HR Generalist
Job description, salary, sourcing, 15 interview questions and a 30/60/90 plan to hire an HR Generalist in a German SMB.
At a glance
- Time to fill50–80 days
- Experience5–10 years
How to hire an HR Generalist for your SMB
Before you write the posting, settle three questions. They decide which profile you actually need and help you avoid the most common seniority or scope mistakes in the German SMB.
Question 1: HR Generalist, HR Business Partner, or CHRO? These three roles are often confused at the hiring stage, with expensive consequences. The Personalreferent:in (HR Generalist) runs the HR function autonomously at an SMB of 30 to 150 employees: recruiting, administration, training, employment law, co-determination, manager support. The CHRO or Personalleiter:in steers the HR strategy of an organization of 150+ employees, leads an HR team and sits on the management board. The HR Business Partner is a specialized role in corporate structures that works with cross-functional support functions and has no classic SMB equivalent. Specify seniority and scope in the job title from the start: Personalreferent:in (m/w/d), not a vague HR all-rounder that says nothing.
Question 2: What employment-law scope is expected? At an SMB the employment-law remit of the HR Generalist varies widely: ongoing compliance (contracts, terminations, disciplinary procedures) for all; building or running the Betriebsrat from 5 eligible employees; managing complex procedures (a Betriebsübergang, a restructuring, an unfair-dismissal claim) depending on context. List the expected topics explicitly in the posting. A profile with no Betriebsrat experience will struggle in a growing SMB of 60 employees; a profile with extensive co-determination experience gets bored in a 30-person SMB with no Betriebsrat.
Question 3: Payroll in-house or outsourced? At an SMB, payroll can be: (a) fully outsourced to a payroll bureau or a tax adviser, with the HR Generalist passing on the variable elements; (b) run in-house on a payroll HRIS (Personio, DATEV, HRworks) that the HR Generalist operates; (c) delegated to a dedicated payroll accountant where the size justifies it. Specify the expected model explicitly in the posting. An HR Generalist with no payroll experience in a role with in-house payroll needs 3-6 months of onboarding, and the error risk is high on this sensitive topic (social-security bodies, wage-tax filings, DEÜV).
If all three answers converge on a generalist, full-time HR Generalist at an SMB of 30 to 150 employees, see the ready-to-use template on the Job description tab.
Where to source this role
LinkedIn
€200-400 / month for Job Slots, plus Recruiter Lite when sourcing activelyThe most important channel for mid-senior HR profiles in Germany, especially for active sourcing via InMail. Passive HR generalists in employment are far more visible here than on XING or Stepstone. Recruiter Lite is recommended to filter by company size (30-200 employees) and Betriebsrat experience. When you source actively, 40-60 % of qualified applications typically come from here.
XING
ProJobs from €195 / monthStill strong for HR roles in the classic German Mittelstand (mechanical engineering, industry, trade, construction) and often on par with or better than LinkedIn, especially in Bavaria, Baden-Württemberg and NRW. Profiles with 8+ years of experience and a Tarifvertrag-bound sector background are over-represented here. Less relevant in the Berlin tech scene or the Hamburg startup space.
Stepstone
From €995 / 30 daysThe largest classic job market in Germany with a broad applicant pool. For HR generalist profiles you get strong volume, mainly from industry and the Mittelstand outside the major cities. Filtering by experience and sector is mandatory, otherwise generalist applications flood your inbox. A good complement for reach, with a weaker senior signal than LinkedIn or XING.