State your nationality in your CV: You should be aware of this

Citizenship is one of the details on the résumé that is not absolutely necessary. Nevertheless, it can make sense to provide appropriate information under certain circumstances. We show what you should know.

Citizenship is usually not part of the resume

The common rules of what should and shouldn't be on the résumé have changed in recent decades.

• Much of the information that used to be normal is no longer required to prevent discrimination. This also includes citizenship.
• As long as it is not explicitly requested in the job advertisement, you do not have to state your nationality in your CV. In general, it is common today to limit the information to the bare minimum and not to burden HR personnel with unnecessary information. Information on marital status or denomination has also become unusual in the course of this.
• It may be useful to state your citizenship if it might be unexpected for the HR department. That means: If you apply to a German company but are not a German citizen, you should definitely state that. Then you should not forget the information about your German language skills.
• In the opposite case, it makes sense to state your nationality if you are German, but this does not appear to be the case based on the application. Reasons may be a foreign sounding name or an atypical appearance.
• Incidentally, you always state your citizenship in adjective form: Citizenship: German

A letter of motivation is also required in most applications. The typical structure and examples can be found in our next post.