Volker Paulsen completed a three and a half-year apprenticeship as an energy facility electronics technician at the Deutsche Bundesbahn in Glückstadt in 1986. After completing an additional training as a state-certified electrical engineering technician at a higher technical college in Meldorf in 1993, he worked with industrial measuring and control instrumentation. Since September 2012 he is employed as a specialist electrician at the Institute of Electromagnetic Theory, where he is in charge of the EMC laboratory and is responsible for the operational safety (e.g. VDE testing or instructions of employees).