How to get a job in Europe as an american

As an American, there might be a number of reasons you’d want to move to Europe. 

You’re just beginning your search, where do you start? I remember thinking that when I first started looking seriously at opportunities abroad. There’s the country choice, finding the fitting jobs, digging deep into your network to see who you know that is living abroad, and many more exciting but uncomfortable decisions. You’re likely going to a “blank slate” when you move that far away.

I think most everyone is on LinkedIn these days, & I advise my clients to use LinkedIn as a tool to build and maintain relationships. LinkedIn is probably one of the first resources you can leverage. There’s definitely a research period of figuring out how you will fit into a new country. Are you going to work full-time? Do another study program? Find a special visa for educational or future work purposes? 

Once you get your country short list down, (I don’t recommend having a very big list) and you decide which type of visa you will go for, then you can go full on into the steps to get it.

I decided to continue working full-time. I didn’t have a desire to go back into classes and exams. Plus, I didn’t know how I was going to pay rent and support myself. Especially while I was interviewing and still working on my German skills. The option of a company that sponsors your journey and visa; that to me, was enticing… and made the job search worth it. 

But then came the LinkedIn & Indeed cold applications. I thought, just like everyone basically, why not just “throw some lines out” to see if someone goes for my profile. I got rejected hundreds of times and had 2 interviews. One interview process went surprisingly far, but then fell apart at the end. 

Back to square one.

Then more rejections. They seemed to come within an hour of applying at times. 

You see; when you are living in another country & you don’t speak the local language well enough for your job type, your odds are extremely slim. Some roles that are non-client facing do not have this problem. You might be able to find a decent amount of English-speaking jobs if you find the right companies. Young tech companies work in English in a lot of places. You have a larger global talent pool to pull from in this case. 

As a European citizen, you can live and work anywhere in the EU. From America, you are a foreigner like the rest of the world. So, just like when people try and come to work in the States, the hiring company technically needs to say 

“We can’t find anyone else in Europe who can do this job.”

It’s a bunch of wasted effort making those applications which ask for the same info provided on your CV/Resume anyways. Especially when you don’t know anyone at the company. 

Imagine you are a hiring manager receiving hundreds of CV’s from random countries. After AI filters out spam or other entries that are way off base, you have time to scan a CV for 7 seconds (By the way, that’s the average time spent.) 

There’s no meaning to that piece of paper. You have no chance to tell your story, prove your competency, or explain your drive. You do get those chances in interviews. But they are few and far between, and it feels like a complete waste when you tailor an app and get rejected within an hour. It can be as simple as your location, languages, salary expectation (that you don’t know how to estimate)… they crawl CV’s and look for ways to get it out of the mess. 

“The mess” is the 100s of apps they get in a week. It’s much easier to do process by elimination. 

I was done with all of that. I had way too much input and random applying for no effective feedback, opportunities to work on, and losing confidence on my CV. Now if you’re relating yourself to your CV… that’s bad.

We’re a lot more interesting and complex than that. I even prepared some of the Jobseeker visa required documents (now Opportunity Card) with the thought, maybe i’ll just get over there and start speaking with people in person. But the issue again is that you are without income, and just basically pushed up against the wall before you have to leave, if you don’t find a job. There’s a time clock with that option, but I understand why people do it. There are benefits that I outlined in my Opportunity Card Pros and Cons article.

I eventually decided to go after the job search with full speed from home. I quit my job in order to get almost everything else out of the way. I was dead serious. 

So the biggest hurdle is getting the interview chances. Once you get that, you should have your story down like the back of your hand. The only difference this time is that your motivation to move abroad is going to be checked. 

What are you really after? Why should they pick you over the other European? In any event, most people know the interview process. But you should feel confident about what you’re doing and why, because you might no longer be able to see as many of your family and friends as often. That is a major factor of the decision to move, and why it might seem odd to hiring managers at first. 

You’ll get asked about your motivation to leave the US – guaranteed.

Once you get the offer, take a breather! Hopefully everything will be in order for relocation, visa support, and general guidance. 

If you are like me and you hate wasting time and losing motivation, then you can make an investment into a job coach to contact hiring managers for you. That took me from 6 months of cold applying, 5 months with a new strategy on my own, to 3 months of a combined outreach to get my first job offer abroad (with the job coach). 

You can cut your time in half and save money in the long run. But once you get your first offer, and organize everything travel & visa, you are on your way.