Speaking German is necessary for working in Stuttgart?

[chloeleejh]

Hi, I am planning to move to Stuttgart from Seoul
as I have got an offer there as a UX designer.
Language is not a problem for me as my company didn't ask me to speak German but only English.

However, I am worried about my husband who needs to quit his job in Seoul to move with me and find a new job there without speaking German.
He has been having such a great job in Seoul, specialized in Joint Venture and Financial analysis with 8 years of experience in big organization, especially in Chinese/South Korean automotive market.
Although he speaks English, Korean, Chinese fluently with working proficiency
and has many years of experience of his field also would get a partner visa which will automatically give him a right to work, I have a huge doubt if there would be opportunities for him without knowledge of German language in Stuttgart.

I thought my case was rare, as my field is more about showing the outcome with
visual language and the company which wanna hire me is a very international one having quite many people from abroad. But for his occupation, we don't have any idea about how many tolerance the companies in Stuttgart have for the foreign workers without speaking German, particularly in his 'Automotive field'.

As we do not have any connection in this city,
we desperately need more info about working and living there.
Also info about how we need to approach to find a right job for him.

If anybody could help us, please let us know and that will be so much helpful for us!

Thank you!

[Melanie_Peschel1]

Hi Chloe, this sounds being exciting news for the two of you. For your husband maybe international companies such as Daimler or Bosch could be a career chance. Their headquarters are located in Stuttgart and I bet all the employees speak English fluently and maybe even it might be possible to work their with communicating exklusively in English language for a while. Daimler for example even has an english carreer website: https://www.daimler.com/career/job-search/

And I just checked for fun for any financial jobs in Stuttgart - they even offer one: http://jobs.daimler.com/job/169918/project-management-within-risk-analytics-innovation-daimler-financial-services-in-stuttgart.html?lang=en

So don´t hesitate and start searching for jobs or at least asking the HR people at Daimler and Bosch - e.g. on their Facebook-Career Websites for any chances for your husband.

Good luck!

Kind regards
Melanie

[Daniel_Grubi]

Dear Chloe,

I am thinking your husband should find a job as well in Stuttgart. We have so much companies around here. And the big players Porsche, Daimler, Bosch, Mahle are located here. Hewlett Packard is also in the Stuttgart area, their internal language is english. Furthermore all bigger consultant companies are here e.g. Ernst & Young.

I think if you are applying in Germany you are always in competition with other people here. But from my perspective I don’t think that speaking german is a always necessary. For a lot of jobs in the international field English is more inportant than German. Your husband is speaking Chinese which is especially in the automotive sector one of the most important markets.

I have one US friend and his German is really bad and he still lives very comfortable here since all Germans are speaking English very well! And I’m just talking English with him most times.

I have 2 work colleagues and their german is not the best. One colleague came from Shanghai and everybody‘s talking English with her.
I do work in the automotive industry and just can tell you that German is not a must/ always depends on the job/ field of job.

Overall the community of expats is big enough to find friends in Stuttgart very easy!

One last recommendation: your husband should apply and looking up jobs before he gets here.

[Rahul_V]

Haha
German Automtoive companies recruitment are stupid. They won't hire non German speakers for some roles no matter how talented the Candidate is.
It entirely depends on the role. From your description it will be difficult to manage without German for your husband in big companies in specific roles.
But there are some departments in Daimler which are quite international.
if you find a job advertisement in English in Daimler website it means that job definitely is not looking for lot of German knowledge.

German HR are the most stupid people when it comes to recruitment. They see everything with a narrow mind and try to find a candidate with 100 percent match for their job requirements. They don't think about the big picture and what other qualities which the Candidate has can be helpful to the organization.

So better to learn German.