You’re already job searching. You’re not getting results. And somehow, despite spending hours on LinkedIn, YouTube, and Reddit… You still don’t have a clear picture of what support actually exists, or who to trust.
This post is for you.
It’s for skilled immigrants — engineers, product managers, designers, finance professionals, operations leaders — who are pursuing tech or business roles in Germany and want to know: What are all my options, and how do I choose?
I’m going to lay out every category of support I’m aware of, introduce a framework for thinking about them, and be upfront about what I know well and what I don’t. At the end, I’ll tell you what I do and who it’s right for.
But I’m not writing this to sell you.
Here’s why.
Why I wrote this
In 2019, I made the decision to move from the Philippines to Germany. I was a senior product manager with a real track record in tech. I was motivated, strategic, and willing to invest significant money to stack the odds in my favor.
And I couldn’t find anything.
There were a lot of resources on visa applications, apartment hunting, and in general, dealing with the bureaucratic maze of settling into a new country. But on the thing that actually determines whether your move works — finding a job — there was almost nothing built for someone in my situation.
I think landing a job in a new country is one of the hardest things a person can do. The stakes are enormous. The challenges are specific. And yet the job search support that exists is almost entirely built for people already embedded in the local market.
That gap is why I started Brave New Path. And it’s exactly why I’m writing this now: because when I needed this, it didn’t exist, and I don’t want that to be true for you.
The 5 categories of job search support
Everything available to you falls into one of five broad categories. Let’s get oriented before we evaluate anything.
1. DIY / Self-Directed
This includes LLMs (ChatGPT, Claude, etc.), books, social media (Reddit, YouTube, Instagram, LinkedIn), peer communities, and accountability structures you build yourself. No coach, no program — just you, some (hopefully) good material, and ideally other people also job searching.
Pros: Free or low cost.
Cons: Tends to be reactive, random, and haphazard. The information is often generic. Without structure or accountability, it’s easy to feel like a “headless chicken”, like one of my clients tends to say.
Best resource I know: Never Search Alone by Phyl Terry, plus joining or forming a Job Search Council. It’s free!
2. Free Jobcenter Programs
If you’re already a resident in Germany, you may be eligible for a voucher through the Agentur für Arbeit that gives you access to a coach or program at no cost. I don’t have firsthand experience with how these work in practice. But they exist, they’re free, and they might be worth looking into.
Pros: Free. Potentially immigrant-focused. If you land a strong coach, potentially hands-on support with real accountability.
Cons: My theory is, like most programs, many are probably deliverable-focused, not results-focused — you get X sessions or a CV rewrite, the engagement ends, and then you’re on your own.
I don’t have firsthand experience with a Jobcenter program, so this is just my theory. If you’ve been through one, I’d love to hear what your experience was actually like.
3. General Job Search Coaching & Courses
A huge and murky category. This covers everything from a one-off CV review on Fiverr to comprehensive job search programs; many of them built for the US market, focused on breaking into tech or hitting six-figure salaries. They’re designed for the general market.
For example, my friend Chris Ming from Remote Life OS has a group coaching program specifically for landing remote jobs. He’s US-based and not immigrant-focused, but if remote work is your priority and you’re good at adapting general advice to your situation, it might be worth a look.
Pros: If you know exactly what your main challenge is, you might be able to find something focused on it. Most useful when they include a real support structure, such as a coach, a peer group, or accountability beyond content. Also helpful if you’re naturally good at adapting general advice to your specific situation.
Cons: Not built for immigrants. Not designed for the Germany market. Hard to evaluate quality. A lot of noise to wade through.
I also don’t have firsthand experience with any program in this category. If you’ve been through one, I’d love to learn from your experience!
4. Role or Industry-Specific Programs
Programs built for people in specific fields. Usually strong on technical interview prep and role-specific skills, but not designed for the immigrant experience.
For example, my friend Alexander Knoblock helps people break into tech sales. If that’s the role you’re targeting, he’s someone I’d personally point you to.
Pros: More useful for role-specific preparation, e.g. portfolio work for designers, technical interview practice for software engineers, PM frameworks for product managers. Might come with access to a role-specific community.
Cons: Not immigrant-focused. Not Germany-specific. Won’t help you with the challenges that are actually hardest in your situation: building a local network from scratch, establishing credibility without local experience, navigating a predominantly German-speaking job market.
Best resource I know: Exponent for tech interviews. It’s solid for PM and software engineering interview prep. Not Germany- or immigrant-focused, but genuinely strong content and peer network. I used it to practice Senior PM interviews and found it very helpful.
5. Immigrant-Focused Coaching & Programs
Programs and coaches specifically designed for skilled immigrants navigating a new country’s job market. These are built to address the specific disadvantages you’re dealing with: competing against candidates who speak German natively, have local experience, don’t need visa support, and often have years of local network already built.
Pros: Immigrant-focused. Usually hands-on, with real accountability. Designed for the actual challenges you face, not a generic job seeker.
Cons: Hard to know who to trust. Based on what my clients have shared with me, some of the biggest issues in this category mirror what I flagged in the Jobcenter section: coaches and programs tend to be deliverable- and hours-focused. You get X sessions or a CV rewrite, the engagement ends, then you’re on your own… Regardless of whether you’ve made actual progress or not.
This is the category I operate in with Brave New Path.
How to evaluate any option
Now that you have the map, the next question is: how do you actually compare these options against each other?
I have a framework I use for this, seven dimensions that I think are most important:
- Cost — Free <-> Expensive
- Life situation — General <-> Immigrant-Focused
- Role — General <-> Role-Specific
- Approach — Reactive <-> Systematic
- Accountability — None <-> Strong
- Measure of success — Deliverable-Focused <-> Results-Focused
- Support — Hands-Off <-> Hands-On
If immigrant-focused, systematic, and results-focused are important for you — and you’re comfortable that I may be on the expensive side and definitely not free — that’s who I am building Brave New Job for.
One more caveat: role-specific prep (technical interviews, portfolio work, etc.) isn’t my specialty. I’ll help you navigate it, but if that’s your biggest gap, I will encourage you to combine Brave New Job with something like Exponent.
In the next post, I’ll show you where each option sits across these seven dimensions and how to prioritize based on your situation. For now, you have the map. That’s more than most people start with.
What I do — and who it’s for
The core problem I work on is this: skilled immigrants in tech and business roles who are getting beaten by weaker local candidates. Few callbacks. Interviews that don’t convert. The frustrating experience of knowing you’re quite qualified… and watching interviews and offers go to people less qualified, just because they speak German or they already worked in a German company.
Hacking together free resources is unlikely to solve this, or it will take a very long time. Not because the resources are bad, but because you end up jumping from thing to thing: Targeting AI SaaS startups today, corporates expanding to China tomorrow; video intros, a personal website, an AI agent to send mass applications. So many ideas, so you do none of them. No system, no traction.
But that’s not even the real problem. You’re not in a traditional job search. You’re not a salesperson with a proven product who just needs to knock on more doors. You’re more like an early-stage startup looking for candidate-market fit. That’s a fundamentally different problem.
My approach with the Brave New Job program combines three things:
- The systematic approach of a startup seeking product-market fit — test and refine, not grind and hope
- The hands-on coaching of a personal trainer — in it with you, not just advising from the sidelines
- The accountability of a community — so knowing becomes doing, and doing becomes less lonely
It’s designed specifically for skilled immigrants. That’s not a nice-to-have — it’s the whole point! The challenges you face are unique, and generic job search support, however good, wasn’t built for you.
If you’re an experienced professional in a tech or business role and any of this resonates, here’s how the program works. You can book a call with me directly from that page if you’d like to talk it through. And if it’s not the right fit, I’m happy to help you figure out what is.
