The German reference letter system

The sad part is that (except for the Siemens/Telekom/SAP class of companies), companies don't really care that much for all the paperwork - although there's typically some interest in academic credentials.

I often recommend people to fiercely cut down on their application and resume (unless the job ad has specific requirements):

HR doesn't want to read your 5 page treatise on why you're suited to a job they don't know exactly but of which they know that you don't either. They have 500 more cover letters to attend to, no time to read up on your childhood trauma that shaped you into the perfect worker bee.

They also don't care about more than the last 3 years of education (and only if they happened within the last 5 years, otherwise your job history should mostly speak for you).

Sadly, the keyword filter is as strong here as elsewhere (no 5 years of Swift experience? pass), so it's useful to stuff the resume with them (but tabular please, no prose - HR ain't got no time for that). Add academic credentials ("2013: B.A. in Bullshitting at the Agrarian Academy of Bauernhausen, specialization: the qualities of cow manure").

Write a cover letter that shows that you're in reasonable command of friendly, professional German (or English if the position allows for that), and that you read the job ad. Finally add some bait for the hiring manager that indicates why you might be a good fit, should your application get past the HR screen.

HR will be happy to see a no-nonsense candidate that matches the keywords. Everything else is just part of the lottery anyway.

(to add: as soon as you're playing by the HR rules, be it in your reference letter, or in resume design, you're judged by it. Once you obviously deviate from that but without creating extra work for HR, you're likely judged for content only. If they take offense at the deviation, that's probably a pretty huge red flag for the company as a whole simply because it reflects on the type of people they did or did not hire.)

In addition at least in Finland, the employee has similar rights to a reference letter with assessment stating duties and performance - and the assessment may not be negative.

In Finland, the law states that "the reference letter must not imply other meanings than what is literally said". That is of course a bit of an impossible requirement. You can always read something implied if there is any assessment, and not having an assessment can also be interpreted as implying something (although it is generally a normal and neutral thing, there is a "long form" of reference with assessment, and "short form" without).

In Sweden, there is also a right to reference letter (arbetsgivarintyg), but it only needs to list duties, not give assessment.

Some years back in Finland, an employer actually went to jail because he refused to sign a reference letter which he considered not true regarding work duties.

Negative assessments are not allowed. The employment had lasted for a few months, but the employee had been on strike for almost all the time, only actually performing work duties for two weeks. The employer, en electrician, agreed to write the reference letter for this two week period but not sign that the employee would have been at work when he was actually on strike. But this was required by law because the employment contract had been valid.

A court case ensued. The employer was sentenced to a couple of months prison and was about to be sentenced again and again for as long as he would not sign the letter; eventually an undisclosed agreement was reached as the identity of the employee also made the news.

This feels rather strange in a country where you otherwise have to do some very graphic violence to go to jail.

Personal references in the US style have become more and more usual here, particularly in white-collar jobs.

One day at a small company I worked for the phone rang and a fellow developer answered. He said "the CEO's in a meeting right now, can I help?... Oh Andrew? He was terrible, couldn't code his way out of a cardboard box and he was really hard to get on with. I couldn't stand him personally... Ok, you're welcome, bye". My mouth was on the floor, I'm pretty sure Andrew didn't get that job.