When applying for a job in a foreign company in the Czech Republic, you will inevitably have several interviews: with the head of the HR department and your immediate supervisor or team leader, as well as a test called the Assessment Center. In this article, I will talk about how to write a resume when applying for a job in the Czech Republic, and what to consider when passing an interview.

Who can apply for a job in the Czech Republic?

To a formal full-time job with vacation pay and benefits Pension Fund and in insurance company The following groups of foreigners can apply:

  • Persons who have received higher education in the Czech Republic;
  • Persons with permanent residence in the EU;
  • Persons with a residence permit who have a work permit in the Czech Republic.

How to write a resume?

A resume when applying to a foreign company must be drawn up in English, be short and concise, but reflect your real experience Key words: education, advanced training courses, work experience. The maximum allowable volume is 2 A4 sheets, no one else will read, and you will waste your time.

The resume begins with the word CV and your contact details (name and surname, address, telephone, e-mail), then the name of the position you are applying for. The resume is drawn up in chronological order : Your last place of work or study is listed first. When describing work experience, indicate the full name of the company, your position in it, and describe your responsibilities in 1-3 sentences. Do not forget to indicate not only information about the education you received, but also a list of advanced training courses. At the end of your CV, indicate the languages ​​you speak and , and you can also indicate if you have a driver's license.

Hobbies are not indicated in the resume, it is also not recommended to insert a photo, unless this requirement is indicated in the vacancy.

What do you need to bring with you to the interview?

For an interview when applying for a job in the Czech Republic, you must definitely take a resume, even if the company has already read it.

What to consider when interviewing for a job in the Czech Republic?

  • At an interview in a foreign company in the Czech Republic, a recruiter can easily switch to another language during the conversation - English or German, this is especially possible if the requirement good knowledge language was indicated in the vacancy.
  • Many recruiters will insistently ask you about what you know about the company you want to work for. That is why it is necessary to carry out some preparatory work and try to learn as much as possible about the company, its hierarchy, how long the company has been on the market, what products/services it offers. All this information is available on the Internet.
  • Do not be afraid to ask questions that interest you about your future position and responsibilities: an interview in the Czech Republic is primarily a dialogue, not an interrogation.
  • If you don't want to answer a question for personal reasons, tell the recruiter directly about it and you will be asked another question.
  • The recruiter raises the question of bonuses himself and asks if the proposed level suits you.

What is the same Assessment Center?

Assessment Center or assessment center - this is one of the methods for assessing candidates for a position in a company. Its essence lies in the fact that the behavior of candidates and their character are determined during business games or imitation of a tense work environment - yes, exactly tense, to test your stress resistance - one of essential qualities these days. When completing tasks, you will be observed by a group of 3 experts who will evaluate you according to various parameters. As a rule, candidates are divided into groups of 3-5 people who together perform one task.

You can spend up to 8 hours at the assessment center in the Czech Republic, i.e. full time work. Here, this method of personnel assessment has especially taken root in the last 5 years, and in particular the practice of assessment centers is widespread in foreign companies with branches in the Czech Republic (for example, in German, Swiss, American companies). Based on the results of your behavior in the assessment center, experts will draw conclusions about how you can communicate in a team and introduce yourself. You may also be asked to complete several psychological tests on the computer.

With all confidence I can say that this is the most difficult part of the process when applying for a job, as well as a rather stressful part.

How long to wait for a response after the interview?

Typically, the recruiting company or firm notifies you of a positive or negative decision within a week of each part of the job interview. If no one calls you during this time, contact the company and find out for yourself.

Looking through the numerous resumes sent to me by my readers, immigrants from different countries
- I can say with accuracy that most of them are doomed to failure.

But it can always be fixed

So, make a resume strictly point by point, in each of which highlight your main highlight.

First, the resume should clearly state the PURPOSE. Ask yourself what is your goal?by sending your resume to a particular company.

PURPOSE is your statement about yourself, what kind of specialist you are and what you are applying for. The goal shouldbe short and clear. It is best to place the goal immediately below the main data(name and address), the entire width of the sheet, emphasizing it solidly.

For example: “I am Vasya Petrov, I apply for the position of a project manager”, or “I am ready to take project manager position in your company.

Come up with a beautiful slogan for yourself.

This will show your creativity. Usually, employers appreciate someone who distinguishes himself from the crowd, it is believed that a person has highgoals and healthy ambitions. Such a person will not sit out a place from paycheck to paycheck, but can always contribute to the development of the company.

Secondly, since we are foreigners in the Czech Republic, it is necessary to indicate your VISA TYPE in the resume.

To the employer in the future it was not a surprise. Visa type can be withdrawn immediatelyunder the main data, above the goal, not highlighting it much if you are a student, and boldly underlining it if you have permanent residence.

Thirdly, you usually send a resume to one company in at least 2 languages.(for example, Russian - Czech version, Czech - English version).

Each resume is compiled separately. It shows your language skills.

Fourth, The information in each block is best placed in the form of a table. Czechs almost everywhere use this option.
- Studied there
- FROM
- BEFORE.
- Result \u003d learned such and such an experience (in which you can be useful)

That is, in this way, in the form of a tablet, you select all the points:

  • Education
  • Professional activity
  • language knowledge(be sure to indicate the level even for the Russian language - your native language), etc.

Fifth,
write not about learning abilities, but about the fact that you quickly grasp everything on the fly = that is, you are easily trained.

Separately, in a conspicuous place, highlight that you do not smoke, and you have a driver's license (category).

In each paragraph, try to highlight your special zest.

At sixth, Please indicate the date of your resume in the following format:

In Prague, 27.10.2015

FULL NAME, and TITLE! Bc., Mgr., Ing. etc

Signature

In general, try to distinguish yourself from the crowd, on paper. In the form of its features and the main, pursued PURPOSE.

P.S.
And don't forget to place your best photo at the very top of your resume! not against the background of old wallpaper, but a photograph,which will show you from a vantage point, made in a professional studio, in a suitable suit, against a calm background.

All people perceive you primarily visually. Your resume will make the first impression of you.

You can view and download examples below.

Czech CVs and motivation letter:

  • Summary to work at the reception
  • Resume for

Motivation letter in Czech


DOWNLOAD sample CV:

  • Resume for assistant position
  • Resume for a secretary position
  • Resume for a salesperson
  • Summary to work at the reception
  • Resume for a manager position
  • Resume for a programmer position
  • Resume for students (teams / part-time jobs)
  • Universal Czech Resume
  • Summary in English, samples

Therefore, remembering some school curriculum one of the European languages, clarifying the way if you get lost in the narrow streets of Prague is not a problem. Almost all restaurants and pubs have a menu in English or at least one waiter who speaks good English, the same is the case with shops, a little worse with. And, fortunately for tourists from Russia, most of the older generation of native Praguers understand and speak Russian quite well, thanks to our common socialist past. In general, you can go to Prague without knowing the Czech language - in any situation there is an opportunity to explain and understand the interlocutor.

However, when going on vacation, it is always better to know some of the most necessary expressions and words in the language of the country you are going to. The easiest way, perhaps, is to buy a small phrase book, or pick up the phrases you think you need on the Internet before leaving. If you didn’t remember about it in time, or simply didn’t have enough time, here is a small selection of simple phrases and words that may come in handy during your holidays in beautiful Prague.

Words and expressions that you will definitely need (stressed vowels in bold):

in Czech Approximate pronunciation
Yes Ano BUT but
Not Ne H uh
Hello / Good afternoon Dobry den D about brie d uh n
good evening Dobry evening D about brie in uh black
Goodbye Na shledanou On shl uh dunow
Men / Women Muzi / Zeny M at zhi / Zh e us
Please Prosim Etc about Sim
Sorry Prominté Prom And nte
Many thanks Mockrat děkuji Moskr but t Dec at yi
I don't speak Czech Nemluvim česky Neml at wim h e ski
Do you speak Russian/English? Mluvite rusky / anglicky? Mluv And te r at ski / eng And tsky
Closed / Open Zavřeno / Otevřeno Zavrzhen about/ Otevrzhen about
Entrance denied Vchod order Vx about d zak but zan
Exit / Entry Vychod / Vchod IN And stroke / in about d
coffee house Kavarna Kav but rna
Bon Appetit! Dobrou chuť Dobr about y x at be
pub Pivnice Pivn And ce
One glass jedno pivo Y e bottom p And in

Phrases that may come in handy when shopping:

Phrases to help you navigate the city:

in Czech Approximate pronunciation
Where is …? Kde je…? cd uh e...
It is far? Je to daleko? E then d but easy
Where is the nearest stop? Where je nejbližší zastávka? Kde e n e nearby stop but vka
Where can I buy a ticket? Where si můžu koupit jízdenku? Kde si m at bug about upit yizd uh nku
Right left Doprava / Doleva D about rights / D about leva
Front / Rear Vepredu / Vzadu IN uh forward / back at
On the corner Na rohu H but horn
Directly Rovne R about outside

Phrases that we hope you don't need:

The Czech language, along with Russian, Finnish and Thai, is considered one of the most complex languages in the world. Czech, like Russian, belongs to the Slavic languages, however, despite this, for Russian ears, the Czech language is rather unusual in the presence of a large number consonants, and some Czech words have no vowels at all: for example, finger is prst, neck is krk, and wolf is vlk. Also, many Czech words and their meanings may seem funny to you, or they may confuse you:

Funny Czech words Words that can confuse
Let a dlo Airplane Č e rstvy Fresh
Let u ska Stewardess Zelen i na Vegetables
sed a dlo seat, armchair Ok u rka Cucumber
slap a dlo Catamaran O voice Fruit
vrt u lnik Helicopter Č e rstvý rotr a Viny Fresh food
Zmrzl i na Ice cream Smet a na Cream
Obsazen o Busy Poz o r Attention
Koco u r cat H e rna slot machine hall
Pon ožka Sock Pit o mec Fool, fool
Kalh o ty Trousers, pants Mr á z freezing
H o lic The hairdresser Rod i na Family
Slun í čko Sun Slev a A discount
Voň a vka Perfume Vedr o Heat
Rv ačka Fight submarine í k Scammer
Cerp a dlo Pump Ú Zasny Amazing
Stras i dlo Ghost K a ki Persimmon

For admission to master's and doctoral programs, you need to apply to CV (Curriculum vitae), which contains biographical data about the applicant and is common in business in Russia under the name "resume", and in the Czech Republic it is called životopis (rus. biography). I prepared it in the pan-European Europass format. This is not a mandatory format, you can do it simply in Word, but the online form is very convenient, and the love for standardization and new technologies positively characterizes the applicant. There are and there are examples in all EU languages ​​(of course, including in English). After completion, CV (curriculum vitae) can be downloaded in PDF, Word, HTML, XML formats. I recommend PDF because it is convenient to print it, and later the document can be uploaded back to the server and corrected all in the same convenient interface thanks to the data storage built into PDF in XML format.

CV is the most important part of the package of documents and its quality plays a huge role - the commission will make an impression of you first of all on it (where you studied, worked, what awards and projects you have), then on the quality of the dissertation topic presentation. How beautiful you will smile and how you look - does not play any role at all. People want facts.

When looking for a university and a laboratory to work on a doctoral dissertation, your fate depends on one CV at all - in the very first email. In a letter to a professor (your potential supervisor), you must attach your CV. If this is not done, he will either not answer (which happens in most cases), or without further ado ask to send a CV to start a conversation. Any conversation about admission to most master's and all doctoral programs begins with the provision of a CV and study by the university. So this is an important detail of admission.

I did the first version of my CV in English 2 years ago, when I started preparing for admission. downloaded ready-made version in the form of a web page, corrected for myself and sent to universities, communicated with professors. Now, for, I approached as seriously as possible and completed a CV in Czech in the pan-European Europass format. As my professor said, c : "You want to study in Czech - it would probably be good to do a CV in Czech." By the way, my Czech already allows me to freely communicate with him, current doctoral students and understand 90% even their fast slang speech among themselves.

First of all, the CV contains the name of the author, his contact details, gender, citizenship. Attention should be paid to relevance, because. your letters and even applications with contact information may be lost by the correspondent, and the CV, as the main document, will always be there. Email is the main means of communication - even the results of enrolling in a university are written to email in the first place.

The next section is work experience. You should not describe all the small and non-core jobs - only those that gave useful experience for this position matter. There are no fields in Europass for specifying the contact details of the heads of these organizations, it seemed very strange to me - traditionally, the CV (curriculum vitae) indicates the name, email, phone number of the head (or supervisor) at previous places of work, universities and often universities there made inquiries about candidates. The practice of letters of recommendation in the Czech Republic exists, but only individual universities(for example, Charles University) include them in the list of required documents.

This is followed by a block with information about education. It is worth indicating universities and courses that are essential for the position. Additional small courses are of no interest to anyone and will only distract attention from important information. Personally, I specified UJOP, because. this speaks of the proper level of language proficiency, and simply UJOP has close historical ties with FEL and its mention is useful.

Then indicate the native language and possession foreign languages in line with the system. This is a pan-European language assessment system from level A1 (beginner) to C2 (perfection). You should indicate the languages ​​​​that you speak at a level of B2 (improving). The UJOP final exam corresponds to B2, because for learning, you need a level from B2, and no one is interested in additional languages ​​​​at the “beginner” level.

Finally, you should talk about your significant awards, personal successes, hobbies (this is important, because people without hobbies and interests are flawed, including as specialists). Just 1 line about love for sports perfectly characterizes a person as a versatile person. In the list of achievements, it is worth indicating truly significant awards and publications. Boring “sociable, easy to train, initiative” leave to yourself.

Europass is a joint project of UNESCO and the European Union to create a single standard for documents confirming education, language skills, and work experience. In terms of admission to the university, we use a CV, but there is also a Europass mobility passport (for internships), a Europass language passport (about language certificates, language proficiency levels), a Europass diploma supplement (translation of a diploma and an application indicating additional information for recognition for abroad). As in other countries, the EU has created the Europass Česká republika organization in the Czech Republic to promote this initiative. Within a few years, the final transition to the all-European system "National Diploma + Europass" is planned. Those. when receiving a university diploma in their native language (for the Czech Republic it is Czech), the graduate additionally receives the Europass application (in most cases in English) and thanks to this, he can easily continue his studies abroad or find a job there. We can say that this is an elegant way of abandoning the practice of many universities, when graduates receive diplomas from 2 different universities in different countries. In the light of further EU integration (the ability to work abroad without a single permit, and even more so a work visa), this is very relevant. CV, Language Passport and Mobility Passport are prepared by the applicant and can be printed on the home printer.

A few words about myself and the situation with the IT sector in the Czech Republic

First, let me tell you about myself. I have been living in the Czech Republic for three years already. extra years and I am in my fourth year of postgraduate (doctoral studies) in the city of Brno. Since the basic scholarship is barely enough to live on, since the fifth year the scholarship payment stops completely and I have no other source of income, I began to seriously think about finding a job here in the Czech Republic. During those three years in the faculty I was programming in C++ and some Python, so I started to consider working as a C++ or Python developer.

In Brno, as in the Czech Republic in general, there is no shortage of IT jobs. There are several fairly large technology centers in Brno, many international corporations and companies have their offices here (Motorola, Microsoft, Red Hat, IBM, NXP (former Freescale) and others). Brno is a student city, there are two world-famous universities - Technical University Brno (where I study) and Masaryk University, as well as many others that have IT degree programs. Therefore, there is no shortage of IT students here, which means that there is fertile ground for the development of IT business and the placement of development offices. However, in Lately there was an acute problem of a shortage of IT specialists (as Red Hat wrote about not being able to recruit enough workers from among students), so good IT specialists are worth their weight in gold here. Among the most popular areas of IT in Brno are embedded development (microcontrollers for motor control, control in the transport system, smart transport systems, robotics, Internet of Things, etc.), electron microscopy and network and mobile technologies. In addition, there is now a growing trend in wages for novice developers. Novice programmers with little experience and university graduates can apply for wages at the level of 25-30 thousand crowns.

Job search through the Internet and recruiting agencies

So, you are studying IT at a university in the Czech Republic and you have the opportunity and desire to find a job in your profile specialty for part or full time. Where to start? When looking for vacancies, first of all, you should turn to the Internet and use one of the many special portals for headhunting. One of good services is techloop.io . The service provides a convenient interface for creating your portfolio - a kind of online resume:

You can list your education, previous jobs, projects, skills and knowledge with a mastery level. Everything is very convenient and allows you to quickly enter information about yourself. The main advantage of the portal is that the interface language is English and data must be entered in English.

By creating a portfolio in techloop.io, you create your public business card for recruiters and if you are lucky, HR specialists will find you when searching for candidates. A female recruiter from Seznam, the main Czech portal and search engine like our Yandex, contacted me in this way. Recruiters, if they are interested in your portfolio, will write you a message directly in the service using the built-in messenger.

You can also publish your resume on portals such as Monster and Superkariera. Here it is possible to place a resume in several languages ​​(Czech and English most often). As in the case of techloop.io, employers and agents from recruitment agencies will also contact you themselves.

You can wait a long time for a response, but do not forget about active search. There are several portals for this: ITJobs.cz, jobs.cz, cz.indeed.com, profesia.cz and Jobs Contact. ITJobs and Jobs Contact are recruitment agencies that help in finding candidates. On ITJobs you can register and upload your CV in Czech and English (for each vacancy it is indicated that you need to send a CV in two languages), indicate your contact details and preferences. In this case, when applying for a vacancy, you can easily upload resume files by selecting them from previously uploaded files.

Under the description of each vacancy on such a portal there is a response button that opens the application form for the vacancy. You can write a short transmittal letter and attach your resume.
As soon as you apply for a job on such a portal, a company representative will contact you within a few days and offer you an interview at the agency to clarify the details and build some idea about you as a candidate. I was waiting for a response from the ITJobs portal for several days, a Jobs Contact employee wrote me a message at email on the same day.

Interviews and basic requirements for candidates

An interview at an agency is a good workout and a test of your strength. An agency employee can test your knowledge by asking standard questions on technologies and programming languages, clarify information about your candidacy and can suggest the most suitable employment option. He uses the information he receives to improve your resume. Now a very important requirement ("must have") for IT vacancies in the Czech Republic is knowledge of English, since there are a large number of international companies and corporations, and many Czech companies have offices in other countries and employ foreigners. Therefore, during the interview, they can check your level of knowledge English language. For example, at one interview in a company, they organized a conversation with me with a member of the development team from the USA.

It is also possible to interview with a recruiting agent by phone. After applying for one vacancy, I was contacted by a lady from the consulting firm (in Czech, personálně-poradenská služba) Randstad and had a short phone interview. She introduced me to several vacancies in two different companies and two days later invited me for an interview in one organization, offering several time options to choose from.

The competition procedure for a position here is standard: first, there is an interview with an HR employee or with a lead developer, sometimes a development manager, and then an interview with team members with a test task and checking the candidate for compliance with the required qualifications. They often give tests on a computer or on a leaflet for knowledge various technologies to be completed within a limited amount of time. Some firms also ask you to complete test tasks before an interview at a special online portal. Sometimes the sequence of interviews is reversed: first there is a technical interview with the lead developer or team manager for the position for which the candidate is applying, and after that there is an interview with an HR employee.

I can give a few life hacks that I have tested on my own and that can help you in presenting your candidacy at the interview. You can make a small list of your projects with a short description and links to github or other source repository. It produces good impression on HR employees or company managers. It is also sometimes very handy to bring a printed resume in case the person could not get it or forgot to print it. Another very useful thing when working with a recruiting agency can be to present your expectations and preferences from the future place of work. For example, I was able to get a job in a company that was offered to me by an agent based on my interests and work experience. When looking for vacancies, you should not be limited to one technology or development language. It's better to make a broader list keywords(programming languages ​​and technologies) and thus you can find more options.

I hope this guide will be helpful to you in your job search. I wish you success in your job search and soon employment in the company of your dreams!