"We do not care about your academic degrees [...]"
Unfortunately embassies do care about these. Getting a work permit to immigrate to another country without an university degree certainly reduces the chances to get the embassy's approval, even in countries like Germany where there is some flexibility — if you have a Senior profile — a degree certainly accelerates the process.
In fact, in this industry, there is less people caring about an university degree than people who care about it, exceptions being those in the research field. But HR departments always filter out good candidates because they lack the degree, most HR employees are not trained correctly and/or know how difficult it is to hire a foreigner without a formal education background so they immediately throw good resumes to the trash can because of that.
Just moved to Berlin, no degree.
The federal employment agency had to give approval after the contract was signed, which took about 2-3 weeks. Working visa issued after 3 days.
HR shouldn't be scared, it's easy and pretty straightforward.
You are right. It would me much easier for us to require academic degrees. There are still ways to get a work permit for non-EU engineers without a degree, but its much more difficult and subject to a lot of arbitrariness.
In some cases, it required months-long battles and countless appeals with the german federal agencies and thats already with support from the city of berlin. It's a difficult situation for all parties involved and we always warn candidates who might not qualify for an "easy" visa about the implications.
Unfortunately, the world is not and has never been a fair and equal place. Most people from western countries do not realize of privileged they are.
I work for a company called Honeypot. We have placed many non-EU developers with no degrees in jobs in startups in Germany and the Netherlands.
If you have no degree, you just need to prove that you have sufficient skills or work experience. It's more paperwork for the company, but for them it's usually worth it.
If you want more info, I can ask the team who looks after it.
In Berlin, so many companies are relocating developers that majority of HR have done the visa thing 4 or 5 times so they're used to it. Also when the job ad says they don't care about your academic degrees that means HR has been informed not to care.
Unfortunately embassies do care about these. Getting a work permit to immigrate to another country without an university degree certainly reduces the chances to get the embassy's approval, even in countries like Germany where there is some flexibility — if you have a Senior profile — a degree certainly accelerates the process.
In fact, in this industry, there is less people caring about an university degree than people who care about it, exceptions being those in the research field. But HR departments always filter out good candidates because they lack the degree, most HR employees are not trained correctly and/or know how difficult it is to hire a foreigner without a formal education background so they immediately throw good resumes to the trash can because of that.