How do I prepare for a job interview in Switzerland?

The four blocks SECO sets out

arbeit.swiss, the portal of the State Secretariat for Economic Affairs, recommends building a checklist with clearly separated blocks. The first is about you: personal qualities, professional experience, skills, knowledge, interests and values, plus your professional goals, your expectations of the workplace and your salary expectations. The second is about the employer, the third about the questions the employer will ask, the fourth about the salary negotiation. A shorter fifth point covers bearing and body language.

The second block is the only one that specifies what to research, which is precisely why it is the most useful. The wording is: make sure you are well informed about the company, particularly the sector, its products and services, its market position, its business objectives and structure, and the number of employees. Those are six checkable facts, not an impression. Knowing them lets you attach every answer to this employer instead of talking about yourself in the abstract.

In practice: skim the annual report or the about page, note the headcount and the sites, work out how the company actually earns its money, and identify the two or three main competitors. For a hospital or a cantonal administration, replace "market position" with who funds it and which population it serves. Ten minutes is enough once you know what you are looking for, and it is the difference between "your company looks very interesting" and a sentence nobody else in the shortlist said.

The bearing block reads as banal but it is where the federal guidance gets concrete: appropriate and clean clothing, eye contact, an open posture, active listening, a friendly greeting and goodbye, and letting the other person finish. None of that needs rehearsing. It is worth checking the evening before that the shirt is ironed rather than discovering it in the morning.

What is different from a UK or US interview

Three habits travel badly into a Swiss room. The first is the strong self-sell. Swiss interviewers tend to read confident superlatives as unverified claims, and the counter is not modesty but specificity: a situation, your contribution, a measurable result. Say what the pensum was, how long it ran, how many cases or clients were involved. A concrete figure does the work that an adjective is trying to do.

The second is treating references as a formality for later. The Swiss convention is that your CV notes references are available on request, and that a separate sheet naming your referees can be handed over during the interview itself — arbeit.swiss says so explicitly. Prepare that sheet with name, role, relationship to you, phone number and email, and ask each person's permission first. A referee who is called cold reflects worse on you than having no referee.

The third is the work reference letter. Swiss employers expect a complete, gap-free set of Arbeitszeugnisse from previous jobs, in chronological order with the most recent first, collected into one PDF. If you come from a country that does not issue them, say so in one sentence rather than leaving a gap the interviewer has to guess at, and offer a written reference instead. Request anything missing as soon as the appointment is set, not the night before.

One further Swiss specific: if you do not hold a Swiss passport or a C permit, settle your own status in a single sentence before you go — which permit, valid until when, and what changing employer would mean for it. At larger employers this question is near-certain and often comes in the first round. It is meant administratively. A clear answer disposes of it in fifteen seconds; a hesitant one turns it into a topic.

The language of the room is not the language of the advert

Just under 73 per cent of the adverts we carry state an explicit language requirement. Within that group, 68.1 per cent ask for German, 41.5 per cent for English, 20.3 per cent for French and 3.9 per cent for Italian. The share matters less than the level: 91.3 per cent of the German mentions are at professional or native level, and 88 per cent of the English ones. That is working level, not school level, and it is the level at which the meeting will actually be conducted.

The common mistake is assuming the language the advert is written in is the language of the appointment. Of adverts written in English, 24 per cent still require German. Of the adverts that require English at all, 45.4 per cent also require German — English alone is enough in 46.5 per cent, so it is close to even odds. If you prepare only in the language of the text, you are gambling on the half of the market where the round switches politely into German halfway through.

Clearing this up costs one line. When you reply to confirm the appointment, ask which language the interview will be held in and who will be attending. Both are ordinary logistical questions, both answers change how you prepare, and nobody has ever been disinvited for asking. If the answer is "mixed", prepare your self-introduction and your reason for moving in both languages — together that is about five minutes of material.

Swiss German deserves a separate note because it appears in no advert: it is not a requirement. Business German in Switzerland is written and spoken as standard German, and a round with a non-Swiss candidate switches to it. Expect, though, that two people in the room may drop into dialect with each other. That is not a test and not rudeness, and you may always ask for the last sentence again in standard German.

The number that has to be settled before you go

SECO is unambiguous about this: the salary negotiation is often the most demanding part of the interview, you should define your expectations in advance, inform yourself about usual pay in that sector and position, and use your performance and qualifications as the basis. arbeit.swiss points to the Confederation's own national wage calculator as a tool. That is a rare case of an official body naming a specific instrument — use it before you name a figure, not after.

Four things must be settled inside your number or you will talk past each other. Gross or net: in Switzerland always gross. Annual or monthly, and whether the annual figure is paid over twelve or thirteen instalments — the same annual salary looks very different on a monthly payslip. At what pensum. And whether any variable component is included. "CHF X gross per year at 100 per cent, thirteenth month included" is a usable answer; a bare number is not.

On the pensum itself: of the adverts that state a form of employment at all, roughly 6.1 per cent are part-time. If you want a reduced workload, it almost certainly will not come up by itself. Raise it, and raise it in the same round as pay, so that the two are negotiated together rather than one being settled before the other is mentioned.

One piece of context for your negotiating position: just under 38 per cent of live adverts are more than thirty days old, 27.4 per cent more than sixty and around 16 per cent more than ninety. If the role you are being invited to has been open for months, the person opposite you has been unable to fill it for months. That is not leverage to wave around, but it is a good reason not to pre-emptively round your figure down.

Getting the time off — what the law owes you

The most practical preparation question is often how to attend at all while still employed. The Code of Obligations covers it in Article 329 paragraph 3: the employer must allow the employee the customary hours and days off work and, once notice has been given to terminate the employment relationship, the time required to seek other employment. The second half is the part that matters, and it carries a condition that is frequently missed.

While no notice has been given, your employer owes you no paid time for interviews. The entitlement to the time required to look for another job arises only after notice — from either side. Paragraph 4 adds that when fixing time off, due account is to be taken of the interests of both employer and employee, so even then you agree a slot that the operation can carry rather than simply removing a Tuesday morning from the rota.

In practice: if you are still under an undisturbed contract, take holiday, flexitime or time in lieu for the appointment, or ask for a slot at the edge of the working day. Larger employers are used to this and will offer an early or late window if asked. If notice has already been given, you can rely on the article — but still announce and agree the appointment rather than presenting it.

Seven days, one evening, one hour

Seven days out: confirm the appointment and ask about language and attendees. Work through SECO's six research points and write them onto half a page. Ask your referees for permission. Request any missing work reference letters. Fix your salary figure with the national wage calculator and write it down in the form described above.

One to two days out: read the advert again properly. If it has been open for two months, you applied weeks ago and are remembering a version of it that does not exist. Mark the three requirements it repeats most; those are the topics of the round. Draft one example from your own work for each, built as situation, your contribution, result.

The evening before: pack the folder — reference sheet, a printed copy of your dossier, notepad, pen. Check the route and a fallback. Lay out the clothes. Then say the five short answers out loud: availability, notice period, pensum, salary figure, permit status. If one of them stalls, that is the only thing worth practising that evening.

The last hour: learn nothing new. Arrive ten minutes early, not thirty — too early puts the receptionist in an awkward position. Phone on silent, not vibrate. And in the waiting area, look at the half page about the employer rather than at your own answers. You already know your answers. You have known this employer for a week.