You Are Not Starting Over: What One Recruiter Taught Me About Building a Career in Germany
One thing I strongly believe is that moving abroad does not mean starting from zero.
And my conversation with Adenike reminded me why.
Adenike worked in recruitment in Nigeria before moving to Germany. But when she arrived, she took a career break to focus on learning German and integrating into life here.
Later, when she applied for a recruitment role in Germany, her previous experience was not ignored.
In fact, it helped her get the job.
What she lacked was European experience, and that was something the company could teach her.
That stood out to me because many migrants convince themselves that everything they did before moving no longer counts.
But as Adenike put it:
No knowledge is wasted.
Your old skills can still open new doors
Adenike’s journey has not been completely straightforward.
She studied healthcare management, worked in recruitment, developed an interest in technology and eventually found herself interested in digital health.
At one point, she even had to learn Python and machine learning because she wanted to understand the space she was moving into.
For me, that is a good reminder that careers do not always have to follow one straight line.
Sometimes different parts of your experience only start making sense later.
What recruiters actually want from your CV
Of course, I could not interview a recruiter without asking about CVs.
One of the biggest mistakes Adenike sees is people sending the same CV to every company.
Her advice is to tailor your CV to the actual role.
And then she said something that made me laugh.
Sometimes, while screening CVs, she simply uses Ctrl + F to search for the keywords she needs.
That means your CV can look beautiful, but if the recruiter cannot quickly find the skills they are looking for, you could still be overlooked.
The lesson?
Make your experience easy to find.
The candidate who applied 28 times
One story really stayed with me.
A candidate applied to Adenike’s company 28 times before finally getting hired.
But the important part was not just persistence.
Each time, the candidate kept improving.
By the 28th application, they had become a much stronger candidate.
Eventually, they got the job and were relocated from India to Spain.
That changed the way I thought about persistence.
It is not simply about trying again.
It is about improving before you try again.
LinkedIn is more important than many people realise
Adenike also explained that LinkedIn is one of the main tools recruiters use to find candidates.
So simply having a profile is not enough.
Your profile should make it clear what you do, what skills you have and what opportunities you are open to.
If recruiters are searching for people with your skills, you want to make it easy for them to find you.
Visibility matters.
Do not make yourself smaller
Another part of our conversation went beyond jobs.
Adenike spoke about sometimes being the only Black person in her team and becoming quieter in group settings.
She had ideas, but did not always say them out loud.
Eventually, her boss noticed that the confident woman she saw online seemed very different from the quiet person she saw at work.
That lesson stayed with me:
Bring yourself into the room.
You do not have to become the loudest person.
But you also should not hide what you can contribute.
You are carrying more than you think
If you have moved countries, changed careers or taken a break, you may feel behind.
But you are not arriving empty-handed.
Your previous education, work experience, life experience and skills are still part of you.
You may need to adapt.
You may need to learn something new.
You may even need to change direction completely.
But that is not the same as starting from nothing.
Sometimes, you are simply entering a new phase with more experience than you realise.
And perhaps that is the bigger lesson from Adenike’s story:
Keep learning. Keep improving. Keep showing up.
Eventually, the different pieces may start to make sense.
Watch the full conversation with Adenike on Afrodites Space for more on recruitment, CVs, LinkedIn, career changes and building a career in Germany.
Afrodites Space exists to document the lived experiences of Black women building careers, businesses and lives across Germany and Europe.
Adenike’s story is a reminder that moving to a new country does not erase everything you built before. Your experience still matters, your skills can travel with you, and sometimes the career path that looks scattered today makes perfect sense when you look back later.
If you’re currently building a career in Germany, navigating job applications, considering a career change or wondering whether your experience from home still counts, watch the full conversation with Adenike on Afrodites Space. Her perspective as both a migrant and a recruiter might change the way you approach your next move.
