Salary scales in Germany and experience outside

Question

How is the work experience outside Germany counted in public salary decisions? What if someone got their PhD outside Germany, for instance?

Some context for my own case:

I am hired as a scientist at a public research institute. I did not know much about how these salary scales work, and I received a letter from HR telling me that only my previous postdoc in Germany (which was a stipend contract and I wasn't even paid by Germany) was considered for the decision, so it is basically 1 year. It's E-14 level 2.

I did my studies in another country where PhD positions are mostly not paid so people work in industry. I have more than 10 years of experience, all in relevant roles to my current research topic, and I also have experience in team management and third party funding. I am pretty sure the hiring decision was highly affected by this experience.

I am not even sure if the PI/head of department was involved or they should have been involved in the decision, but if the decision is made based on my experience, salary should be decided based on my experience, too.

I don't care much about my current salary, but this decision will affect the rest of my career in Germany, if I will have one. So this is bugging me very much, and I need some information on how this works here.

Answer 1

These decisions have a large degree of randomness to them. That is because they are made by administrative staff who may or may not have adequate understanding of your individual case, and what should count as relevant experience.

It is generally possible that you can influence the decision by making a strong case why your previous experience is relevant. They may or may not understand your arguments (or pretend they don't). Of course, such a case should be made before you sign the job contract.

It is also generally possible that the hiring PI and/or department head can influence the decision. The institutional setup may or may not be such that the PI or department head has formal influence. It's also possible that the administrative staff is more willing to listen to them, due to their perceived status. If the administrators don't listen to your arguments, asking the PI to make a case for you is a reasonable thing to do.

Answer 2

First, it is not necessarily true that your experience is relevant - it must be relevant to a job in paygrade E14, and not just in some vague way to your job. There is lots of room for interpretation. The only thing which is definitely relevant is another job in the same paygrade - so if your previous experience way, say, as a PhD student, this might with good reason not be counted towards E14-experience. Note that there are clear definitions what E14 involves as a minimum (AFAIR, E13 requires an academic degree > bachelor, and E14 adds responsibility for other people to it (as a team leader etc.). For instance, PhD students would never get E14, and most places also hire postdocs only on E13.)

Now, the PI has generally some say - how much depends on the institution, but it is certainly a good idea to ask them. For sure, they would have to write some text why other experience is counted, and without such a text, it is almost certain that the administration will not upgrade you, so you will have to rely on his support and them writing such an explanation.

Answer 3

First of all, the relevant rule here is § 16(2) Bund or a similar rule of a similar tariff contract (translation mine):

¹Bei Einstellung werden die Beschäftigten der Stufe 1 zugeordnet, sofern keine einschlägige Berufserfahrung vorliegt. ²Verfügt die/der Beschäftigte über eine einschlägige Berufserfahrung von mindestens einem Jahr, erfolgt die Einstel­lung in die Stufe 2; verfügt sie/er über eine einschlägige Berufserfahrung von mindestens drei Jahren, erfolgt bei Einstellung in der Regel eine Zuordnung zur Stufe 3. ³Unabhängig davon kann der Arbeitgeber bei Neueinstellungen zur De­ckung des Personalbedarfs Zeiten einer vorherigen beruflichen Tätigkeit ganz oder teilweise für die Stufenzuordnung berücksichtigen, wenn diese Tätigkeit für die vorgesehene Tätigkeit förderlich ist.

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¹On hiring, an employee is assigned Level 1 unless they have relevant work experience. ²If the employee has a relevant work experience of at least a year, they are hired at Level 2; if they have a relevant work experience of at least three years, they are assigned Level 3. ³Irrespective of this, for purposes of finding personnel, the employer may completely or partially recognise times of previous work for assigning levels, if this work is beneficial for the designated employment.

So up to Level 3, there are no constraints on where you obtained your work experience. (Note however, that experience within Germany’s public service can get you hired at levels higher than three as per §16(2), 3 or § 16(3).)

However, there is a large wiggle room as to what counts as a relevant work experience. This is where Lighthouse Keeper’s answer comes in: You have to convince some bureaucrats what your previous work experience is worth. In particular, I am not surprised that they won’t count industry experience.

That being said, your situation is somewhat special: The vast majority of positions from PhD positions to staff scientists are Group 13. However, you got one of those very rare Group 14 positions. That means that you get more salary than a regular postdoc (Group 13) with the same experience. In particular, starting at Group 14, Level 2, your accumulated salary will always be higher than if you had started at Group 13, Level 3 (see below why this is a relevant comparison). On the other hand, this is a good argument for not counting typical PhD and postdoc positions, since those are not a Group 14 experience. On yet another hand, you say you have team-management experience, and team management is exactly what usually elevates Group 14 from Group 13.

Therefore I expect that arguing for Level 3 in your situation will be difficult, though not impossible.

Sidenote: Why some experience does count for Group 14

You may wonder why you got any experience accounted for at all (starting at Level 2 instead of Level 1) and you also report:

I understood that their experience as a PhD student on E13 counted in E14 as a postdoc

The reason for this is that being hired into a higher group cannot be disadvantageous for you. If you had been hired in Group 13, you would very likely have started at Level 3 (the highest non-exceptional entry level as per the above). The salary of Group 14 Level 1 would be lower than that, and thus you were hired at Level 2.

The same likely applies to those PhD students you know: If they previously were employed at Group 13 Level 3 (on account of their experience during their PhD studies), they could not be hired at Group 14 Level 1, because it would have been detrimental. Thus their experience as a PhD student did count.

However, to achieve Group 14 Level 3 by the same mechanism, they would have to have reached Group 13 Level 4 as a PhD students, i.e., they would have to have worked on their PhD for six years. That’s already quite some experience and also only possible to obtain within the German system or by invoking the exception from Sentence 3 of the above law.