5 first calls out of 317 applications

What happened to the applications

The rows follow the hiring stages on one shared scale. A zero here is a real zero, not missing data.

105 rejections, and that is a minimum: I stopped logging them after 5 June. Another 212 applications have no answer.

Where they went: 48 to a Russian job board, 267 to LinkedIn and European sites, 2 through a personal recommendation.

Not one of those 317 applications led to a recommendation.

Where the applications went out

Too early to read anything into this. A reply takes one to three weeks, so a zero here is a lag, not a verdict. I will switch a source off once it has enough applications behind it and still nothing.

When the applications went out

38 of the 317 applications were out by 5 June. The other 279 have gone out since 1 September.

Between 5 June and 24 August there are no records at all. I kept applying and stopped writing it down.

Day by day

29 logged days. 16 June to 24 September. Requests, replies and messages are all LinkedIn.

One column per week. The two rows have separate scales: I sent far more than came back, so a shared scale would flatten the replies to nothing. A week with no column is a week with nothing logged.

25 conversations in total. In 3 of them the other person offered to recommend me. I never had to ask.

What hiring me actually involves

This is the question that usually surfaces after a first call and quietly ends things. Here it is up front, with the legal references, so nobody has to research it.

• EU Blue Card under § 18g Abs. 1 AufenthG. My university is listed in anabin with status H+.
• Above the 2026 threshold of €50,700 gross per year the Blue Card is issued without Federal Employment Agency approval - no labour market test, no agency step.
• Germany has no sponsor licence and no employer registration. There is nothing for you to apply for or be accredited under.
• If you want it faster: the accelerated procedure under § 81a AufenthG is one agreement with the immigration office at your own site plus a €411 fee - formally payable by the employer as the initiating party, and I am happy to reimburse it. If you would rather do nothing extra, I file the visa myself and you provide the contract.
• Realistically four to six months end to end. Official guidance starts at around four months; the Leipzig immigration office publishes five to six. The three-week figure that circulates covers only the consulate appointment after pre-approval.

Sources: Bundesagentur für Arbeit (ZAV 03/2026) · Make it in Germany / BMWE · § 18g, § 81a AufenthG · § 31a, § 47 AufenthV · checked against primary sources 1 Sept

How these numbers are made

• A script builds these numbers from a private plain-text file. I never edit them by hand.
• Day-by-day logging started 24 August 2026. Before that only totals exist, and between 5 June and 24 August I logged nothing: I kept searching and stopped recording.
• The rejection count is a minimum. I stopped logging rejections on the Russian job board after 5 June.
• A percentage appears only when the denominator is at least 10. Everything else is a count.
• Not here: names of people I talk to, company names, salaries, and the numbers two people shared with me privately. Those wait for their consent.