The AVGS voucher: free coaching for your job search

There is a form of support surprisingly few people know about, and it targets where the problem often actually sits: not the number of applications but their effect. The Aktivierungs- und Vermittlungsgutschein, AVGS for short, pays for coaching, application advice or a private recruiter, and for you it is free.

This article explains what it covers, how to get one, and how to tell a reputable provider from a dubious one. The framing is in the guide to proving your job search.

Legal status: August 2026. Orientation, not legal advice.

01What the AVGS is

The legal basis is section 45 SGB III, covering measures for activation and vocational integration. The voucher is the form this funding takes: you receive a document, find an approved provider for it, and the provider invoices the agency directly.

The voucher states what it covers. Usually three things: the aim of the measure, a validity period, and often a regional scope. That matters, because a voucher for "placement" does not pay for coaching and vice versa.

Two variants come up in practice. The AVGS for measures covers coaching, application training, skills assessment and similar. The AVGS for private placement pays a recruiter who gets you into a job, and is typically paid on success.

02What it pays for

The scope is broader than the name suggests:

• Application coaching: documents, strategy, approach, interview practice
• One-to-one coaching for specific situations, such as returning after a long break or changing occupation
• Skills assessment, when the direction itself is unclear
• Private placement through an approved recruiter
• Measures at an employer, meaning a workplace trial

What it does not pay for is vocational training in the narrow sense. A language course, a retraining programme, a certificate course run through the Bildungsgutschein, which is a different paragraph. How to tell which route fits is below.

03Who gets one

Here a distinction matters that many guides blur.

For private placement, section 45 SGB III provides an entitlement: if you are still unplaced after six weeks of unemployment while receiving Arbeitslosengeld, you are entitled to this voucher. That is more than discretion, and you may rely on it.

For coaching and activation measures it is discretionary. The agency decides case by case whether the measure is necessary to improve your placement prospects. That sounds like a hurdle and is in practice quite achievable, provided you can name the need concretely.

04How to ask for it

The route runs through the conversation with your caseworker. What works there is a concrete diagnosis rather than a general wish.

Weak:

I would like some application coaching.

Strong:

Since January I have sent 24 applications and received two invitations. In both interviews I stumbled over the questions about my parental leave. I need someone to go through the documents and that interview situation with me.

The second version gives numbers, names the bottleneck and describes what the measure should achieve. That is exactly what the caseworker needs for their own reasoning. Your application log is where the numbers come from.

If you also have costs for the applications themselves, settle both in the same appointment. You keep the records for it as described in proof of job search.

05Finding and checking a provider

The provider has to be approved under the AZAV, the accreditation and approval regulation for employment promotion. Without that approval they cannot invoice against the voucher, however good the offer sounds.

Five signs of a reputable provider:

1. The approval is mentioned unprompted, with the measure number.
2. No top-up payment. Anyone asking you for extra money either lacks the right approval or is selling something the voucher does not cover.
3. A concrete programme instead of buzzwords. How many hours, what content, one-to-one or group, in person or online.
4. No pressure. "The voucher expires, sign today" is a sales tactic, not an argument.
5. Reachable contacts and an address that actually exists.

Also take the liberty of looking at several providers. The voucher is yours, and so is the choice. What good coaching covers is described here: application coaching.

06AVGS or Bildungsgutschein?

The distinction is simpler than it looks and turns on one question: are you missing a qualification, or are you missing an effect?

If a qualification is missing, a certificate, a licence, a degree, the Bildungsgutschein is the route. It runs through section 81 SGB III and funds training and retraining.

If your applications are not working although you fit professionally, the AVGS is the right one. It funds work on documents, approach and presence.

The two are not mutually exclusive. It happens that coaching first clarifies which direction makes sense and training follows afterwards. They are simply applied for separately, because they are two different benefits.

07If you are turned down

With a discretionary benefit a refusal is not a verdict on you, it is a decision that has to be reasoned. Three routes are open.

Ask why. The reason is often mundane: the case was too general, the necessity was not visible, or it did not say what the measure should achieve. A second attempt with figures from your application log often settles it.

Object. The refusal is a formal decision with an appeal notice. The deadline is printed there, normally one month. Writing, the file reference and one sentence suffice; the reasoning can follow.

Check the other route. Sometimes it is not the voucher that is wrong but the category. If what you actually need is a qualification, the Bildungsgutschein is the way, and the other way round.

What not to do is drop it quietly. The most common reason people do not have an AVGS is not refusal, it is that nobody ever asked.