Why would a German company not want to hear about the impact that a potential employee created? What's the difference in culture here? Genuine question.
It's a cultural difference.
You would be seen as someone who sells themselves too strongly.
There's also a general disbelief around extreme individualism.
You can't possibly have done all that alone, you still had a network of people around you. And even if you were indeed instrumental to reaching that goal, boasting like that shows that you are not a good sport that acknowledges colleagues and carry them along and up.
I think one of the biggest cultural clashes that Americans experience abroad, especially in Europe, is discovering that life isn't a constant sales pitch to sell yourself.
Oddly enough I hear these recommendations here in Ireland as well, even though we're generally a culture that hates bragging in all its forms. Maybe this is rooted in the English-speaking world in general?
The main argument I hear is that phrasing achievements in a team centric way makes it sound more like you're claiming the achievements of others. Eg:
- I developed project X increasing revenue by Y
- Part of team A which developed X increasing revenue by Y
Depending on how you phrase it the individual statement could sound like you're unrealistically claiming what must be group achievements, or the humble answer could sound like you had nothing to do with the achievements at all and are trying to claim some bare meaningless connection to success.
Ireland seems to have an intense undercurrent of begrudgery; it's a very strange place. I've had pretty good experience with my American-style resume (not really a CV but meh) - but I also generally discount Irish companies since they pay half as much as the multinationals.
I worry about my kids growing up somewhere success is viewed as something to be mocked, and hard work is for chumps.
It's a residue of being historically a very poor country. There's no belief that hard work is for chumps - laziness is also looked upon very negatively. What we do have is no faith that hard work will lead to "success" or material wellbeing - hard work is what you just have to do to survive.
Until very recently the Irish historical experience has been that you work very hard your whole life and at best your children's conditions are the same as yours, at worst they deteriorate.
In this context it makes sense that bragging or boasting are looked upon very unfavourably. If everyone is working themselves to the bone to just barely survive, then "success" isn't so much a result of your moral superiority and work ethic as it is a result of dumb luck. In that context boasting is distasteful.
The attitude that success is to be mocked and hard work is for chumps comes from the belief that luck plays a much larger role in outcomes than an individual's actions. If someone is successful mostly because of luck (but not humble) they deserve to be mocked, and if you work hard all your life but don't get lucky, you'll just be a worked out chump with nothing to show for it.
I don't necessarily agree with the attitude, but there is something to be said for optimizing your choices around a slightly pessimistic assumption of luck.
To be fair, hard work that isn't well-directed is a waste. Digging a giant hole with a spoon is hard work but won't get you anywhere. But it's strange to me that if I tell people an idea here in Ireland the first thing people do is look for reasons it won't work, but if I say the same thing to friends back home in California they'll look for reasons it could. Maybe it's just my friend circles.
What you said is true about the way people there emotionally process things.
However, it also flies in the face of reality sometimes. There are indeed decisions and choices that can be made by single individual people in a single moment that can cost or save an organization huge amounts of time, money, or both. Telling the truth about those things is not boasting.
Of course, many people overstate the issue, but this general allergy to claims of greatness is a good way to also reject the actually-great.
When every CV is embellished to the extreme there's no way of distinguishing the superstars from the braggarts.
Assuming that the most bragging CVs are all written by superstars who single handedly saved every company they've worked at is the less realistic of the two options.
Oh yeah, I agree. I'm not claiming that it can't be true that one person alone might be instrumental to a big change or a breakthrough in companies.
It's the way you present it that wouldn't fly.
Traditional German bosses also have a very bad trait that is the complete inability of motivating through positive reinforcement, or through verbal appreciation.
It's so well known that there is a flourishing coaching industry based around teaching exactly that.
That said, if I had to point out a deeply detrimental trait of the German recruitment culture is the over-reliance on degrees, masters, institutional certifications, and such, which are mostly useless in determining the cultural fit of a potential employee.
You can boast with true statements. "I lifted 100 kg, and it was no big deal." Contrast that with "By maintaining a workout program I managed to work up to lifting 100 kg without issue." It is about the tone and the "spin" if you will.
FWIW, American cultural attitudes about this seem to vary widely (as far as I have a basis to compare), and many who do self-promote reserve that only for professional contexts.
Coming from an American environment in which "boasting" was discouraged, the seemingly necessary self-promotion around some universities was unfamiliar.
I still naturally prefer to say "we" when speaking of business successes, though all the coaching for resumes and interviews advises the opposite.
Possible tip for people programmed against boastfulness: Consider the scenario of being interviewed, when you keep naturally saying "we", praising colleagues, etc. Imagine that the interviewer is not understanding, due to culture gap, and is underestimating you in a way that threatens your survival. You might find yourself naturally making arguments for your value, which is closer to what that interviewer expects. Remember those arguments, and reuse them in similar contexts, with less of an insecure tone. :)
I think this guide is not too bad [1]. Some stuff depends on the business you are in and the company you are applying at. Listing the marital status used to be very important, but I don’t believe it still is.
German companies love official certificates, as if they really prove something (most time it doesn’t imo)
As most people here, I am working in IT. Since there is a demand for us, I don’t feel like I really have to stick to those rules. For example, I gave up on having a German CV, even for non international companies. I was tired of curating two CVs. Companies expect us to be proficient in English anyway, so I expect the same.
Just to back this up, Jana is a fairly experienced career coach. Her advice is definitely worth listening to.
However, I suspect that resume cultural differences aren't that big of a deal. I've seen my share of resumes, and they tend to be bad in a universal way.
It turns out that most people aren't great writers, so they just emulate what they think business letters sound like. It reads equally weird in every country, like any DIY promotional material.
This is a myth (Fachkräftemangellüge) and utter nonsense. If it were true, IT professional salaries in Europe/Germany would explode to the insane heights we read about from the bay area and FAGMAN companies. I can provide you infinite sources that explain that the average salary for software engineers in Germany is somewhere around 65.000 euro a year, before taxes. Even the vast majority of IT employees with "architect" in their name won't even make 100.000.
My international company based in Austria, Vienna has no trouble at all to fill vacancies and we usually get several fitting candidates we can pick from.
I am not sure about German companies but I'm almost always sceptical of these claims. It might be that I have always worked in high tech manufacturing industry and any person making a "single handedly" claim is lying. You may have come up with the algorithm, but someone made the system to deploy it, someone made available all the data, someone else made the dashboard library which you built upon. Making these kind of claims are at best selfish and at worst stealing credit.
To a German such boasting would sound like you are an embellishing loudmouth who at best likes to sniff his own farts and at worst makes stories up. Would you want a Zapp Brannigan as a colleague? Such stories can be better told in the personal interview, where the recruiter can judge the validity better.
Cultural norms around tooting one's own horn vary widely, but the United States is a far end of the "toot away" spectrum (with Israel and some parts of Central America)
From a UK perspective rather than German, but it's basically impossible to verify and almost certainly a team effort if it's real. We tend to frown on people claiming credit for things that they didn't actually do themselves. We can be quite cynical.
I think one of the biggest cultural clashes that Americans experience abroad, especially in Europe, is discovering that life isn't a constant sales pitch to sell yourself.