Learn more here about formal requirements, required application documents, the application procedure and remuneration for scale-wage positions and professorships.
Employees in science, technology and administration are generally covered by the collective wage agreement of the Federal State of Bremen (Tarifvertrag der Länder, TV-L). Some positions are also reserved for civil servants.
This legal basis also permits alterations in the application procedure and deadlines that can be speedier compared to the professorial appointment procedures.
The employment requirements for scale-wage employees at HSB are based on the responsibilities specified in the job offer and the currently applicable collective wage agreement law (Tarifvertrag des Landes Bremen, TV-L Bremen).
You can find the qualifications required for each job offer in the ‘Profile’ section of the respective job advertisements.
If you have obtained your university degree in one of the participating Bologna countries, it will generally be recognised by us.
For university degrees that were not obtained in any of the participating Bologna countries, we will check individually upon receipt of your application whether they can be recognised in Germany.
For the recognition procedure, we require
Official recognition by the Central Office for Foreign Education (Zentralstelle für ausländisches Bildungswesen, ZAB) is complex, may last several weeks and incurs fees. However, it may be worth applying, even if you wish to work in a non-regulated profession. Recognition can help future employers to better classify your foreign qualification.
The ZAB provides information on the recognition procedure and its fees.
In Germany, certain professional fields, such as healthcare professions, are regulated. In order to practise a regulated profession in Germany, official recognition is required.
In the state of Bremen, the Senatorial Authority for Children and Education is responsible for the recognition of foreign professional qualifications in regulated professions. There you will find further information and points of contact with regard to obtaining a recognition for your profession.
General information on regulated and non-regulated professions can be found at the Federal Institute for Vocational Education and Training.
Here, you will also find a general list of all regulated professions in Germany.
Payment in accordance with the collective wage agreement of the Federal State of Bremen protects against discrimination, provides security and stands for good working and living conditions. The payment group to which you can belong – and, thus, the essential information on the payment – can be found in the respective job offer.
The pay-tables made public on the internet serve to offer you an initial overview of the salary you may expect.
The recruitment procedure for scale-wage employees in the Federal State of Bremen (TV-L) is based on the current employment offer guidelines of the state of Bremen and the TV-L Bremen. As a rule, all job offers are advertised for a minimum of three weeks. In order to ensure that your application has been received, we recommend that you submit your application via our application portal.
Each selection procedure is supervised from start to finish by the selection committee. The committee is composed of:
Generally, we try to invite candidates to interviews as soon after the application deadline date has passed as possible.
We will inform you as soon as the selection committee has reached a decision following the interviews.
Appointments – on the path to a professorship
The appointment of new university teachers is a long-term decision that shapes the profile of our institution, and is therefore strategically highly significant for its development. Because we want to maintain and improve the quality of teaching and studies, and because applied-science-oriented research and the transfer of knowledge and technology are vitally important to us, transparent and fair selection procedures for prospective professors form an important basis for achieving it.
The appointment of professors at HSB is governed by the Bremen Civil Service Act, section 116, article 3.
Ideally, all appointment requirements are already met at the time of application. However, you can still apply if you are only missing a few months of professional experience or are about to complete your doctorate. Please note that appointment procedures can take several months, it is therefore left to the discretion of the appointment committee whether you will be able to meet all requirements by the time of appointment.
Fairness is a top priority at Hochschule Bremen: appointment procedures are based on clear selection criteria and consist of several phases. The equal opportunities officer and, where applicable, the representative for disabled employees are involved in every procedure from the start in order to support the appointment committee in its decision-making.
The appointment regulations of Hochschule Bremen, the 6th Action Programme for Equal Opportunities for Women, Queer People and Anti-Discrimination in the Scientific Field and to Promote a Gender-Equitable University Culture (Gender Equality Plan 2023-2027 of the Bremen City University of Applied Sciences), as well as the Bremen Higher Education Act (Bremer Hochschulgesetz, BremHG) and the General Equal Treatment Act (Allgemeines Gleichbehandlungsgesetz, AGG) form the legal basis for all appointment procedures.
Find out more about the appointment procedure at the HSB here and do not hesitate to contact us if you have any general or specific enquiries:
If you are currently part of an application procedure or have any questions about any of the steps involved, the appointment management team is available at any time at professur@hs-bremen.de.
For general and individual advice on professorships at the HSB, please contact the advisory team at beratung-professur@hs-bremen.de – we are happy to help.
Internal planning for a professorship begins with determining the denomination (the thematic focus of the professorship) and the profile paper. These are prerequisites for the application for approval (Freigabeantrag) and the agreement of approval (Freigabevereinbarung) with the university management. In addition, further agreements can be made, particularly with regard to gender and/or family equality.
The appointment procedure can now begin. The professorship to be filled is either a newly created position or a replacement. Even in the case of a replacement, the thematic focus of the professorship is often adapted to current developments in the discipline.
The faculty or department responsible for appointing the professorship form the appointment committee (Berufungskommission) after the agreement of approval.
The members of the appointment committee usually consist of:
• Three university teachers,
• one research assistant, and
• one student representative.
• Technical and administrative staff in the faculty or department council may also be represented on the appointment committee in an advisory capacity.
The members of the appointment committee are elected by the representatives of their group in the faculty or departmental council. The women’s representative and, if applicable, the representative for disabled persons participate in the meetings as advisory members.
An external consultant may also be called in for the assessment of soft skills (außerfachliche Eignungsprüfung).
Immediately after the appointment committee has been formed, its members convene for a constituent meeting. This marks the start of the appointment committee’s collaboration. The committee members get to know each other in their specific composition, jointly clarify the formal conditions of the appointment procedure and the subject-specific criteria, and develop a proposal for the job advertisement. They also reach an agreement on the procedure for assessing pedagogical and didactic as well as soft skills. In addition, the course of the procedure, the profile and the specifications of the professorship to be filled are discussed in accordance with the agreement of approval. After this first constituent meeting, the advertisement is sent to the senator’s office (senatorische Behörde) together with an application for external approval.
Once approved by the senator’s office and the final advertisement text has been decided upon, the professorship is officially advertised on the career portal of Hochschule Bremen and in other digital and print media – and, depending on the professorship, also in international media.
In order to ensure the quality assurance of the appointment procedure, the appointment committee will only be given access to all received applications after the application deadline has expired and the personnel department has carried out a formal review. Committee members must not be biased and any biases must be disclosed and discussed at this stage.
In the second committee meeting, the selection meeting, all documents are reviewed and evaluated. The basis for this is Article 33 II of the constitution (Grundgesetz), from which the so-called selection of the best candidates (Bestenauslese) is derived. This means that all applicants have the constitutional right to be assessed according to their suitability, qualifications and performance with regard to the profile description created in the application process. The assessment is based on the formal and subject-specific criteria agreed upon in the constituent meeting. The task of the appointed committee is to find the most suitable person for the advertised professorship from the applications received. The selection meeting sets the most important course based on the written application documents: Is an applicant suitable, conditionally suitable or not at all suitable based on the criteria catalogue? If anything is unclear, additional documents may be requested (employment references, teaching certificates, etc.). Applicants who have been shortlisted are invited to an interview or selection meeting and a trial teaching session. The appointment committee may require the candidate to give a special scientific presentation in their field of expertise, which may also be held in a foreign language.
The hearing or selection interview (Anhörung) also follows the principle of selecting the best candidate. These steps must therefore be transparent, criteria-oriented and equitable. In addition, this invitation serves as an opportunity for the candidates and the members of the appointment committee to get to know each other. Applicants now have the opportunity to present themselves in person. They can also ask questions about the university, the faculty, the professorship and its requirements as well as its facilities.
The appointment committee provides information about the organisational and content-related framework of the interview and its duration in the invitation letter. In addition, prior to the trial lecture, applicants are requested to submit a written teaching exposé (Lehrexposé) on the content and didactic design of the trial lecture, as well as a written teaching concept (Lehrkonzept) describing their own teaching philosophy. The appointment committee may also additionally request the submission of a research concept (Forschungskonzept).
In the trial lecture (Probelehrveranstaltung), the invited applicants demonstrate their teaching skills and their ability to interact with students. The aim of the trial lecture is to assess the didactic suitability of the invited person. An interactive and varied trial lecture is therefore useful for getting to know the invited candidates in their roles as lecturers. The appointment committee specifies the topic to be covered and the target student group (semester and study programme) in the invitation. The exact details of the trial lecture vary from faculty to faculty. The trial lecture is evaluated by the students present and by the appointment committee.
The hearing consists of a traditional job interview with the committee, closed to the university public. The appointment committee will ask the candidates pre-agreed questions in order to get to know them better. The candidates will also be asked to give a short presentation of themselves. At the end of the interview, there will of course be time for questions from the candidates addressing the committee.
After all trial lectures and hearings have been concluded, the appointment committee will decide whether to invite further applicants to a hearing or whether to continue the process with a shortlist.
Once the appointment committee has selected the shortlisted candidates, expert reports (Fachgutachten) are obtained for these applicants. These are prepared by external university lecturers or experts in the relevant discipline on the basis of the requirements’ profile. The reports are meant to assess whether candidates are eligible for one of the three ranks on the list (Listenplatzierung) on the basis of the candidates’ professional and academic achievements. Similar to the committee members, the experts must also rule out any possible conflicts of interest in advance. The expert reports can be either comparative or for individual applicants.
The experts’ evaluation also serves as the basis for deciding on a possible ranking of the candidates according to their suitability. The subsequent appointment proposal (Berufungsvorschlag) in the form of a list of at most three persons is drawn up by the committee on the basis of all available documents and personal impressions.
This includes
• the written application documents,
• the trial lecture and, if applicable, the scientific presentation,
• the results of the hearings,
• the assessment of soft skills, and
• the results of the expert references
Accordingly, an appointment report (Berufungsbericht) is drawn up, documenting the entire procedure. The appointment proposal and appointment report are submitted to the faculty or department council for a decision. If approved, the faculty or department council submits its decision to the rectorate. If the rectorate accepts the appointment proposal as submitted, it offers the position to the top-ranked candidate.
Once the university management has delivered the appointment (Ruferteilung), the top-ranked candidate is invited to appointment negotiations (Berufungsverhandlung).
The negotiations on the position’s salary and equipment are conducted by the university chancellor on behalf of the rectorate in consultation with the relevant faculty. Once the appointment negotiations have been successfully concluded and the appointed candidate has given their final acceptance, the other candidates are informed that the process has been completed.
New professors are usually appointed at the beginning of the semester, i.e., on 1 April for the summer semester or on 1 October for the winter semester.
Newly appointed professors are of particular importance for the development of Hochschule Bremen: they are the ones who will help shape and further develop the range of services and the profile of Hochschule Bremen in the future. The HSB, therefore, supports its newly appointed professors in developing their teaching and research skills right from the start and, in addition to various services for new appointments (e.g., research service, university and media didactics courses offered by the Centre for Teaching and Learning (ZLL), also hosts an official welcome ceremony.
The Centre for Teaching and Learning (ZLL) at HSB offers a free two-day workshop on university and media related teaching topics twice a year at the start of each semester for newly appointed lecturers and other new staff members involved in teaching. There, you will receive the support you need for a good start in teaching and can take advantage of the extensive range of further training and advisory services on offer.
Bremen City University of Applied Sciences promotes equal employment opportunities for all genders at all levels.
Severely disabled applicants will always be given priority if they can demonstrate equivalent professional and personal qualifications.
We expressly welcome applications from people with a migration history!
Even if you do not (yet) meet a 100% of the requirements, we would specifically like to encourage you to apply.
Find the right contact person here – we wish to help you as quickly as possible with any questions or concerns you may have.
