You can find a job offline at employment exchanges (e.g. Corvinus, BME- appointments), in foreign newspapers (e.g. Budapest Sun, BBJ), and in other economic magazines (e.g. HVG) or professional journals.
There are lots of online jobsites where you can find job advertisements and information about looking for work in Hungary, e.g.: profession, jobpilot, jobline, cvonline.
Applying for a job
When applying for a job in Hungary, a cover letter is not that important since most of the applications do not get in directly to the HR department of the company but the applicants are pre-selected by recruitment agencies/headhunters. If you are one of the selected candidates, you will be invited to a job interview.
A CV ( US: resume) should contain the following elements:
- Personal data (name, address, email and telephone number)
- Education (period, name of the school/college/university and qualifications/degrees achieved)
- Professional experience
- Skills and competencies
- Language knowledge, abilities and qualifications
- Other experience (other qualifications, driving license...etc)
An ideal CV is brief, 1-2 pages, containing the applicant’s main objectives and a photo.
Job interviews
The interview and selection process will depend a lot on what type of job you are going for and the company running the selection process. For professional/managerial roles three rounds of interviews may be held. However an appraisal procedure can take up to 5 or 6 rounds in the case that meetings with senior management are scheduled.
The purpose of a first round interview is usually ‘getting to know each other’: Be punctual and frank! In the second round, the professional interview is held: Prepare yourself thoroughly; you should also be able to talk about yourself! A third round can contain a personality test and is when wage negotiations will take place: Try to be easy going and get rid of stage-fright (if possible).