Often called the German LinkedIn, Xing is the professional network with about 22.5 million members across Germany, Austria, and Switzerland. Recruiting on Xing pays off because regional B2B inquiries there see 22% higher response rates than on LinkedIn, according to Technical University of Munich research cited by LHH. Hiring in Europe’s largest economy, recruiters who skip Xing are leaving a distinct candidate pool untapped: candidates who overlap with LinkedIn but respond at meaningfully higher rates. With 157 German occupations classified as shortage roles in the Bundesagentur fur Arbeit’s latest analysis (2026), reaching candidates on the platform where they’re most active isn’t optional. It’s a competitive advantage.
What follows covers everything: Xing’s recruiter tools (XING TalentManager and the onlyfy applicant tracker), practical sourcing tactics including X-ray search, outreach strategies that work in regional markets, and what Burda Digital’s 2025 takeover means for the platform’s future. We also cover when to pair Xing with a broader AI sourcing platform that scans 850M+ profiles across all of Europe.
TL;DR:
- Xing is the DACH-native network. 22.5M members across Germany, Austria, and Switzerland deliver 22% higher B2B response rates than LinkedIn for regional roles (TU Munich via LHH, 2025).
- XING TalentManager is cheaper than LinkedIn Recruiter. Entry pricing around EUR 366/month (vs EUR 835 for LinkedIn Recruiter Professional) with 27 search filters and 200 messages monthly.
- Strongest in traditional DACH industries. Engineering, manufacturing, healthcare, and automotive candidates check Xing first, and many keep more current profiles there than on LinkedIn.
- Free X-ray search still works. Google site: queries surface public Xing profiles without a paid account, which is useful for prospecting before committing to a recruiter seat.
- Pair Xing with broader reach. Pan-European or global searches need wider database coverage - combine Xing with Pin, which covers 850M+ profiles including 100% European coverage.
What Is Xing? The German LinkedIn, Explained
Xing (xing.com) is a German-language professional network, often called the German version of LinkedIn, with about 22.5 million members in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland at its last public count in 2024. Hamburg-based New Work SE runs Xing, and Burda Digital SE, part of Hubert Burda Media, has owned 100% of New Work SE since August 2025.
Founded in 2003 as openBC, the platform took the Xing name in 2006 and spent the next decade as the default career network for German-speaking professionals. That has changed. After closing its Groups and Events pages in early 2023 (heise), Xing put job search on its homepage, and for most users Xing Germany is now a jobs network first. Members still keep detailed profiles and message each other, which is exactly what makes the platform useful to recruiters.
| Xing at a glance (2026) | Detail |
|---|---|
| Website | xing.com |
| Operator | New Work SE, Hamburg |
| Parent company | Burda Digital SE (100% since August 2025) |
| Members | ~22.5M in DACH (last reported 2024) |
| Sourcing tool for recruiters | XING TalentManager, from EUR 366/month |
| Applicant tracking | onlyfy Bewerbungsmanager |
| Employer reviews | kununu (same parent company) |
Why Does Xing Still Matter for DACH Recruiting?
Germany’s skilled worker shortage cost the economy an estimated EUR 49 billion in lost output in 2024, according to the German Economic Institute (IW Koln). The Bundesagentur fur Arbeit counted 157 shortage occupations in its 2025 analysis, down from 163 in 2024 and 183 in 2023. Even in a cooling economy, IW Koln’s KOFA unit still measured a gap of 369,516 skilled positions in 2025, down 24.1% year over year (KOFA, 2026). DACH-focused recruiters can’t afford to leave any sourcing channel untapped.
Often positioned as Germany’s LinkedIn, Xing’s professional network is far more than the nickname implies. Among the 22.5 million DACH professionals who keep profiles there, many aren’t active on LinkedIn at all. Commissioned by Xing, a 2025 Forsa study (n=4,924) found 36% of German workers actively open to or planning a job change. Austria reaches 44%, Switzerland 56%. Among Gen Z workers, 48% are considering a move.
Behind those numbers sits a massive addressable talent pool. Unlike LinkedIn, where recruiter messages compete with dozens of InMails weekly, Xing inboxes - particularly outside major tech hubs - see far less traffic. Regional B2B inquiries on Xing see response rates 22% higher than equivalent outreach on LinkedIn.
According to the OECD’s 2025 economic survey of Germany, the country has the highest share of firms reporting severe difficulties filling vacancies among all OECD nations. With 27.2% of German enterprises reporting adverse business effects from staff shortages in Q2 2025, recruiters who ignore Xing are leaving candidates on the table.
Broader European hiring strategies beyond Xing are covered in our guide on hiring EU talent from the United States.
Xing vs LinkedIn in Europe: Where Each Platform Wins
LinkedIn reports more than 31 million members in the German-speaking region, per its DACH press room, compared to Xing’s 22.5 million (last reported in 2024). On raw numbers, LinkedIn leads. Engagement and response patterns, though, tell a different story.
| Metric | ||
|---|---|---|
| DACH Members | ~22.5M (2024) | 31M+ |
| Regular Users (Statista, via LHH) | 5% | 12% |
| B2B Response Rate (Regional Inquiries) | +22% above LinkedIn | Baseline |
| Primary Language | German | English / German |
| Recruiter Tool Entry Price | ~EUR 366/mo (TalentManager Core) | ~EUR 835/mo (Recruiter Professional) |
| Employer Review Integration | kununu (built-in) | None (Glassdoor is separate) |
| Strongest Industries | Engineering, manufacturing, healthcare, automotive | Tech, startups, consulting, finance |
According to Technical University of Munich research cited by LHH, LinkedIn users are more than 3x as likely to engage with business content. Statista data on the same page puts LinkedIn’s regular users at 12% vs Xing’s 5%. That sounds like a LinkedIn win. But for recruiter outreach specifically, the dynamics flip: regional B2B inquiries on Xing see response rates 22% higher, especially for mid-career roles.
Why the disconnect? Two reasons.
First, less inbox competition. Senior professionals on Xing, particularly those in engineering, manufacturing, healthcare, and traditional industries, receive far fewer unsolicited messages than their LinkedIn counterparts. Engineers and specialists whom DACH-focused teams most urgently need to hire tend to see only a fraction of the weekly InMail volume that identical roles attract on LinkedIn. When your message lands, it actually gets read.
Second, local trust factor. Built by a German team, the platform carries real cultural weight among German-speaking professionals. German-speaking professionals who work outside tech and startup circles, particularly those in manufacturing, engineering, or healthcare, treat Xing as their primary professional home. Many keep Xing profiles more current than their LinkedIn pages.
Where LinkedIn clearly wins: international roles, English-speaking positions, tech and startup talent, and content marketing reach. Bilingual German/English posts on LinkedIn achieve 41% broader reach in DACH, per Pettauer.net’s 2025 LinkedIn usage analysis. For a Berlin startup where the working language is English, LinkedIn is the primary channel.
Where Xing wins: DACH-specific roles in traditional industries (automotive, engineering, manufacturing, healthcare), mid-career professionals, roles requiring fluent German, and regional positions outside major cities. These candidates check Xing first - or only.
Here’s what surprised us when we looked at DACH sourcing patterns: the Xing advantage is concentrated in specific role categories, not spread evenly. Manufacturing engineers and healthcare specialists in Bavaria or Baden-Wurttemberg tend to answer Xing outreach far more readily than the same profiles contacted on LinkedIn. Tech candidates in Berlin or Munich tell a different story. They treat LinkedIn as their professional home and Xing as a passive backup. So match your sourcing mix to your role mix. When more than 40% of your DACH pipeline sits in engineering, automotive, or healthcare, Xing deserves budget on par with LinkedIn. For mostly software and product roles, it becomes supplementary. Job titles tell the same story, since German-language titles are more than twice as common among manufacturing and healthcare professionals as among IT professionals (more on that in the outreach section below).
The smart play? Use both. Struggling to fill DACH roles on LinkedIn, most teams find Xing is the obvious next channel. Teams evaluating their current sourcing stack can also explore our guide to sites like LinkedIn for recruiting that covers other platforms worth testing.
How Xing’s Recruiter Tools Work (TalentManager and onlyfy)
Working with Xing as a recruiter means buying into the XING Recruiting suite. After a few years under the “onlyfy” brand, the sourcing tool is sold as XING TalentManager again, while the applicant tracker keeps the onlyfy name (onlyfy, 2026). Here’s what the current suite looks like and what each tool costs.
XING TalentManager
As Xing’s core active sourcing product, TalentManager is the DACH equivalent of LinkedIn Recruiter - purpose-built for finding and contacting German-speaking professionals.
Features:
- 27 search filters (location, industry, skills, experience level, company size, career level, and more)
- Candidate pools with tagging and notes
- Direct messaging to non-connections (capped by plan)
- Boolean search support
- AI-based candidate recommendations that improve over time
Pricing (via OMR Reviews, 2026):
- Core: from EUR 366/month - includes 200 messages/month to non-contacts
- Pro: from EUR 474/month - adds smart auto-populated pools, campaign function for multi-candidate outreach, and expanded analytics
High-volume recruiters will hit the 200-message monthly cap on Core fast. Running multiple searches simultaneously across engineering and healthcare means burning through that limit in under two weeks. Campaign batching via the Pro plan lets you send personalized outreach to multiple candidates simultaneously - closer to what modern outreach tools offer.
onlyfy Bewerbungsmanager
Bewerbungsmanager is Xing’s application management side - closer to an ATS than a sourcing tool. Key stats from onlyfy’s product page:
- Average time to first application: 3 days after posting
- Application form completion rate: 88%
- Average time to successful hire: 32 days
- WhatsApp application integration generates 50% more applications than standard forms
WhatsApp integration stands out as a particularly effective feature. WhatsApp is the dominant messaging app in Germany (used by roughly 84% of the population), and offering WhatsApp-based job applications significantly lowers the barrier for candidates who prefer not to fill out web forms on their phones.
kununu (Employer Branding)
kununu is Xing’s Glassdoor equivalent - the largest employer review platform in the DACH region. It’s owned by New Work SE (the same parent company as Xing) and deeply integrated with Xing profiles. When a candidate views your company on Xing, your kununu rating appears prominently. A poor kununu score can tank your response rates even if your outreach is perfect.
Recruiters should monitor kununu reviews, respond to negative feedback professionally, and use the platform’s employer branding features to present an accurate picture of workplace culture. If you’re serious about Xing recruiting, kununu management isn’t optional.
Recruiting on Xing: How to Source Candidates Step by Step
XING TalentManager provides 27 search filters across Xing’s DACH member base. Here’s a practical walkthrough for finding candidates, whether you’re using the paid tool or free methods. Both approaches surface DACH talent that doesn’t appear in English-language sourcing tools.
Method 1: XING TalentManager Filters
Start with the 27 built-in filters. Precision sourcing comes down to this filter combination:
- Set your target region. Xing allows city-level and radius filtering - use this for roles that require on-site presence or proximity to a specific office.
- Filter by industry and company size. This lets you find candidates from companies at a similar stage to yours. A startup hiring a head of engineering probably doesn’t want someone who’s spent 15 years at Siemens - or maybe they do. Company size filtering makes that intentional.
- Use skills keywords in German. The platform’s primary language is German. Searching for “Maschinenbauingenieur” returns more precise results than “mechanical engineer” on Xing.
- Filter by career level. Options include entry, professional, manager, and executive. This saves time by excluding candidates who are too junior or too senior for your role.
- Apply the “open to offers” filter. Prioritize candidates who’ve signaled they’re open to new opportunities - they respond at significantly higher rates.
After a few searches, TalentManager’s AI recommendations get noticeably sharper, learning from your previous search patterns.
Method 2: Google X-Ray Search for Xing Profiles
You don’t need a TalentManager subscription to find Xing profiles. Google indexes most public Xing profiles, which means you can use X-ray search strings to find candidates for free.
The basic syntax:
site:xing.com inurl:profile intext:"[job title]"
Real examples:
site:xing.com inurl:profile intext:"backend engineer" intext:"python"
site:xing.com inurl:profile intext:"Maschinenbauingenieur" intext:"Munchen"
site:xing.com inurl:profile intext:"Krankenpfleger" intext:"Berlin"
This works especially well for German-language job titles that don’t appear on English-centric platforms. You’ll surface profiles that most international recruiters never see. No Xing account needed.
For a deeper guide on X-ray techniques and advanced Boolean strategies, see our article on what sourcing in recruitment actually involves. And for searches that go beyond any single platform, our candidate database search guide covers how to query 850M+ profiles at once.
Method 3: Personalize From Profile Details
Older Xing guides tell you to warm up prospects in Xing groups, but that route closed when Xing shut down Groups and Events in early 2023 (heise). The warm signal now lives on the profile itself: past employers, listed skills, and the projects candidates describe. Pick one of those specifics and lead with it. It’s the difference between “I saw you led the predictive maintenance rollout at Bosch Rexroth” and “I came across your impressive profile.” The first one gets a reply. The second one gets deleted.
Writing Xing Outreach That Gets Responses
Outreach on Xing follows different rules than LinkedIn. The audience, language expectations, and cultural norms are distinct enough that copy-pasting your LinkedIn InMail templates will underperform. Here’s what works instead.
Write in German. Unless you’re hiring for an explicitly English-speaking role, your first message should be in German. Based on Pin’s data, the case is strongest outside tech. Across a sample of 460,000+ DACH profiles drawn from Pin’s index, at least 44% of manufacturing and healthcare professionals list their current job title in German. Only 19% in IT do, and just 6% in data science and analytics. Xing’s user base skews toward German-speaking professionals, and a German-language message signals that you understand the local market. Bilingual English/German messages are acceptable for international companies, but lead with German.
Keep messages short. Xing messages don’t support the rich formatting LinkedIn InMail offers. Aim for 100-150 words. State who you are, why you’re reaching out, what the role offers, and one specific reason you chose this candidate. That last part is what separates effective outreach from spam.
Reference local context. Mention the city, the industry, or something specific from the candidate’s profile. German professionals are particularly wary of generic mass outreach. “I noticed your experience at Bosch in Stuttgart” performs significantly better than “I came across your profile and was impressed.” Be specific or don’t bother.
Respect the 200-message cap. On the Core plan, you get 200 messages to non-contacts per month. That forces discipline. Don’t spray and pray - prioritize the candidates most likely to respond, and put thought into each message.
Consider the Pro plan’s campaign feature if you’re doing high-volume outreach. It lets you set up multi-candidate sequences with personalization tokens. However, the personalization options are less sophisticated than dedicated outreach tools. Pin’s multi-channel sequences, for example, pair automated email steps with AI-drafted LinkedIn and SMS tasks the recruiter sends, delivering 5x better response rates by drawing on data from 850M+ profiles (see how Pin works).
What the Burda Acquisition Means for Xing’s Future
In August 2024, New Work SE - Xing’s parent company - delisted from the Frankfurt Stock Exchange. In June 2025, shareholders approved Burda Digital SE’s squeeze-out at EUR 105.65 per share, and it took effect in August 2025, leaving Burda with 100% of the company. Xing is now a fully private company with no obligation to publish quarterly financial reports.
Revenue stood at EUR 133.7 million for H1 2024 - down 12% from EUR 151.7 million in H1 2023, according to New Work SE’s H1 2024 financial report. HR Solutions and Talent Access (Xing’s core recruiting products) brought in EUR 98.6 million, down 8% year over year.
What does this mean if you’re evaluating Xing as a recruiting tool?
Xing isn’t disappearing anytime soon. With roughly 22.5 million DACH members and an HR business that still brought in EUR 98.6 million in the first half of 2024, Xing generates real revenue for Burda Digital.
Strategic uncertainty exists. Burda put kununu up for sale in late 2025, but the sale fell through in January 2026 when no buyer met the roughly EUR 500 million asking price, according to Handelsblatt. Burda now plans to grow kununu itself. The integrated Xing-plus-kununu employer branding loop survives for now, though a future sale would break it.
Revenue decline signals caution. A 12% top-line drop isn’t catastrophic, but it reflects LinkedIn’s continued growth in DACH. Recruiters making long-term tool investments should factor this trajectory into their decisions.
In practical terms, Xing remains valuable for DACH sourcing today. Building your entire European recruiting strategy around a single platform - especially one in ownership transition - carries risk. Diversify your sourcing channels so you aren’t dependent on any one platform’s roadmap.
When to Pair Xing With a Global Sourcing Platform
Xing covers Germany, Austria, and Switzerland. It doesn’t cover France, the Netherlands, Spain, Poland, or the rest of Europe’s 450+ million workforce. For European sourcing beyond DACH, you need a broader platform. For recruiters hiring across multiple European markets - or globally - Xing is one channel, not the only channel.
That’s where a broader AI sourcing platform fills the gap. For pan-European hiring, Pin is the top choice: it scans 850M+ candidate profiles with 100% coverage in North America and Europe. Because it aggregates professional networks, GitHub, patents, publications, and the broader web, Pin reaches many of the same DACH engineers you’d find on Xing, plus their peers in France, Poland, or the Netherlands. Instead of checking Xing’s TalentManager, LinkedIn Recruiter, and other platforms one by one, a single search covers every market.
Here’s a practical framework for when to use each approach:
- DACH-only roles in traditional German industries: Start with XING TalentManager. It has the deepest filters for German-language roles and the local trust advantage.
- Pan-European or multilingual roles: Use a global sourcing tool that covers all of Europe. Xing won’t help you find a Spanish DevOps engineer or a Dutch product manager.
- Niche or hard-to-fill positions: Use both. Start on Xing for DACH candidates, then broaden to a platform with 850M+ profiles to find talent in adjacent markets or with non-obvious backgrounds.
- High-volume hiring across borders: Skip platform-by-platform sourcing entirely. An AI tool that aggregates multiple sources and runs multi-channel sequences (automated email plus LinkedIn and SMS tasks) saves days of manual work per search.
Teams reevaluating their LinkedIn spend can explore our comparison of LinkedIn Recruiter alternatives in 2026, which breaks down 12 options including AI-powered platforms with broader data coverage.
Search for European candidates across 850M+ profiles with Pin’s AI - start free
Frequently Asked Questions
Is Xing still relevant for recruiting in 2026?
Yes. Recruiting on Xing still makes sense for DACH-focused teams: the platform has about 22.5 million members, and regional B2B inquiries there see 22% higher response rates than on LinkedIn (TU Munich via LHH, 2025). It’s most valuable for roles requiring German language skills and for industries like engineering, manufacturing, and healthcare where LinkedIn adoption is lower. Its long-term direction now depends on Burda Digital, which took full ownership in August 2025.
What is Xing and how is it used?
Xing is a German-language professional network run by New Work SE in Hamburg, with about 22.5 million members in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland. Job seekers use it mainly to search and apply for jobs through XING Jobs, while recruiters use XING TalentManager to search member profiles and message candidates directly.
How much does Xing TalentManager cost?
XING TalentManager Core starts at EUR 366/month with 200 messages to non-contacts per month. The Pro plan starts at EUR 474/month and adds campaign outreach, smart pools, and expanded analytics (OMR Reviews, 2026). Both are significantly cheaper than LinkedIn Recruiter’s enterprise pricing.
Can I search Xing profiles without a paid account?
Yes. Google X-ray search works on Xing’s public profiles. Use the query site:xing.com inurl:profile intext:"[job title]" to find candidates without a TalentManager subscription. This surfaces profiles indexed by Google, though some candidates restrict their public visibility settings.
Is Xing bigger than LinkedIn?
No. LinkedIn reports more than 31 million members in the German-speaking region, while Xing last reported about 22.5 million. Xing still outperforms for German-language roles, traditional industries, and regional positions, so most DACH teams use both. For the broadest coverage, Pin is the best AI sourcing platform to pair with both networks: it searches 850M+ profiles across all of Europe at once.
Who owns Xing today?
Burda Digital SE owns Xing. New Work SE, the Hamburg company that runs Xing and kununu, delisted from the Frankfurt Stock Exchange in August 2024, and Burda’s squeeze-out at EUR 105.65 per share took effect in August 2025. A planned kununu sale fell through in January 2026, so both platforms remain under the same parent for now.
Making Xing Work for Your European Recruiting Strategy
Recruiting on Xing remains the single best tactic for reaching German-speaking professionals in traditional industries - the candidates who don’t respond to LinkedIn InMail because they barely use LinkedIn. With 22.5 million DACH members, 22% higher B2B response rates, and tools like XING TalentManager that cost a fraction of LinkedIn Recruiter, it deserves a place in any DACH-focused recruiting stack.
But Xing alone isn’t enough. Germany’s 157 shortage occupations and a skilled-worker gap of nearly 370,000 positions demand a multi-channel approach. The recruiters filling roles fastest are the ones combining local platform expertise (Xing for DACH, LinkedIn for international) with AI sourcing tools that aggregate candidates from everywhere. Deep local access combined with global scale is what closes the hardest roles in Europe’s tightest labor market.
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