Key Takeaways
- Körber is a foundation-owned German industrial technology group, not a PE-backed roll-up or a publicly traded corporation — long planning horizons, measured decisions, and internal mobility are structurally baked in
- The group is organized into three Business Areas (Pharma, Supply Chain, Technologies), each with a materially different culture, stack, and cadence — pick the Business Area before you pick the role
- Roughly 13,000 employees across 100+ locations and ~€2.9B revenue place Körber in the upper Mittelstand tier — large enough for career scope, small enough for your name to be known
- The careers portal at jobs.koerber.com runs on SAP SuccessFactors Recruiting Management on the EU datacenter — optimize your CV for the SuccessFactors parser (single-column, standard headings, PDF, under ~5 MB)
- Language matters: apply in German to German-posted roles, in English to international roles; mixing the two is a common, avoidable self-rejection
- Expect a thorough multi-stage interview process (recruiter screen, hiring-manager deep dive, HR and skip-level final round) and prepare a Vorstellung for mid- and senior-level roles
- Körber values entrepreneurial thinking, trust and collaboration, and performance delivery — prepare STAR-structured stories against each of these three themes
- Apprenticeship (Ausbildung) and dual-study (Duales Studium) programs are a genuine pipeline into the group, especially at Hamburg-Bergedorf — an assessment day is standard for these tracks
- Central recruiting contact is +49 40 21107 291 and [email protected]; use it for status after two weeks rather than reapplying
- The 2024-2026 restructuring consolidated Digital and Tissue into the three main Business Areas and realigned Tobacco/Hauni under Technologies — be current with this structure in interviews
About Körber AG
Application Process
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1
Start at koerber
Start at koerber.com/en/careers and click through to the jobs portal at jobs.koerber.com, which is Körber's public SuccessFactors Recruiting career site. The site lets you filter by Business Area (Pharma, Supply Chain, Technologies, Group Functions), career group (Apprentices & Dual Students, Working Students & Interns, Graduates & Young Professionals, Experts & Skilled Professionals), country, city, department, and job function. As of early 2026 there are roughly 5+ open roles globally at any given time; this count moves with hiring cycles.
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2
Decide early whether you are applying to a German-speaking location or an intern
Decide early whether you are applying to a German-speaking location or an international one. German-based roles in Hamburg, Lüneburg, Mönchengladbach, Stuttgart, and similar sites are usually posted in German and often require fluent business German (C1 equivalent), particularly for customer-facing, HR, legal, and operations roles. International roles in the US, UK, Portugal, India, Singapore, and elsewhere are typically English-only. Applying in the wrong language is a common self-inflicted rejection — if the job ad is in German, write your cover letter in German.
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3
Create a candidate account in SuccessFactors
Create a candidate account in SuccessFactors. You will be asked to either upload a single PDF or parse your data from a LinkedIn or Xing profile. The parser is serviceable but not perfect, so treat any parsed result as a draft and clean it up manually. Save your account credentials — you will reuse this profile for every future application and Körber's internal mobility is meaningful, so keeping the profile up to date matters.
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4
Prepare a full Bewerbungsunterlagen package for German roles: a Lebenslauf (CV),
Prepare a full Bewerbungsunterlagen package for German roles: a Lebenslauf (CV), an Anschreiben (cover letter), Zeugnisse (school-leaving certificate, degree certificate, and qualified work references — Arbeitszeugnisse), and any relevant certifications. German hiring managers genuinely read Arbeitszeugnisse and know how to decode the coded language; missing references for long tenures can raise questions. For international roles, a clean resume plus a targeted cover letter is sufficient, with transcripts or certifications attached where the role calls for them.
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5
Submit a single consolidated PDF where possible
Submit a single consolidated PDF where possible. SuccessFactors typically caps individual attachments at around 5 MB and Körber's recruiting FAQ confirms a per-file size limit; keeping documents under this threshold and merged in a sensible order (Cover Letter → CV → Certificates) avoids truncation and makes the recruiter's job easier.
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6
Expect a first response within one to two weeks
Expect a first response within one to two weeks. Körber's published guidance is that the full process typically takes several weeks end-to-end, and the recruiting team staffs a central contact line at +49 40 21107 291 and [email protected] for status questions — use it if you have not heard back after two weeks, rather than applying to the same role twice.
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7
Progress through a first-round screen with a corporate recruiter (usually 30 min
Progress through a first-round screen with a corporate recruiter (usually 30 minutes, by phone or Teams), then a deeper interview with the hiring manager and sometimes a senior individual contributor from the team. Technical roles will include either a case study, a coding exercise, or a site visit. Apprenticeship and dual-study applicants typically go through an assessment day on-site at a training location.
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8
Prepare for a final round that often includes HR business partner and a skip-lev
Prepare for a final round that often includes HR business partner and a skip-level leader. For more senior roles (team-lead and above) a Vorstellung — a structured self-presentation of 10 to 20 minutes — is commonly requested. Prepare slides; ask the recruiter for format expectations up front.
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9
Receive a written offer (Angebot) that is negotiated on Grundgehalt (base), vari
Receive a written offer (Angebot) that is negotiated on Grundgehalt (base), variable component (if any), vacation days (30 days is the typical German norm), pension contribution, and notice period (Kündigungsfrist). Negotiations are civil, evidence-based, and not adversarial — bring market data and salary expectations (Gehaltsvorstellung) that you can defend.
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10
Complete pre-employment steps (background check where legally allowed, reference
Complete pre-employment steps (background check where legally allowed, reference check in many jurisdictions, and for certain Hauni and Pharma roles a security or compliance screen), sign the employment contract, and hand in notice at your current employer. Onboarding typically begins the first of a month with a structured Einarbeitung plan and, for larger intakes, a cross-Business-Area welcome event.
Resume Tips for Körber AG
Optimize for SuccessFactors parsing first, human readers second
Optimize for SuccessFactors parsing first, human readers second. Use a single-column layout, standard headings (Experience, Education, Skills, Languages, Certifications), no text boxes, no icons stored as images, and no header-and-footer sections — SuccessFactors tends to drop content placed in Word headers. Save as PDF with selectable text, not as an image scan.
Name your file intelligibly
Name your file intelligibly. A pattern like 'Lastname_Firstname_CV_KörberSupplyChain.pdf' survives both recruiter sorting and the SuccessFactors attachment rename. Avoid umlauts in filenames for international submissions — some systems still choke on them.
Lead with a Profile or Kurzprofil section of three to five lines that names your
Lead with a Profile or Kurzprofil section of three to five lines that names your discipline, years of experience, and the Business Area you are targeting. Körber recruiters screen across Pharma, Supply Chain, and Technologies simultaneously, and an explicit signal of which area you belong in saves them a guess.
For German-market CVs, include the traditional fields: date and place of birth a
For German-market CVs, include the traditional fields: date and place of birth are legal (and still common) in Germany but never required by Körber — include them only if you prefer; nationality and marital status are optional and increasingly omitted; a professional photo is cultural custom but not required under GG/AGG and Körber does not demand it. Err toward the modern minimum: name, contact, LinkedIn/Xing, location, and no photo if you prefer the US/UK style.
Mirror Körber's own vocabulary
Mirror Körber's own vocabulary. Job ads are heavy on terms like 'unternehmerisches Denken' (entrepreneurial thinking), 'Vertrauen und Zusammenarbeit' (trust and collaboration), 'Performance', 'LIFE 2035', 'technology leadership', and 'integrated solutions'. Weave the English or German equivalents into your summary and achievements where they are true — SuccessFactors keyword relevance matters and recruiters recognize the language.
Quantify everything your role actually moved
Quantify everything your role actually moved. For supply chain and software roles: throughput gains, cycle-time reductions, percent-on-time shipments, number of warehouses rolled out, concurrent users, integrations delivered. For pharma: number of validated systems, batch-release cycle time, deviations avoided, regulatory audits passed (FDA, EMA, PMDA). For machinery and technologies: OEE, MTBF, commissioning lead time, installed-base sites, customers served. Vague bullets get skimmed; quantified ones get circled.
Name the tooling
Name the tooling. Körber software roles frequently list SAP ERP/EWM, Azure, AWS, Java, .NET, C#, Python, SQL, React, Kubernetes, PAS-X MES, and proprietary warehouse management stacks (including HighJump/Körber WMS heritage products). Machinery roles list SIEMENS S7, TIA Portal, Beckhoff, HMIs, Festo, KUKA, and ISO/TS standards. List specific versions and years of use where relevant.
For Ausbildung and Duales Studium applicants, put your current school, expected
For Ausbildung and Duales Studium applicants, put your current school, expected Abitur/Fachhochschulreife date, and Notendurchschnitt (grade average) visibly near the top. Add any Praktika, school-lab internships, FIRST Robotics or Jugend forscht placements, and language certificates. Körber apprentice recruiters read for genuine curiosity and hands-on evidence, not perfection of grades.
List language proficiency honestly using CEFR levels (A2/B1/B2/C1/C2)
List language proficiency honestly using CEFR levels (A2/B1/B2/C1/C2). German at B2 or above unlocks a much larger slate of roles; English at C1 is a baseline for anything cross-border. If you are applying to Porto-based Global Business Services roles, Portuguese is a significant plus; for Pharma and Supply Chain roles in Southern Europe and LATAM, Spanish and Italian similarly expand your options.
Keep length to two pages for professionals (three at most for senior technical o
Keep length to two pages for professionals (three at most for senior technical or scientific profiles with publications and patents), one page for students and apprentices. German hiring managers accept and even expect longer CVs when warranted by tenure, but padding is visible and hurts.
ATS System: SAP SuccessFactors Recruiting Management
Körber runs its public career portal on SAP SuccessFactors Recruiting Management (also known as RMK — Recruiting Marketing/Career Site Builder plus Recruiting Management). The customer-facing domain is jobs.koerber.com, which is a white-labeled front end backed by performancemanager5.successfactors.eu (EU data residency) and serves static assets from rmkcdn.successfactors.com. SuccessFactors is SAP's enterprise talent suite and is the de facto standard ATS across large German DAX and Mittelstand employers, which is why the portal will feel familiar if you have applied to Siemens, Bosch, BASF, or similar groups. It handles application intake, status tracking, internal mobility, and offer workflows; screening and interview coordination happen in SuccessFactors or in the recruiter's Outlook/Teams calendar.
- Create a persistent candidate profile the first time you apply and reuse it. SuccessFactors remembers your data and lets you apply to additional roles in one or two clicks once your profile is complete — this is a meaningful advantage if you are targeting several Körber Business Areas.
- Keep each uploaded attachment under roughly 5 MB. Körber's recruiting FAQ acknowledges a per-file size limit, and SuccessFactors silently truncates or rejects oversized files. Merge documents into a single PDF rather than uploading many small files where possible.
- Use the built-in Job Alerts feature. Because Körber rotates a wide variety of niche roles across pharma, supply chain, and machinery, setting alerts by Business Area and location is far more effective than refreshing the search page manually.
- Answer knockout questions literally and precisely. SuccessFactors uses configurable screening questions (legal work authorization, relocation willingness, language level, specific certifications) that are often automated gates — an inaccurate answer that reads as a 'no' to a must-have will remove you from the shortlist before a human sees your CV.
- Do not upload the same document multiple times or submit duplicate applications for the same role. The system flags duplicates and it irritates recruiters who see the pile-up in their queue. If you made a mistake, email [email protected] and ask them to clean it up.
- Write your CV so that a keyword parser finds the right tokens. SuccessFactors' underlying parser is competent with standard headings and bullet lists but confuses easily on multi-column layouts, graphics, and icon fonts. The simpler your document structure, the cleaner the parse — which directly affects how you show up in recruiter searches for internal moves.
- Maintain your profile after you are hired. Körber's internal mobility relies on the same SuccessFactors instance, and keeping your skills and achievements current makes you discoverable to other Business Areas when roles open up.
Interview Culture
What Körber AG Looks For
- Depth of expertise over breadth — Körber hires specialists and rewards people who go deep in a discipline, not generalists who skim multiple fields
- Genuine curiosity about the physical product or process — even for pure software roles, interest in how a warehouse actually moves product or how a pharmaceutical packaging line actually runs is noticed
- Fluent German (B2/C1 or native) for German-based HQ, operations, HR, and customer-facing roles; fluent English (C1) as a baseline for any cross-border role
- Evidence of long-term commitment — short stints are not deal-breakers but require a clear story; Körber's own tenures are long and the culture expects candidates to be similarly thoughtful about fit
- Customer-impact orientation — the company talks constantly about 'entrepreneurial thinking' and 'customer success', and examples of candidate work that translated engineering or software effort into measurable customer outcomes land strongly
- Collaboration across cultures and business areas — the group is genuinely international (Germany, US, UK, Portugal, Italy, India, Singapore, Japan, Mexico, China), and evidence of cross-cultural team success is a real differentiator
- Regulatory and quality rigor for Pharma-bound candidates (GMP, GAMP 5, 21 CFR Part 11, EU Annex 11, ISO 13485 where applicable)
- Hands-on technical fluency for Technologies-bound candidates (OEE, TPM, PLC/HMI stacks, ISO/TS 16949, Six Sigma, CE machinery directive)
- Modern software-engineering hygiene for Supply Chain Software and Digital candidates (version control workflows, CI/CD, test coverage, cloud-native deployment — Azure and AWS both in use)
- A willingness to learn SAP and work within a SAP-heavy enterprise environment — even for non-SAP roles, the corporate backbone is SAP and resistance to it will surface in the interview
Frequently Asked Questions
What ATS does Körber use for job applications?
Do I need to speak German to work at Körber?
How long does the Körber application process take?
What is the difference between Körber AG and Körber Supply Chain Software?
Is Körber owned by private equity?
Can I apply by email or by post to Körber?
Does Körber offer apprenticeships and dual-study programs?
What is the typical salary range at Körber in Germany?
What are the main Körber locations?
How should I tailor my resume for a Körber application?
Open Positions
Körber AG currently has 5 open positions.
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Sources
- Körber Careers — Official careers homepage —
- Körber Group Jobs — Public SuccessFactors career portal —
- About Körber — Corporate overview, 13,000 employees, 100+ locations, Business Areas Pharma, Supply Chain, Technologies —
- Körber-Stiftung — Foundation ownership of Körber AG —
- SAP SuccessFactors Recruiting Management — Official SAP product page —
- Körber Supply Chain Software — Former HighJump platform —