sometimes they'll tell you I know like if I've never used ConvertKit, it was like way too much firepower for me. But I know you can have people can click stuff and then you can. That just generates a tag and then you can segment Anyway. So I mean it's a side hustle, but I mean I'm guessing it's a lot of work and I'm sure you're not entirely doing it out of the goodness of your heart, meaning like, are there ways you are like getting some revenue or like monetizing it at all, and what are they?
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's always part of it. I do you out of the goodness of my heart. I like kind of keeping like this. There's a lot of people who try to like gatekeep information or they try selling bad information even worse when it's bad information. So it's always a fine line deciding where to monetize or not. So at the moment at least, the guides are free and they are pretty detailed and I do work hard on them. And then anybody who wants help with their job application or practicing for interviews, which is more on the services side that I offer I do charge for those. I even recently put up the prices a little bit because I just realized how much work I was putting in.
Speaker 1:Might make people hesitate a little bit, but it's the only way to to keep things sustainable, especially because on top of that you have like your monthly operating expenses, like web and other things that come up, and then of course, like record, like recording everything and submitting the taxes. So at the moment it's a little bit hard and I'm definitely not becoming rich. That's why I'm hoping to try to find some more ways to make it like to work more efficiently, to maybe have like a passive income. So I do get a little bit of income from there and I'm just starting to get into it more. But also like affiliate marketing and, yeah, I got to spend more time on it. I've been doing it over the past couple of weeks but, like you know, amazon links, thanks with some of the housing providers and things like that. Just partnered with one of the local coding schools as well. But I mean, all of those things take time, time, yeah it's.
Speaker 2:I just I'm gonna try and record one episode where I don't complain about tax preparation. But I just did like a spreadsheet, like I get a thing from my tax advisor like the baby, ah, and everything and I know all of that. But I made my own spreadsheet and just taxes, expenses, everything and like what you have to make to just kind of break even. It is it's a lot, you know, and Berlin is not cheap anymore and Munich certainly isn't cheap. But it's like you don't need money mindset coaching, you just need a spreadsheet to go. Oh, I mean, sure, no shame on money, money mindset or whatever. But it's also when you just see the numbers it's like, oh, I'm gonna just make myself a mini job. If I don't like up my prices, yeah it's a balance.
Speaker 1:yeah, I mean it. I mean the because, like I, I'm, like I'm single and I don't have kids at the moment, like I have to support myself. I mean if I and I'm also and I don't have kids at the moment, like I have to support myself. I mean if I and I'm also and I, even though working in tech, I also worry a bit about the job market. So one of my thoughts is if I could maybe reduce my working hours a bit at some point. Maybe you know work half a day less a week or one day less a week, but it comes at such a significant cut to your base pay. But if I ever get a point where I feel that business is good enough that I can compensate for that, I might try to reduce my regular working hours to have more time for the side hustle. But, like I said, it's because I'm supporting myself. I have to keep to make sure that the money is coming in. Yeah, but that's really is coming in.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, but that's really a thought for the future. Yeah, and it's good to have that. I left my corporate agency job like 14 years ago now, but I had it as a side hustle for like two years. It was a totally different digital era. It was like also 2006, when everything was like paid sponsorships on blogs and stuff like that. I learned a lot like you have to look at your profit, not just your revenue. Anyways, it was an experience, but it was good to like have that. I would have been very stressed out if I wasn't. If I like just quit my job and like tried to make it work. It would have been a complete struggle and and then I did.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and kudos to those who can do it. That's why I still have to keep exploring some strategies to see if I can make it happen, even if somewhat. So. It's one of my lofty goals. I'm not sure if I'll ever reach, but I'm definitely going to try.
Speaker 2:Okay, before I have a bunch of questions here, but I want to just go back. I don't know how much I really touched on this, but so you did optimize some posts. I'm assuming you've seen like growth. I don't know where I discovered you. I think maybe LinkedIn, okay, um, but like how would you do you know what have been the biggest things that have kind of grown your subscribers and audience?
Speaker 1:I would say it's probably mostly the posts and people finding me through Google, like people who still like reading.
Speaker 1:I watch a video of me dancing around on TikTok which seemed to be quite popular, seem to be quite popular.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, I would say that's like my number one way that people become aware of the website and then through kind of like the light social medias, the light social media presence. But my social media presence was intentionally light because I decided to put all my focus into building the content and not so much on socials. I heard I mean I'm not sure, but I heard that google is going to bring ai results to the top, pushing searches even lower. So as they're scraping my site to get that content, I mean they could still scrape my site to get that content and it won't bring people over to the website. People will just read the answer and be like okay. And I also read that more people now are doing more and more searches with instagram and tiktok. So I'm reluctantly going to get over there and maybe do some videos and try to come at it with a different perspective than you might see on the other videos that circulate. Yeah, like the topic of moving to germany and working in germany this is.
Speaker 2:I've been like following people, this whole search and media and distribution and all this, like I don't know if you heard, did you, do you listen to the verge sometimes? Yeah, he interviewed the ceo of google about all of this and it was actually did you listen to that? And no, he really it was. I mean, it was friendly, but it was hard-hitting about ai overview because he said you know what are you going to do to all these small publishers? It feels like a take and he sundar I forget his last, but he was like no, no, this is just human curiosity is boundless and people are going to assert but my take, I'm in all these groups like what does everybody think? And I think nobody really knows. And then there's the debate. I don't know how it's working on WordPress, but at least on Squarespace sites you can turn AI scrapers off, allegedly who knows how much. Okay. Then people say no, don't turn it off because you won't show up at all. But I'm like I'm turning mine off for now. Yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 2:Clickable, even if it's not surfaced right away, is not like how to content, but first person stories and experiences. I don't know, I have no idea, I mean. And then people are saying, no, it's just going to be different, but it is interesting. And then I've heard that TikTok for discovery and YouTube is oh yeah, youtube as well. Youtube. I mean I just syndicate this podcast onto YouTube because I was like, okay, I can just press a button, at least that's doing something. But yeah, it's all very interesting.
Speaker 2:And I mean I like to ask this question to a lot of people. What's also Okay? Let's put AI aside. But search engine optimization, I think is trickier when you are operating in another language than the region you're in. Like I know how to get stuff to rank somewhat. I'm not an SEO expert, but like if you type in website in a day, I come up, but half of that traffic is from the US and then they see that I'm in Germany. It's not interesting. So did you do any like research around terms or you just no, I just write and then I just target a certain keyword.
Speaker 1:I mean, I used to have access through a friend to like I don't know how you pronounce it like HREF, oh, href. Yeah, I know, I'm not sure how to pronounce it. I had access to that for a while and then, like, he killed the access. Uh, so sometimes I just use google predictive search to see terms that are coming up. Or even, if you use like going back to ai for a brief second, if you use perplexity, ai, you like type in a certain thing, then it shows you a bunch of related questions or things as well. So sometimes I use that as a hint about like, how to like direct the okay, the search terms. But yeah, like, some of most of my posts actually rank pretty well. But I've been trying to tackle some bigger things recently and so far it's not working. So I have to see how it goes.
Speaker 2:Maybe we'll both be on TikTok in a few months.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:No, but I've heard. I've just like, just I don't have the time or, and it's also not really my audience. Don't have the time, or, and it's also not really my audience, but LinkedIn is like where I do most of my like real-time social, not just dialed in. Would you want to say something?
Speaker 1:yeah, actually LinkedIn is an interesting one and I never really thought much about it before, even though my site is mostly about like finding work and tips about looking for work in Germany, especially as a foreigner. But LinkedIn, like my LinkedIn page, I I had deleted it at one point because I was like, oh, it's not worth it, but not sure what prompted me, but I finally decided to restart it and in the past few months it's really been growing. I mean, for me, I mean it's a relative or subjective number, but for me it's been growing. So I think within a few months I'm now at like 700 and some followers, which is not that many at all, but like a lot more than I expected. So I'm kind of just going to keep experimenting with LinkedIn and see if that helps as well. Yeah, I think for the, especially for my topic, it can be interesting to see where that goes as well.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I like it because it's just, it's about business and everyone is and if you.
Speaker 2:It's like I have a client based business, so I'm not trying to amass a huge audience, so and I just post as myself I didn't even bother with a business thing, so it's actually been pretty good. It's at least 30% of my leads, but again, I don't need like 10,000 people, okay, so I covered that. So okay, let's talk a little bit about the current job market in Germany. I mean, I've been self-employed for a long time now, so I'm not really paying attention, but I hear noises like things are bad. What's your take?
Speaker 1:it's. It's really weird, actually, like that's the only word that comes to mind when I think about it, because, for sure, like if you look at like year on year, unemployment hasn't really gone up as much as you would expect. But it also feels like, at least within tech, with all my friends and different people that I know and through people in in the community of Berlin life, we just keep hearing about people losing their jobs and then you know that the market is tight and you know where. I have a friend of mine who works as a product manager and he got laid off last year and he hasn't been looking that hard, but he said he was so used to leads just coming into him and he was getting contacted on LinkedIn all the time, even when he was employed. But now that he's a little bit more intentionally seeking out new work, he's been finding it really, really hard, especially being someone who he's a bit more senior. He's been head of product before, so either he feels like he's going to have to step down into, you know, not being a lead of a team but just doing product work. So yeah, there's a lot of people who are feeling the challenge right now, but you can still see tons of.
Speaker 1:I think there's more than 700,000 jobs on the market. I just looked yesterday yeah, there was 700,000 free jobs on the market, but tech jobs just all jobs in germany, yeah, and I think, like, obviously, like the population is aging and they're at a much faster rate than what they were expecting. I just read that recently. Yeah, that's a huge thing, but I think it's at this weird time where it's going to really take a while for things to change, because a lot of the jobs still demand fluent German and a lot of people, a lot of people. Either they just don't want to learn the language or it takes them time.
Speaker 1:Employers they know that they need people, but they're still always looking for people who have flawless German. And even some people have been saying, yeah, like I have like B1 or C1, and I'm still having a hard time because you know they want somebody who's you know easier for to communicate with. So I think I think it's going to be weird for a while, but I can see a trend in the future where they're just going to take anyone like even lower the requirement for the amount of german you know to be a nurse, like I think it's only b1 now, oh, wow, yeah, which I mean. B1 is really good, like kudos to anybody who who's gotten it, but that would. I feel like that might not be enough to be able to like communicate with patients.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that was actually my next question, like how many people that you come into contact with have good German and how much of that is a real part of the job requirement like a job requirement.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so there's. I haven't really been able to find good stats or like their old stats, but I still think it's like 90% or or more of the jobs available on the market require at least some level of German. And so, yeah, germany really needs people, but they also need people who speak German, at least for the moment. So my advice is always to tell people to learn German, but I would say only there's more people who don't know German than German. But that's just in my very, very anecdotal experience of the people I'm talking with, and mostly probably because I'm talking to foreigners.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know that maybe that kind of skews it, so I don't want to make some big statement, but but yeah, definitely the people at least that I'm working with tend to be in the midst of learning German, and I just tell them like, especially, some people want to come to Germany but have really specialized jobs, so their job search is probably going to take them a lot longer than if they're a software engineer or something else. So I always encourage them like, okay, like, stay positive, keep working, keep applying for jobs, but in the meantime I'm like just learn German as much as you can.
Speaker 2:And that will only increase your pool of opportunities. Yeah, it's tough. I remember when I started working at the agency that I worked at for 10 years it was 2000, I think, and it was a US agency that was starting their. They had a London office but they were starting their continental Europe operations. They were based in Boston. So the recruiter was from Boston and I like stumbled in there and I had been working at startups in San Francisco and he was, you know, I showed my portfolio and he's like, oh yeah, we think you're a good fit, blah, blah, blah. And then he said, oh, how's your German? And I was like that's great. And he goes, that doesn't matter.
Speaker 2:And you know it didn't at that time and a lot. I mean, the first client project I worked on it was Yellowstrom and Cologne so, and there were like I was just a lowly graphic designer, you know web designer at that time, and so it didn't really matter because we were just being told what to do. But then as I progressed, it is Europe, so I was always on international clients that spoke English. So at one point I was I don't know if I could pass it now, but I would see one. Oh nice. But I don't know if I would pass that test again, but it was hard. I would go. They paid for me to learn German and I would go after work every day and German is a tough language.
Speaker 2:And I think the other challenge if you are an English speaker is you can get away with speaking English forever. And I remember, ironically, I was on a project in London and I made a deliberate effort and I was working with a friend who's still a good old friend of mine, who's German, to just speak German and she was really patient because it's hard to speak your language with somebody who's a learner and we spoke German on that whole trip and I just but it took a lot of effort to really say I'm going to, and at that time it was pretty good. Now it's like bad again because I have a kid and she's in bilingual kindergarten and my husband and I speak English and it's a lot worse English and it's a lot worse. But I don't have a good. I'm just rambling here but I don't have a good answer for how you really I feel like you have to go to a little village where nobody speaks English and but also doesn't speak some weird dialect of German that you can't understand.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's also true. Like for sure, in Berlin you can get away with with speaking only English, but then again it also depends, like I think people should be allowed to make their own choices, but then you have to live with the pain of not knowing German. So even recently I just went into a salon to get like a facial or something, and and this was in central Berlin, and the attendant didn't speak English, which was totally fine. So, like you still do find a lot of instances of where people don't speak English. Like obviously you always figure things out and of course, if you go to any government office, they're not allowed. Yeah, I think so, at least with the foreigner's office or the unemployment office. Sometimes informally they will, but I think by law they have to speak english or sorry, they have to speak german with you to make sure that they've given you like the correct instructions on things like misinterpreted. But yeah, it's a bit weird.
Speaker 1:I think, like I hope that in the coming years the government will work harder to make like some of the bureaucracy easier and make you know, I don't know like a visa application available in different languages, like not just English, but like I think that would improve accessibility to things a lot more. Because, like being from Canada, like I remember just last year I went home for vacation and like you land in the airport and it's saying hello and welcome and there's all these signs and all these different languages, like yeah, this is really cool. And I was like this is what I would love Germany to be. Yeah, because I think for people who don't know german, especially if you've just moved here, it if you've just moved here, you're starting a new job like learning german might not be your first priority and months of settling in. So if there was some ways to like minimize that pain a little bit, like having services available in different languages, I think could really really help.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, it's interesting yeah.
Speaker 1:So that's why I feel like the market is just really weird right now, like they need people but they can't always find candidates who tick all the boxes. Like maybe they find a really good candidate but they can't speak German, and if that person can't come into the office and communicate with everybody, or you have to get a whole office or a whole team to change their language to speak with one person you know.
Speaker 1:I think that's hard, like no judgment on anybody. But yeah, I hope it will change more or it has to change, I guess, because everybody's getting old and we need to keep the pension system going.
Speaker 2:So yeah, yeah, I and I mean things have changed even so much now with translation tools. So now when I get some paper, I'm like, oh no, how am I going to answer this question? Or I just hand it to my husband is what I do, which is bad. Well, if it's like some complicated insurance thing, it's gonna. I mean, we're just gonna meet halfway. People are gonna have to step up their German and Germany is gonna be more flexible because it is. I was in a networking group a month ago and it was really interesting because one of the women works like an agency and one of the other women was like a recruiter. And the women at the agency said you know, if you've got like innovation in your title, you need to start looking for a new job. It's like growth, everything's like pushing stuff. And then the woman who's a recruiter was like we do not have enough people and I'm not none of this fluffy tech Internet job. Like we need plumbers and nurses. Like there are not enough people. Bus drivers like first what Teachers?
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, yeah, don't get me started on. We're lucky, we have a great teacher and everything, but like can't we were, we ran our child's. Do you know what an L-turn initiative is? A little bit, yeah. It's like uh, you kind of the government subsidize it, but you kind of start your, run your own kindergarten, but you can hire teachers, you can run it anyway. But you end up like you. A lot of them are young women, not all, but sometimes you're pregnant. Things happen Like you just don't want to lose a teacher because finding another one is impossible. I won't. I'll try and like table that with my tax teacher, lance. But yeah, and our kid, when she started elementary school this year, they let us know like a week before, like, oh, we're only going to have after school care every other week because we don't have enough people.
Speaker 1:Oh my gosh yeah.
Speaker 2:That was a big, big deal here.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, they need people, yeah. So, on that note, what would you say to people that are considering coming to Berlin? What do they need to understand?
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's a great question because there's a lot of things. I think that when people want to move to Germany, like if they're already here, it's a little bit easier. But if they're thinking about moving to Germany, they should really spend some time just doing research, like you know, like going to LinkedIn or whatever job search site you want to use. Indeed, and you know, do searches of jobs that you're looking for or try to find out how many jobs are available, like in each city, you know. So see how many opportunities are available in Berlin versus Hamburg versus somewhere else, and start looking at the job descriptions to see what the requirements are because sometimes they do differ by country and really start to look for common themes and, you know, if they find things that match right away, I would say, just start applying. A lot of companies will go out of their way to hire people from abroad and, again, it always depends on the situation and how desperate the company is. So I think applying from abroad can be quite fine as long as you are patient and you're willing to maybe wait a little bit longer. But yeah, I think the research is really really key in just trying to inform yourself if there's any differences between what you're doing now or not, and then doing the needed upskilling if that's needed, because, you know, depending on the profession, you might have to do additional education or you may have to get your degree recognized. I know that the government is starting to relax on its like obsession with education and formal degrees and now they're looking more at work experience, but I still think, on the ground, a lot of HR people still want people with degrees or with recognized degrees, whatever that means in context of Germany. And so, yeah, I think research is really key.
Speaker 1:And then, yeah, like, really really spending time on creating a good job application that creates a good pressure, or, sorry, not a good pressure. Creating a good job application that creates a good pressure, or, sorry, not a good pressure a good impression. Yeah, because a lot of people just like they have one cv and they just send the same one out. They don't send cover letters or they just send really generic ones. I don't think that that works anymore. I I do think it's a bit unfortunate, but I I try to encourage people to like really look for companies that they want to work for, so not just looking okay, I want to be, I don't know. I want to be a plumber. Maybe you want to be a plumber for a certain kind of company. Or, you know, you want to be a project manager for, like, climate tech is really big right now and will continue to be that way for a long, a long time.
Speaker 1:So, like you know, if you really want something more purpose-driven or sorry, I can't talk today if you want something more purpose-driven, like applying for companies that, like, actually mean something to you, submitting a job application that's really thoughtful and customized to the employer so you can show your relevance right away, and then it looks like you put time and effort into your job applications. So that's where I think the quality over quantity is better, because sometimes I hear from people I've applied to 500 jobs and I didn't get a reply, and then I already have lots of questions how are you doing your job applications? Are you? Are you customizing them? Applications, are you? Are you customizing them? Are you just applying for any jobs? Are you applying for jobs that really like, match you know your profile? So, yeah, I think that's really critical. And, and the other one I said already, but it's really basic and straightforward the more German you know, the better your chances will be and, like I said, hopefully maybe that can change in the future, but for right now it's like it's almost a must.
Speaker 2:And I hear a lot about, like the housing crunch in Berlin. Is that a factor?
Speaker 1:Yes, that as well. I mean, of course you can always book. That can maybe kind of get you past the first year. So a lot of people are booking these short term accommodation providers where you can get a lease for a few months or up to a year, and a lot of people do that but they're overpriced, which contributes to more of the problems for local people who are already here. But yeah, I would say, actually finding an apartment in Berlin I'm not sure about the rest of Germany is pretty much going to be the hardest thing that you have to go through.
Speaker 1:Some people are really lucky and they find things right away. But I talked to other people who spend. They spend so much time looking like you know, like especially if they see that you're still on probation and in your job and you just moved here all right, it might be a little bit more difficult to get someone to take you on or obviously like it's also unfortunate, but like being foreign is also against you. So, especially if you're a person of color, you have certain types of last names. We've seen articles in the news over and over again that like that makes it even tougher to find something, rather unfortunately. So yeah, you just have to keep trying. There's some. It's a little bit interesting, I'll see where it goes. It's a little bit interesting, I'll see where it goes. But there's kind of these people popping up that are offering services that they guarantee they can find you a flat within a certain amount of time.
Speaker 1:Oh wow, Apparently have had some success. So I'm really I mean, I'm not looking for a flat, but I'm interested to learn more about what they're doing or how they're succeeding.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's like a matchmaker.
Speaker 1:Um, but it costs money and that comes with a lot of privilege, right Like if people may be coming as students or something. It's not so easy.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I can just attest that when I I was kind of had like a bunch of thrown together living situations and then when I got the job and had, like my company helped me, it was like night and day it was like, oh, here's an apartment we have for you here and here. It was totally different experience. And just be like here I am with my broken German. Yeah.
Speaker 1:And I've heard from a few people that I've coached who've moved here in recent months that their employer is at least giving them a place to live for the few months, and then also, like a lot of employers are working with relocation companies to assist people with settling in, including finding an apartment. So yeah, you're really lucky if you get something like that, because I think to try to navigate that process on your own when you haven't lived here before would be like really overwhelming yeah, for sure.
Speaker 2:All right. So I'm gonna wrap it up with you know, are there any, any things you would do differently if you were starting the Berlin life over again, or what you? What advice you'd have to anybody who's starting something similar?
Speaker 1:Maybe I mean, I don't have any regrets because it's in the story and it's always changing and and usually it's it's getting better and new opportunities are popping up. But I think probably if I was to restart it again, I would try to have more of a plan. I'm kind of this at the moment I just fly by the seat of my pants, I publish some articles and I'm like, oh, maybe I should try this, maybe I should try this. I also think of a ton of ideas and then I never do anything about it. So like maybe just having a little bit more of a realistic plan, or I guess the other thing would be trying to find some more efficient ways to do things earlier.
Speaker 1:So like, right now, a lot of what I do is like service-based, but so I have to do a lot of prep work before a coaching appointment, for example, maybe I want to get a little bit more into the passive income mode as well. So I'm now I'm working on it for six months. So this is what I mean. I also have to get on it. But to kind of like offer these mini courses where people can just learn how to do a cover letter or CV by themselves, but like step-by-step, and not just that recycled content that you see on Google, but actually like here's different things to think about, here's how to word things. You know things like that.
Speaker 2:Well, you could have fooled me. Everything you put out looks super profesh, and so does your site. And also I would argue that you did everything right, because I think I run across a lot of people that are like I want to do a course, I want to do this, and it's like okay, your first job is going to be building an audience, because you can't just like throw that up and then people are going to buy and the if I can say anything that's helped me the most is, just remember, 1%. That's going to be your conversion rate. So if you want four people to buy something, 400 people got to look at it. You got to have 400 eyeballs on it, probably multiple times. So you've built this community and audience. So I think, yeah, that makes total sense to now think about those kinds of offerings, which sound great, by the way. Thank you, yeah, all right. Well, thanks so much for coming on, cheryl. It was great meeting you and talking to you and, yeah, I'll talk to you again soon.
Speaker 1:Yeah, thank you for having me. I was really excited to be part and, yeah, I can't wait to hear it when it comes out.
Speaker 2:Okay, Thanks for listening. You can find this episode and all other episodes of the Germany Expat Business Show at my website at wwwEleanorMeierhofercom slash podcast. That's wwwEleanorMeierhofercom slash podcast. See you next time.