AI job search across Europe

In our pool on 30 September, the local language was the most-named skill in sales-manager ads in Germany, Spain, the Netherlands, Italy and Poland, and in account-manager and project-manager ads in Germany. Where it is named that often, it is usually a condition of the job rather than a plus.

It is not always the country's language. German was among the three most-named skills in sales-manager jobs in Ireland and in operations and project-manager ads in Romania, and French and German both in customer-support jobs in Romania. Service centres and sales hubs hire for the customer's language, which is why a search by country alone misses them.

So the useful check reads the language line before the title: which language the work is done in every day, and at what level. If the ad is written in a language you do not work in, the job almost certainly needs it.

Across the European role pages the median share of ads that said remote was 22%. It varies more by country than by role: software engineer jobs in Romania were 38% remote and in Germany 29%, against 10% in France and 12% in Ireland.

The larger number is the silent one. On 31 of the 33 pages most ads did not say whether the job was remote, hybrid or on-site. A remote-only filter drops all of those. If you can commute to a city, include it, and treat an ad that says nothing as a question for the recruiter rather than a no.

When an ad does say remote, it usually means remote within one country. An employer needs a way to employ you where you live, such as a local company, a payroll provider or an employer of record, so the eligible list is often short. Look for the countries named in the ad, not the word remote in its title.

The same work is advertised in English in one country and in the local language in the next, and often both in the same company. A sales manager may be a Vertriebsleiter in Germany, a project manager a chef de projet in France. A search on the English title alone sees only part of the market.

Seniority words travel badly too. "Manager" can mean running a team in one company and owning a set of accounts in another. Compare the responsibilities, the scope and the reporting line instead of the title, and include the local titles for your work in any alert you set up (daily job alerts from your CV).

EU and EEA citizens can work in any EU or EEA country, and in Switzerland, without a work permit. That makes relocation within the bloc a real option rather than a formality, and for many roles it widens the market far more than any keyword. The United Kingdom is outside that arrangement, so an EU citizen now needs a UK visa unless they already hold settled status.

Outside the EU, the permit is decided country by country, and the EU Blue Card covers highly qualified roles above a salary threshold that each country sets. A posting that says "right to work required" means the employer will not sponsor.

MatchRadar reads your CV and the preferences you confirm once: the cities you would work in, whether remote is fine and from where, and whether you would relocate, and to which countries. Every weekday night it compares the new postings with the whole CV and e-mails the few that fit at 08:30, each with the requirements you meet, the partial ones and the gaps, including a language you do not have.

It reads employers' own career sites across Europe, the EU's EURES register, which carries the public employment services' vacancies, and a few aggregators. It does not read LinkedIn. Postings stay in the language the employer wrote them in, and the e-mail comes in English, or in Romanian for members in Romania.

The market is uneven and so is any pool: our European coverage is deepest in Romania, Germany, the United Kingdom and France. The jobs by role and country pages show what we hold, refreshed from the live pool. It is one plan with a seven-day trial and no card (pricing).