Tips and Tricks for finding a Job in India

For job seekers without an Indian passport, finding a job in India can be quite a challenge. A whole set of requirements must first be met in order to even be eligible for starting your career in South Asia’s largest country. These include bureaucratic hurdles when applying for a visa as well as the challenges that can arise in the process of obtaining a work permit. There are two types of visa that allow foreign nationals to work in India: an employment visa or a business visa.

A Business Visa allows you to work as a freelancer in India. In addition, it can also be used to initiate your freelance business or to set up your own company in India. Such a visa is issued for a maximum validity of 5 years and can be extended on site upon request. The costs are €100 for up to one year validity and €209 for up to 5 years. More details on how to apply for a regular business visa can be found here on New2 India. In addition to this regular business visa, it is now also possible to apply for an electronic business visa. For more information, you can also have a look at our article on e-visa for India. Although this e-business visa is only valid for a maximum of one year, the waiting time until the visa is issued is usually significantly shorter and the bureaucratic hurdles have been reduced. You can find more detailed information on how to apply for this e-business visa on the Indian government’s official website.

An employment visa, in turn, entitles the applicant to work as an employee in India. It can be issued for a period of up to five years, with extensions possible if the requirements are met. In order to be able to obtain the visa, your annual earnings must amount to at least 1625 million rupees (approx. 20,000 €). In addition, the salary must be paid in rupees within India. In a separate article, we have put together a detailed list of the necessary documents that you will need to apply for an employment visa. In addition to these documents, a fee of 100 € (up to 6 months), 167 € (up to 1 year) or 250 € (up to 5 years) must be paid, depending on the validity of the visa.

All these requirements can best be fulfilled if an employment contract has already been concluded with an Indian company so that this company can provide support. However, you should ensure that the respective company is already experienced in employing foreign staff. Otherwise, it can easily happen that you are left alone with the formalities and your visa will be issued with a great delay or even not at all.

International organisations as well as German and EU institutions that are active in India can be an interesting alternative for international job seekers. Although the application process for these organisations will often take a lot of time and many applicants will compete for a single position, the effort can be worth it: National and international organisations that send employees abroad have decades of experience and established structures, making it much easier to obtain an employment visa for India. Government institutions, such as the German missions in India, or institutions commissioned by the German government, such as the German Society for International Cooperation (GIZ), employ entire teams that are specialised on arranging work permits and visas for their employees abroad.

So, if you are interested in long-term employment in India, you should keep an eye on the job offers published by German and international organisations. A useful tool for this is offered by the German Federal Foreign Office in the form of its international job pool. On this website you cannot only search for job offers from many international organisations, but you can even create your own job profile in order to receive regular updates concerning suitable job offers. The Federal Foreign Office itself has set up a complex application process in several steps for starting a diplomatic career, which is carried out once a year. You can find all the details on this at this link. 

The GIZ has many job offers that are available on short notice, including positions in India (mainly in the capital New Delhi). On the organisation's public job portal, all the vacancies can be filtered by location, allowing you to directly find employment opportunities in India. The German political foundations offer another possibility of starting your career in India. These institutions, each associated with a party represented in the Bundestag, such as the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung, the Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung or the Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung, all operate from India’s capital New Delhi. With six offices in India, the Indo-German Chamber of Commerce (IGCC) is one of the largest foreign chambers of commerce in the country. Here, too, it is worth taking a look at the job advertisements. Other organisations are the Goethe-Institut (called Max-Mueller-Bhavan in India), the DAAD or international schools (such as the Deutsche Schule Bombay).

German companies that are based in India also often send employees to India. Since India usually does not seem very attractive as a destination country, you have a good chance of being posted here. The advantage is, as with the organisations mentioned above, that the companies will handle the bureaucracy - from visa to housing to Indian SIM cards, everything is taken care of.

Have you ever worked in India before, or would you like to discuss job opportunities available to you in India? Do not hesitate to write to us at [email protected] or use the comment function below. 

Written by: Ferdinand Schlechta

Cover Photo: Unsplash – Scott Graham, Nitin Mendekar

Last update: 10.07.2022

Disclaimer: Unless otherwise indicated, website designs, audio, video, text, photographs and graphics on the site (collectively, the 'content') are owned by or licensed to New2, and are protected by copyright and trademark laws.