Employability Coaching: Lessons From 2,000 Adults in Germany

An employability coach helps adults get ready for work, find a job and keep it. The work covers direction, mindset, CVs, interview practice and how the job market in your country runs. Since September 2022 I have worked as a career coach for International Motivation Training Deutschland (IMT), today on its "Understanding German and Work" programme. In Germany's career and integration programmes I have coached more than 2,000 adults starting over in Germany, many of them from Ukraine, in groups and one to one, in German and Russian. Seven lessons came out of that work. The biggest: mindset comes before the CV.

I describe participant feedback as anonymous themes. The only two quotes below are the ones already published on my coaching page.

What an employability coach does

An employability coach works on everything between "I need a job" and "I start on Monday". In my work that means six areas:

In Germany, much of this work runs as a publicly funded activation measure. § 45 SGB III (opens in a new tab) names the goal: bringing people closer to the training and labour market and finding, reducing or removing the barriers that keep them from a placement. A Jobcenter or Agentur für Arbeit caseworker can issue an activation and placement voucher (Aktivierungs- und Vermittlungsgutschein, AVGS). The job seeker then picks a provider with an approved course. Nobody has a legal right to the voucher: the caseworker decides.

A career coach and an employability coach use the same tools. The difference is the starting point. My employability groups start further back: a new country, a new language, often a profession that does not transfer one to one. Career coaching more often starts from a job you want to leave, as in a career pivot or a career change at 30. Either way, employers test the same employability skills.

Where I learned this

The people in my groups are adults starting over in Germany, many of them from Ukraine. We work in groups and one to one. I teach in German and switch to Russian when something important has to land, because a rule about notice periods helps nobody if half the room missed it.

In the course we cover how the German job market works, labour law, applications and interviews. Mindset comes first: beliefs, strengths and goals. Between those two ends sit culture shock, the Basic Law, money and tax classes, the comfort zone, time management and interview training.

Seven lessons from 2,000 adults starting over in Germany

1. Start with what the person wants

The course opens with each participant saying what they want from it. A coach who opens with a CV template skips the question that decides everything else. An engineer who wants to work as an engineer again needs a different plan from someone who wants any paid work by spring. Both plans can be right, and you only find out which one you are building by asking. If you cannot answer the question yet, start with what career is right for me.

2. Mindset comes before the CV

In the course, the sessions on thoughts, beliefs, the comfort zone, strengths and goals come before the sessions on job search, CVs and interviews. The order matters. A polished CV for the wrong job costs you months. And a person who believes "nobody here will hire me at my age" writes a CV that sounds like it.

We work through limiting beliefs, the difference between "I have to" and "I want to", growth and fixed mindset, and what people need from work. If one of those beliefs is stopping you, start with limiting beliefs before you rewrite a single line of your CV.

3. Explain the system and the market stops feeling random

Starting over in Germany means learning rules nobody hands you on arrival: how to call in sick, what a probation period means, how long the notice period in Germany runs, what the tax class on a pay slip does. In the course we spend whole sessions on labour law, the Basic Law (Grundgesetz), everyday rules and money.

Knowing the rules saves expensive mistakes. Quit a job without an important reason, and the Agentur für Arbeit can block your unemployment benefit for 12 weeks (§ 159 SGB III (opens in a new tab)).

4. Culture shock belongs in the job search

The anthropologist Kalervo Oberg described culture shock in 1960 as the anxiety that comes from "losing all our familiar signs and symbols of social intercourse". After the first weeks, he wrote, comes a stage of hostility towards the host country. His way through it: learn the language and get to know the people of the host country.

In the course we cover culture shock and its stages, and why stress runs higher after migration. People apply for jobs in the middle of that crisis stage. Once you can name the stage, you can see why a polite German email feels cold and why the third rejection hurts more than it should. I wrote more on this in culture shock in Germany.

5. People undersell what they have done

One session in the course asks a plain question: what counts as an achievement? Hofstede's culture model, published by The Culture Factor (opens in a new tab), gives Ukraine a score of 27 on its achievement scale and notes that "Ukrainians tend to understate their personal achievements and speak modestly about themselves". Germany scores 66, where "performance is highly valued and expected early".

That gap shows up on paper. A German employer reads a CV for results, and a list of duties tells them little. Rewriting "I worked as an accountant" into what you closed, saved or fixed is half the work of a German CV.

6. The group fights isolation, the one-to-one hour moves the person

Groups give knowledge and company. In feedback, people say the group made them feel less alone in the search. The one-to-one sessions are for the barriers a person will not raise in front of a whole group, and for a plan built around one life instead of the average.

One participant put it on my coaching page in her own words:

"Thanks to the small group I received many personal recommendations. That personal approach gave me much more clarity about my next steps." Inesa K., Accountant, seminar participant in Germany

7. Agree the next step before the course ends

A course that ends with a certificate and no plan wastes the motivation it built. Before the last session, the next step should be agreed with the person who will follow up, whether that is a caseworker, a mentor or a coach.

The Jobcenter link matters for results. In a February 2026 release from the Institute for Employment Research (IAB), researcher Philipp Jaschke said that early and systematic access to Jobcenters and support offers speeds up the move into work.

What the feedback says

When groups finish, the feedback I hear most is about individual attention, a clearer plan for the next step, and not feeling alone in it. Other themes come up too: more practice and more courage speaking German, the comfort-zone and goal-setting exercises, and a clear course structure. One improvement point came up: more variety in the format.

The second published quote says the same thing about individual attention:

"I valued the clear structure and the hands-on content. He responded to each participant individually and encouraged us to believe in our professional goals." Valentyna A., Medical doctor, seminar participant in Germany

What the data says about starting over in Germany's job market

The IAB tracks refugees from Ukraine who arrived between February and August 2022. In its February 2026 release (opens in a new tab), about 50% of them were in employment around three and a half years after arrival, faster than earlier refugee groups. The IAB names early access to the labour market, integration and language courses, and labour-market advice and support as a key driver.

Two more findings matter for anyone coaching this group. About 40% of those in work still needed top-up Bürgergeld after almost three years. And far more people had taken a job at some point than held one at the time of the survey, which the IAB reads as less stable working lives. For a coach, the lesson is that the first job is a step. The plan has to cover the one after it.

If you are starting over: five things to do this month

1. Write down what you want. One sentence: the job, the city, the hours. Then one sentence on what stands in the way.
2. Learn the rules of the game. Read up on contracts, probation and sick leave before your first day. The guide to jobs in Germany for English speakers covers the right to work.
3. Rewrite your CV for the country. Results, months and years, the local format. Then practise the questions German interviewers ask out loud, in German if the job needs it.
4. Find your group. A course, a language class, a club. Starting over alone takes longer, and I have written about starting over in life from my own experience too.
5. Get one person who checks in. A caseworker, a mentor or a coach who asks every week what moved.

Outside the programme, I coach one to one in English, German, Lithuanian and Russian, by video or in Vilnius. If you are changing field or country, see career change coaching. For CVs, interviews and direction, see my career coaching sessions, or book a call and tell me where you are and where you want to be.