Hi All,
I am a Msc Student in Networking in Duisburg University for 7 months now. I have completed my BSc from my home country and have years of job experience. I have already got a job offer from a company in Germany over 52000 Euro per year. The company is preparing the contract paper.

I am willing to apply for the "Blue Card EU" in the visa office. Can any one please confirm that I am eligable to apply this visa?

Best Regards.

I guess yes your 

Hello,

    I am in the same situation but someone replied me that as an International student i cannot drop out of school and apply for the Blue card at ABH. I have to return to my home country to apply for the work permit is this correct?

Thanks

The only way you can receive a definite answer is to ask your local ABH if they will make an exception (see AufenthG §16 Abs. 2).

Yes it is possible, I recently got a job offer before completing my studies and the company applied for a blue card in my case. I already completed the process and waiting for my electronic card.

That used to be with the old work permit application. With the new blue card you can apply with your bachelor degree since all foreign qualifications are now recognised. I dont know the complete process as the company's consultant took care of it. I would suggest you file your blue card application through a lawyer, make it a lot easier.

Hello.
Could you please share how did find a job ? I mean without completing masters degree. And in which sector you find a job ? is it IT sector ? 
Also, are the people, who found job offer know fluent German or there is also cases based only on English(and some basic German) managed to find a job offer ? 

I would be very grateful to hear your experience and many thanks you guys in advance!

I would really appreciate if you could give me some details about how your blue card was processed and what documents did you have to give to your employer and also about your nationality as I have heard not all nationalities can convert their visa directly from here and need to go back to their home country to apply for work permit.

There is really not much point in asking others about their experiences regarding dropping out of university and changing status within Germany, especially if you don’t know their country of citizenship. The law (§16 Abs. 2 AufenthG) quite clearly states that students are not allowed to change their status in Germany (unless they have a legal right to the new AE).

Citizens of countries who are privileged under AufenthV §41 Abs. 1 and are, thereby, allowed to apply for a work permit in Germany are usually allowed to change their permits in Germany. Everyone else wanting to change from a study permit to a work permit has to return to their country of origin (or another country in which they are legal resident) to file an application. Occasionally an ABH can be convinced to issue the permit in Germany, however, that is the exception to the rule and you can only determine whether your ABH would be willing by asking your ABH.

Hi all,
It took a little more time as the ausländeramt was not sure what to do. So they asked me to fill up all the forms and submit them. Then they sent the papers to the arbeitsamt. That was in November. Now I got the permission to work full time and paid 100 Euro Gebüren. And it happened last week. I am so happy and I hope this will incourage all other Msc students to come forward and start working and building career.

Now about the rules, yes the rule says that you are not allowed to work full time when you are a student §16 Abs. 2 AufenthG paragraph 3. The Blue Card is not connected to the rules for the student visa and it says that the applicant must have at least Bsc § 19a Blaue Karte EU. However §16 Abs. 2 AufenthG paragraph 4 says that if you complete your studies only then you are allowed to search a full time job and get the arbeitserlaubnis. So the strong point is that the §16 Abs. 2 AufenthG does not say that the student can not get Blue Card but says that a student can not get a permanent residence and it does not say that the visa can not be changed. The visa is limited to student visa and after the complition of your study if you get a job the visa will be changed. So if you want to work under blue card system either you get the visa from your country or from the country of your residence. As a student your country of residence is Germany. So there is no point going back to your own country to get the Blue Card. Now the ausländeramt will take the decission. I faced a lot of problem as the persons from the ausländeramt strictly said that it is not at all possible. But however they sent the papers to the arbeitsamt to clarify and the arbeitsamt says that I am allowed to do job under Blue Card system. When you want to talk about yourself as a student and a full time job, all of the people in ausländeramt assumes that you have not completed your Bsc and they will send you back. So you need to convince them about the rules as this is a new rule and quite confusing when it comes for the students in Germany and them to send your papers to the arbeitsamt to clarify your antrag.

If you need further information please feel free to ask questions. And pray for me. Thank you.

- Sami

There was no need of translating anything. The contract paper (with the company) that I have submitted to them was also in English.

That is the problem with these people. They never listen. Can you please tell me which city are you in? Blue Card is an Aufenthalstitle like Aufenthalserlaubnis. With blue card you will be able to search for a job and then get Aufenthalserlaubnis to do job. I was like you frastrated, then got a lawyer. The lawyer took a very little amount of fee to complete the whole thing. These people from ausländeramt listen to the lawyer but us. If your situation is this bad then you should immidiatly go to a lawyer and tell him about the blue card and work permit. I first got a job and applied. I got contract paper from the job and that helped me also to process the blue card. As I have told you that your residence is Germany and the convertion between student visa to blue card never says anything about going back to own country nor student visa says nothing about the blue card. There is some gap in the student law and the blue card if you connect them, the lawyer will write a letter to the ausländeramt about it.

I really don't think you should encourage foreign students in Germany to drop out with the expectation that they will easily be able to change their status in Germany.


What are you talking about!?!?!!? §16 Abs. 2 AufenthG says quite clearly states (see my bold) that students (those with a permit under §16 Abs 1 or Abs. 1a) cannot receive another type of permit unless they have a legal entitlement to the new permit (for example, marriage to a German citizen).

§16 Abs. 2 AufenthG



However, foreign students who dropped out are explicitly prohibited from changing their permit type in the country (see above).


Unless you are a citizen of country privileged under §41 AufenthV, AFAIK your ABH was actually right and should have sent you home to apply for your Blue Card. Furthermore, if you are earning more than 46k the Agentur für Arbeit should not have been involved.

Why are you so surpised? I warned you about this over 3 months ago? Did you bother to actually read the law I quoted you?


You basically have two choices. You can either go home and apply for a Blue Card (and ask the ABH very nicely for a Vorabzustimmung) or you can get a lawyer and try to appeal. I would highly recommend that you actually read the law before choosing the latter option.

The officials don't listen? Or you can't read? I really don't think it is fair to complain about the ABH when they are just following the published laws.

For the record I've never needed a lawyer at the ABH and they always listened to me when I based my arguments on the AufenthG.

Yes we cannot read because we are not lawyers. The laws are interconnected and there are a lot of laws changing. Just one section can not make any decission. I am posting the letter that my lawyer sent to the ABH. The fact is I have working permission now to work.

I do not know from which country you are from, but the students who come from third world country, come here to study and to work. Most of the master students, before they come to Germany have very good working experience and the job here in Germany does not require Msc. Now with the Blue Card system a foreign person can get easily a job. If I follow your suggestion, I would finish my studies, and by that time the Blue card system will be gone, then I will have 6 months time to search for a job and when I apply for a job, the arbeitsamt will ask the company that why the hell they are taking me, because I have the lowest priority to get the job. The job priority goes to the people who are german and the lowest priority is us. The master students are already very qualified to do the job. The way you are saying it seems that the students do not have any qualifications. We come here to do job, and the job required German degree. If the job does not require the Msc, it is obvious that we will not be completing the study. You can argue everything from your point of view, but ask someone from a developing country, he or she will agree with me.

@Sami

The scan of letter from your lawyer is not very clear. Can u please upload it somewhere (after hiding your details) and and there is option to download. If possible share contact of your lawyer.

Done. I am not sure about sharing the contact of my Lawyer. I need to ask his permission

Hello Sami  and forum users.
First of all I would like to congratulate you with getting a job contract and work permit/visa and wish all the best in your future career and life in Germany.
Secondly, I would like to thank you  for sharing thoroughfully all the details of your efforts and valuable advices from your personal experience.
Thirdly, I would like to mention that I totally agree with all of your thoughts and share all of your ideas regarding the master studies/Blue Card or other job priority checking, etc.

Regarding the replies from Arianne, well it looks like Arianne him/herself is a German originated person and would like to discourage and don't like expats to come and work here in Germany . I am sorry for this opinion, but reading his/her posts I can get just the imagination like this. However, It is not clear   to me why working of expats here could be discouraged, if the expat especially is working in qualified field, like IT or other engineering related discipline. And why Arianne insists on that people should go back to their home country after graduation and apply from there ? For which reasons in this case, the Government allows for a jobseaker visa within the period of 1.5 year after your graduation ??? Is it just for formalities ??? I think this is also a part of Law.

As I am also in the same situation exactly, like you described, i.e. I did my bacheloor, even my master in my home country several years ago, and now here also doing my master again, just for the reason that the master of my home country is not recognized here. Apart from my studies I have about 8 years of professional IT experience, that is why it would be very good for me also If I could find a job in my field with the help of Blue card visa.
So, my question is that if it possible, can you please share a details how you managed to find a job ? And in which field is your job ? Also are the German language skills required in your job ? 

The reason why I am asking I am trying to find , but so far no success. So your information in this field, sharing experience would be much of value and many thanks in advance !!!

Ehtiram

The real problem is because I think
1) most of the immigration officers do not aware about Blue Card Law( I think also recruiters/headhunters)
2) Or they are aware, but not encouraged to implement this law, so the law has more formal character, rather than beneficial

Anyway, I wish much success, as I am also in the same situation

I think first of all offiials should know/be aware of official Law. I think it is not always have a place. Especially if they are knowing about the blue card from the persons, who is interested with visa/work permit questions to implement the work contract. I believe most times the officials even apart from not knowing the blue card law, they are not willing to follow it after being informed

Finding a job is quite easy espacially if you are from IT. There are a lot of online portals like http://www.arbeitsagentur.de, http://www.monster.de/, http://de.gigajob.com etc. From my experience a lot of companies seeking for candidates are located in NRW. Also there are a lot of new recuitment in East Germany (Dresden, Berlin etc.). Whilw searching for a job extend you search area to 200km. Please apply all realted jobs. There are a lot of job recuiting agency searching for a candidate for companies. I got my job through one of this agencies. It might take sometime that you recieve information from the companies regarding your application. Also please submit your CV both in English and in German. A basic german language skill is always preferrable but now there are a huge number of companies they ask for english. So it will not be difficult that a job agent contact you and ask for an interview. Just apply everyday to all the jobs related to your skills and wait a little.

Thank you very much for thoroughful and detailed explanations.
Appreciate it highly. Good Luck and all the best in the future career!