We Need a Bavarian with Protestant Working-Class Parents and a Big Nose

Ian McMaster, An Englishman living in Germany wonders at the superfluous information on German job applications:

Why, for example, would I be remotely interested the applicant's parents and their professions and religion?

Perhaps this has something to do with German thoroughness - giving the whole picture in order to establish credibility. A similar concept can often be found in German business presentations, in which a company's history is presented in great detail from day one of its operations. ("Our company was founded in 1897. In 1898, we moved our factory to…")...

But back to job applications. I still don't understand why I need to know the applicants' religion, let alone that of their parents. This is a private matter - like political affiliation or sexual orientation - and nobody's business apart from the individual's.

The same can be said of many other details that one finds on German job applications, including marital status, the number and ages of children, and even the names of brothers and sisters. What any of these things tell me about somebody's ability to do a job is a complete mystery. So here's the deal: don't tell me and I won't ask. Promise.

But let's take this a step further. Do I even need to know your age and date of birth? Well, maybe if we employ you it would be nice to know this, so that we can remember to say "Happy birthday" and buy you a present. But at the job application stage? Hmm, not really.

...

I find it hard to understand the opposition of some people and firms to Germany's current experiments with "anonymous applications" . Why do companies need any information that is not relevant to the candidate's ability to do the job? They don't, but clearly some Germans find it hard to give up their traditional idea of completeness.

There are a couple of things going on here, I think. First of all, the lack of an advanced anti-discrimination culture in Germany. This is a country, after all, which had a prolonged national debate before passing the most elementary of anti-discrimination laws. And even then, the title of the law had to be watered down to 'equal treatment law' (Germans need a law to stop them from discriminating? Heaven forfend!) and the resulting legislation is pretty much toothless (g). The main problem is remedies: anti-discrimination laws only work when they inflict financial pain on losing defendants, but the current German law doesn't come near to doing this. The idea of a federal agency which, like the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, routinely files high-publicity lawsuits against prominent corporations for racial and gender discrimination, is completely foreign to the producerist German mentality.

The second issue is cultural 'thickness': like medieval courtiers, Germans tend to carefully monitor each others' behavior, clothing, and accent very carefully for various subtle social cues. In British English, this is known as 'seat-sniffing'. And just as in Britain, people who speak with regional German accents will pay lots of money to try to get rid of them and learn to speak (g) 'high German.' You want to know where your employee comes from and how they look because you have to make a judgment about whether they will 'fit in' to your particular workplace. Whether they appear capable of doing the job is important, but not the only question. Further, German employment law makes it hard to fire people, especially after they've put in their six months' probation. You're going to pay a lot more attention to intangible questions of chemistry if you know you may be stuck working with this person for years.

Comments

[Zaungast]

Back in high school, I learned about listing one's parents on top of your resume, along with their professions. But I'd say that a resume with this detail looks hopelessly outdated, maybe even back than. That doesn't mean that such candidates are always out of question, but they should have a major disadvantage on most positions.

I've also seen quite a lot of applications including the applicant's creed (not their parents', though). Both details, of course, had been established as resume elements as a means of discrimination - by religion and by class membership. I don't think that it works a lot to that end today; after all, it's not easy guess the HR employee's preferences who happens to find your letter. If these details are still given, they are usually given by "collective habit".

Btw, I've seen a lot of applications who give the creed; but I've never found any but "Protestant" or "Catholic". So basically, in case you don't fit into the traditional majority patterns, you don't follow this tradition.

Marital status and number of children is something special: Your employer will learn anyway in the moment you hand over your "Lohnsteuerkarte". So no need not to tell it. Although it's irrelevant, I think it's more friendly to give names and ages than only the grand total. But I suppose the number only is the most frequent version.

But now let's turn to the serious aspects.
Of course the employee's age matters.
To begin with, recruiting triggers costs.
These are amortized over the remaining worklife. And the applicant's age is the most important factor for this number.
Unless you apply in one of the high-turnover industries (which may cover perhaps less than 5% of all jobs).

Andrew, your last two sentences are the most important arguments in this context. If employees are protected from arbitrary firing, it makes sense to take applications serious - for both sides.

[Sebastian]

@doppelfish:

I've yet to see an application mention, or any "how to write your application" book recomend that one mention ones parents or siblings.

The mention of parents (including professions) and siblings is commonplace in German job application recommendations. For example, the BA puts it in their model CV but stresses that it's voluntary. They also recommend against mentioning your religious deonimnation unless the employer explicitly asks for it.

I would recommend against mentioning the parents' profession unless you feel it could somehow work to your advantage. If you're applying for a job as a product designer, and your father happens to be Ferdinand Porsche, you might want to mention that.

Religion is only important in many a Tendenzbetrieb, for example if you apply for an office job in a church administration (can't have a saucy protestant secretary be typing that catholic memo, now, can we).

In case anyone thinks "doppelfish" is joking, look at this. And note that a part time administrative clerk for a Catholic kindergarten only has to belong to "a Christian church" (this is really common now for Caritas jobs too), whereas the new deputy head for the archdiocese's department of finances and human resources will have to be Catholic (also MS Excel skills are needed).

As a side note, the general vicariate of the Hamburg archdiocese is in St. Georg, and right across the street from it is an establishment called (in English) "Strictly Men". This must please the bishop very much.

[doppelfish]

What distinguishes American and German application is that Germans like to see a photograph of the applicant (maybe a hidden subsidy to photographers specialized in taking such pictures) and the date of birth. The latter is often given with the place of birth.

Religion is only important in many a Tendenzbetrieb, for example if you apply for an office job in a church administration (can't have a saucy protestant secretary be typing that catholic memo, now, can we).

I've yet to see an application mention, or any "how to write your application" book recomend that one mention ones parents or siblings. That, and giving the place of birth or the occupation of the occupation of the father (the mother is a housewife, of course) is an ancient practice which has faded away just about everywhere.

[Alex (the other one)]

For years I have only applied to jobs in international companies and did so with an English CV ... and never put in any of the data mentioned above besides date of birth; not even a picture.

But the point is: people will realise you're female, over 40, wearing a headscarf, etc.pp. when you come for the interview, and just don't hire you then. Waste of time ...

[Martin]

@Jtgraham: Yes, there are such parts of the planet. But we are talking German job applications here.

And I agree completely that age, religion, parents and other relatives and sexual orientation do not belong in a job application. There is a small number of jobs where some of these infos are important (priest, actress, ...) but with these jobs this is obviously a requirement.

And it is not as bad as McMaster describes: Data about familiy relations and religion I have not seen in many many years in CVs. I think it may be a little more common in applications for apprenticeships where the applicants leave their parents house for the first time.
In "real life" applications this is increasingly less important.

Martin

[Jtgraham]

McMaster's statements about what is "private" and therefore "nobody's business" are totally conclusory and question-begging. Granted HE doesn't care about religion and doesn't care whether someone is gay or not-- but why doesn't he have enough imagination to see that someone else might care? Is he unaware there are huge swaths of this planet where sexual or religious deviation are not only pubic matters, but can have severe consequences?