Work in Germany through Polish agencies
This may sound somewhat paradoxical. After all, Poland itself is interested in foreigners staying in the country. But there is a country, a government, state interests and strategies. And there are private companies, labor agencies and intermediaries. And often the interests of the state and the interests of private companies may not coincide.
Private firms are driven by commercial interests, or, more simply, by making money. Polish employment agencies do not care whether they are paid by a Polish employer or a German employer for a found employee. If in May 2020, for example, a Polish employer pays a Polish employment agency for an unskilled worker in the range of 700-1000 PLN, and for a specialist (welder, truck driver, electrician) 1500-2000 PLN or more, in Germany, the same figures can be paid for a found worker, but in Euros.
In addition, Polish employment agencies know well how to work with German employers and agencies. After all, many Polish employment agencies have been sending Poles to work in Germany for many years. What prevents them from retraining and sending foreigners to work in Germany in addition to Poles? Moreover, it is not so difficult, the main thing is to take into account the legal nuances. You may need a few additional foreign workers who will look for contacts with employees from their home countries, and the Polish contract department will already be in direct contact with the German employer or agency. This is all relatively easy and quick to solve if you have a strategy.
The thing is that Polish agencies have a completely different level of cultural and business communication. This applies to the style of communication and establishing contacts with both employers and potential employees. Poland has always been in the pro-European cultural space. Therefore, Polish employment agencies will quickly be able to provide employment services for foreigners in Germany. They have everything to do this – qualified staff, including foreigners who speak German, English, Spanish, Filipino, Indonesian, Hindi, and other languages. Well-established work patterns, contacts and connections in Germany. Proximity to Germany and absolutely free movement between the countries, as well as the ability to register their own companies and representative offices in Germany as citizens of the European Union.
It is difficult for foreign agencies to fully compete with Polish employment agencies. And it’s not just the geographical distance, non-membership in the European Union and often corruption, but also the culture of doing business and the culture of communicating with people.
When you come to apply for a job at a Polish employment agency, they offer you coffee or tea, ask you what kind of job you are looking for, what area you are a specialist in, and offer to fill out your resume. If there are no suitable vacancies at the moment, they tell you so directly. When such vacancies appear, the agency representative calls and offers you a job. If the job is available immediately, it is fully consistent with the description in the vacancy.
In many poor and developing countries, they often try to send an employee to a vacancy at any cost, just to get the person to go to work. Often, they even outright deceive, promising a job in their specialty, but in reality it turns out that the person is coming for a completely different job, for example, hard physical work. Often, foreign agencies even take advantage of the desperate situation, because they know that the person has spent the last of their money on the trip and will have to work for at least a certain period to return home. For example, an electrician was on his way to work at a power plant and ended up at a factory that produces electric cables for cars. Or a worker was on his way to “sort plastic” and ended up at a plant for processing various types of dirty waste. Or they went to work as a welder and ended up working in open-pit coal mining. These are all stories from the lives of real people who were deceived by unscrupulous intermediaries and agencies.
As for the attitude of some recruiters, secretaries and other employees in foreign agencies, it is often openly rude, dismissive or arrogant. Of course, there are honest agencies, but they are relatively few.
In Germany, the option of deceiving a foreign employee will not work, because they need specialists. If you send a car mechanic to a German employer and he has no idea what a paint tone is or what a compressor is, he will be sent home and the agency will no longer be cooperating with him. The same goes for the level of German. The Germans are very clear about their requirements for future employees. If they ask for at least B1 level of German, then it is B1 and not lower. In foreign employment agencies, resumes of employees are usually prepared by recruiters themselves, so they often embellish them with non-existent facts or distort existing facts. For example, if a foreigner studied German at school, they will write “basic level” on the resume. This level implies the ability to communicate on basic everyday topics. But if this foreigner knows only “Guten Tag” after arriving in Germany, the German employer will be disappointed and will not hire such an employee. The deception approach will not work with pragmatic and punctual Germans.
Therefore, if Germany opens its borders to foreign workers and it becomes possible to work legally in Germany, we advise you to take Polish employment agencies into account. In the case of Polish agencies, you should choose only proven, preferably large agencies that have been on the market for many years.
