Skilled professionals

Academics

If you already have a specific job offer in Germany, you are eligible for an “EU Blue Card” – a combined residence and work permit, provided the gross annual salary you are offered is 47,600 Euros or higher. Even if you do not qualify via the salary threshold, you can still work in Germany as a physician or in the STEM professions (science, technology, engineering, mathematics) if you earn a salary comparable to German employees – but not less than 37,128 Euros a year.

For further information, see requirements/visa.

Skilled professionals

Have you completed a non-academic vocational training program outside Germany? Then you can start working in Germany with your foreign qualification, provided you fulfil the following requirements: 

• There is a shortfall of specialist personnel in the profession you intend to practice in Germany. To see which professions these are, check the positive list.
• You have a specific job offer. 
• Your vocational qualification must be recognized as equivalent to a German qualification. You must apply for recognition in your country of origin. 

Are you a healthcare professional and want to apply your expertise in Germany? Do you want to work in the German healthcare sector, and (re)start your career in Baden-Wuerttemberg? Then do not hesitate to contact the staff at the Welcome Center for the Social Sector. Demand for specialized personnel in social institutions is rising in Germany. The Welcome Center for the Social Sector views itself as a regional and umbrella body specifically for the social sector, which supplements the services of the other Welcome Centers in Baden-Wuerttemberg, including the Welcome Center for Karlsruhe TechnologyRegion. 

The Welcome Center for the Social Sector guides institutions and specialist personnel through the overall process, integrating the existing advisory services and service providers. Institutions and foreign specialist personnel receive individual and specific advice and support. As a foreign specialist, it gives you guidance and support by networking advice services and qualification measures.

The main task of the Welcome Center for the Social Sector is to support social sector institutions throughout the entire recruiting process, and foreign specialist personnel through the entire process from determining the respective status quo until they are hired and integrate successfully.

Professions in the social sector include classic jobs in the care sector such as nurses, nursing assistants and geriatric nurses. This also includes other paramedical professions and physicians. The staff at the Welcome Center for the Social Sector also advises and supports professionals in the education and teaching sector.

Social sector institutions include smaller and medium-sized hospitals, care institutions and social wards, kindergartens and childcare centers.

Administrative Requirements to work in the TRK

Did you come to Germany with a Blue Card or a residence permit as

• a scientist or researcher
• manager or specialist
• IT expert or other expert with a university degree?

Then your spouse automatically receives a residence permit which allows them to take on any employment. It does not matter whether your spouse arrives in Germany with you or follows later. That also applies if you receive a residence permit or remain employed in your profession after education or training in Germany, and your spouse follows you.

You can read about the entry requirements for family members under Following family members.

Dual Career Service KIT

Karlsruhe Institute of Technology offers a comprehensive Dual Career Service for its international employees. It helps partners of (young) scientists, professors and managers find suitable career and social opportunities. The service team advises you on topics such as childcare, living and leisure. The goal is to promote double careers, support a work-life balance and offer new employees optimal starting conditions in their new living environment.

Women and Work Contact Office

You followed your partner to Karlsruhe TechnologyRegion, or accompanied your family from the outset? And now you want find your footing in the region and return to work? There is a special service for women in Baden-Wuerttemberg. The Women and Work contact offices are a state-wide program funded by the Baden-Wuerttemberg Ministry of Economic Affairs which promotes the professional development of women.

As a local point of contact, the office offers women an individual, free competent and neutral advisory service on all career-related matters. At a structural level, the staff's work aims to improve employment opportunities for women.

The individual advice covers the following topics: 

• Professional guidance
• Career planning
• Education and continuing professional development
• Finding and applying for jobs
• Returning to work after having/raising children
• Start-ups
• Financing and funding opportunities
• Work-life balance

Many people who live in the Karlsruhe TechnologyRegion actually work in France -- and vice versa!  A good number of them have been designated "cross-border commuters", which is a status the EU has introduced with numerous special regulations that make it easier to move between countries in order to work.

The European Commission has defined cross-border commuters simply as those who work in one EU member-state but reside in another. Such arrangements raise a number of legal issues that must be taken into account with regard to taxes, residential status, and social insurance.

To find out how these aspects apply to your particular case, you can talk with experts in several locations. For the Upper Rhine region, there are a total of four public information and advisory centers (three of them binational) under the name INFOBEST. These centers can help you answer your cross-border questions quickly and free of charge. INFOBEST is there to serve all those involved in related arrangements, including citizens, administrative entities, companies, and associations.

The headquarters of INFOBEST PAMINA, your contact partner in the Karlsruhe TechnologyRegion, is located on the border to France in Neulauterburg (Berg).

Meanwhile, EURODISTRICT PAMINA stands ready to assist you in dealing with the political aspects of the cross-border job market.

BEN Europe-Institute Qualification & Project Management UG is an innovative service company that offers international project and education management services. The institute specializes in European education and labor market projects; managing diversity, recruiting, and retaining international human resources; and holding internationally oriented seminars.

Through its work, BEN Europe-Institute Qualification & Project Management UG promotes the development of Europe’s educational, cultural, and economic environment. It sees itself primarily as an entity that aids in devising and implementing European projects in the labor market, education management, and economic development.

Some project examples of BEN Europe-Institute:

• INTERPROF builds labour bridges between the BEN group and institutions and companies in Spain. It is specialized in incoming international professionals and companies of the IT and technology sector.
• FULP project informs, guides and consults companies with employees from Spain who are working in Baden-Württemberg.
• MobiPro projects for trainees from Spain
• ERASMUS + for international professionals 
• ERASMUS for young companies
• Integration projects to ensure the maintenance of highly skilled professionals in companies
   

Furthermore BEN Europe-Institute offers seminars and workshops on the following topics: 

• intercultural skills / internationalisation
• international cooperation - project management - networking
• international human resource management
• cross-culture Germany (cultural preparation for Germany)
• diversity management - welcome and social inclusion culture concerning international professionals
• specialized foreign language skills for work / for the job

BEN Europe-Institute has a strong network of international contacts in Spain, Italy, Great-Britain and Poland. It has two locations, one in Malsch, near Karlsruhe in Germany and one in Palma de Mallorca, Spain.