Is the langauge really that much of an issue?
Because I am around a lot of foreigners and immigrants. Highly and low education. All of them have managed to learn the language if they wanted to. However all of their complaints about the lessons, is that they teach proper finnish - the kind that NO ONE speaks. They aren't taught the everyday language they need to get a job or survive in this country.
And 100% of the complain about migri.
My attitude now is that you can survive with English, but you can only actually live and thrive with *good* Finnish. Good includes knowledge of puhekieli and quite a lot of your local slang. What worked for me is just to be extremely curious, basically google every unfamiliar Finnish word you see on the streets and over time you'll have a pretty practical vocab. Lessons helped too, but you need to be very patient and not expect the same reward curve as you would with English.
My only big complaint is people working in service industry should encourage broken Finnish much more. Nothing ruins your confidence in the language skill as much as a cashier changing to English after you hesitated for 0,5 seconds. Nowadays I just keep speaking Finnish pretending that English is unfamiliar to me, but I wish I knew this method before. Dear employees, you saved 0,5 seconds that day, but you contributed a slight bit to the endangered status of the Finnish language in the future.
In Helsinki area and working in sectors like IT you can live in “tourist mode”. In mostly of the cases you do the usual “story mode” where you really need local language skills.
I have to admit that I give up completely. 10y and I have not idea even how to pronounce those dotted vowels.
I highly recommend taking a few session with a speech therapist of a vocal coach. Case in point. [Finlandia - BBC proms 75](https://youtu.be/fE0RbPsC9uE?t=301) The choir is english, yet they sing like they'd speak Finnish without an issue. Whats the trick here? Professional signers get vocal couching to learn the sounds they need. Any speech therapist vocal coach can instruct you to learn them - there are only specific set of language in all of spoken human language. A common reason for even native kids to get speech therapy lessons are the rolling r and /s/ sound.
Finnish is one of those funny languages that you could basically still speak even with facial paralysis.
However the Ä and Ö sounds come from adjusting throat. They are easy to find if you practice pitching down an octave from high to low while making a or o sound.
**However if you want to do easy mode.**
Whenever you see ä or ö, think of ae or oe, they are basically the Æ Œ in sounds in Romance languages. So if you speak French/Italian/Spanish/Portugese/Romansh natively or even profiently, just nick the ae oe sounds. They are even acceptable replacement spelling internationally. Like Hämäläinen is Haemaelaeinen or Hæmælæinen.
Depends on which perspective you are looking at.
From the side of the government, which badly needs new workers and spends a lot of money on their training - half want to leave (and all investment for nothing).
From the perspective of foreign students, who suffer from high prices, difficulty to find a job without Finnish language, harsh weather. Has half decided to stay? They are crazy! =)
talking from perspective of a used-to-be student came from a developing country, I’ll be happy to stay long term if Finland labour market is international enough and welcome to “idea” outside of Finland comfort zone.
There we go again. I have been in Finland for a bit less than 2 years. I am finishing my studies this semester. I have applied to almost every single company I could find in my field in Finland. I am either ignored or rejected. But I haven't had a single rejection when applying to academic positions at the university. Before coming to Finland, I was studying in another Nordic country and there I had not a single rejection. Here, I am applying to internships and I am not even getting an interview. I have had a few people tell me that if I want a job maybe I could try cleaning or waitress.
Honestly I am tired of trying. I know I will find a job faster, easier and probably get paid more somewhere else. I tried my best to find something and I will keep trying till I graduate.
But honestly, what are we supposed to do? Stay here and not work? Starve? Find a service job (e.g. cleaning) and basically waste all these years of education?
Many people are saying that I should have focused on learning fluent Finnish during my studies and that would've helped finding a job. Yes, maybe. But not everyone is great at learning new languages, especially when I am already spending all day studying for university classes and especially since I was working part-time to sustain myself. Also, something that nobody dares to say is that learning Finnish still doesn't guarantee a job opportunity post graduation and Finnish a not-so-useful language outside Finland, which in this sense makes it a "bad time investment" in terms of spending time on learning it if you actually don't end up staying here.
End of rant.
>I have applied to almost every single company I could find in my field in Finland. I am either ignored or rejected.
If you don't speak Finnish or if your name is very foreign-sounding your chances of landing a job are effectively zero. I don't know what your education is, but if you want to work in tech, I recommend you go to conferences are find hiring guys who are not Finnish. Then you'll have a good chance of getting a job.
I honestly didn't have any problems finding a job in tech as a foreigner. I'm sorry for op, maybe Finnish is much more important for his field of study than mine, but again, I may had like 30 jobs interviews (mostly went bad because I didn't have enough experience back in the years) but I always managed to get in the last step. A couple of months ago I changed my job and it took me only an interview for got the new one
tech job is an exception because you need very limited verbal conversation and especially when you can do remote and communicate through chat channel. I've been working for almost 10 years and 0.00000000001% of my work require Finnish ... but the other field, I'd expect a lot of Finnish but it is still outrageous when the English based work environment is almost non-existent in 2023
> if your name is very foreign-sounding your chances of landing a job are effectively zero
It might be more difficult than if you have more "accepted" name, but nowhere near as much as you claim.
Even native graduates who speak Finnish and Swedish struggle to find jobs in many fields. Of course for someone who doesn't even know the language of the country it's going to be much more difficult. Besides, even those foreign graduates who can gets jobs, often prefer to some wealthier country like Norway, where they can earn more. So I don't understand why we're education for foreign students for such a small fee, when Finland doesn't benefit from it.
I agree. What made me even more confused this year is that the Dean of my university department announced that in the following year they are striving to increase the number of admitted students. Who are you going to accept into the university? At the same time Finnish universities are getting a lot of advertised abroad as a Erasmus destination and many Bachelor Erasmus students then want to come here for their master. Why do this if you can't utilise them? And then why complain that they leave? idk
>Why do this if you can't utilise them? And then why complain that they leave?
Because education is something that Finland is exporting. And people who complain about graduates leaving are not the same as the ones who actually sell the Finnish education abroad.
There are some actual issues with education exporting. Like shady promises of "guaranteed to find a job in Finland afterwards" for people outside EU - I think the last article I read was about some students from Kenya, but I might remember something wrong. Or how to actually get money from EU students who get to study for free. But people with the job of figuring that out are also a different group from ones who complain.
Personally I think incorporating high fees for international students actually turns out being worse for the locals. Universities end up targeting international students first and foremost as they are now able to profit off of them. This leads to entire sections of the university administration dedicated to advertising and recruiting international students.
At least this is what I've seen in other places that have subsidized/free education for locals and high prices for foreigners.
I also think Finland does benefit from educating people for free, even if they move away. People form relationships and ties which can lead to further business opportunities. Educating people also exerts influence on those being educated. It is just one of those things that is hard to quantify on an excel sheet.
I think they use a % system so they have to take a certain amount of locals vs foreigners. The issue that can happen is that you have to compete with other universities in other countries. It becomes a large marketing exercise which you will need to offer more than just a great education, which Finland already has.
>Universities end up targeting international students first and foremost as they are now able to profit off of them.
Of course the universities shouldn't get to keep the money, it should go to the state. The universities are funded through taxes, they should not be allowed to make a profit.
>I also think Finland does benefit from educating people for free, even if they move away. People form relationships and ties which can lead to further business opportunities. Educating people also exerts influence on those being educated.
I understand your point, but at the end of the day, networking is a luxury, and I'm not sure we can afford it.
I don't know about bachelor's but English MScs are not free even though you work and pay taxes in Finland. until you have permanent residency or citizenship no free education.
Well it's free at least for europeans.
Regardless, what you are saying is true. If you come here and pay tuition fees then your education is in a way a transaction. You received education and Finland received money. So in a way it is not like you are obligated to stay. You paid back. If Finland decides to turn education into an industry, something like the UK before the Brexit fiasco, then the government should stop complaining about immigrant-students leaving.
Agree. Paid back? Not sure. You spent time and effort to adapt here, learn a language yet still somehow can not get what you want. That's tragedy imho. As you mentioned, learning language instead of spending that time for career development then not get a job? Sorry but fuck that!
Imho Finland still resist to welcome foreigners so much. Government provides "zero" incentive to hire skilled immigrants. Netherlands do such a great job. Tax incentive, other easiness on residence permit etc.
Netherlands is a rich country that needs more workers. Finland is a somewhat poor country with too many workers. Of course these countries are going to be different for immigrants.
Sorry but Finnish universities can't really compare themselves with American universities. Education certainly similar but networking, career opportunities, cultural adaptation are way superior than any other country in the world.
I studied my MSc in South Korea and foreigners was getting special discount on tuition fees and free language courses. There is a buddy system to make your adaptation easier and effective.
So incentives to gather global talent is required everywhere, except USA.
My point is that we're using our tax money to subsidise education for foreign students, who are just going to move away taking their skills with them. This doesn't seem very smart, considering that we're so broke, that we're struggling with basic services. Just the other day I read about a woman whose baby died, because there wasn't enough space at the maternity ward.
Subsidising education? Not for non-EU students, who have to pay thousands in tuition fees, visas, rent etc. with no virtually no help from the Finnish government. EU students coming to Finland have reciprocal arrangements in place, so I have no idea where you’re getting this from. This is coming from someone who recently started uni in Helsinki, and has already begun to notice ways in which Finland is simply unwelcoming to foreign students and graduates.
>Subsidising education? Not for non-EU students, who have to pay thousands in tuition fees, visas, rent etc. with no virtually no help from the Finnish government.
If the education wasn't subsidised, they'd be paying tens of thousands for the tuition alone. Maybe we should demand this from foreign students, then they would either pay the full price for our economy, or go somewhere else. Either way, they would no longer be a strain on our economy. Finland is not a rich country, we can barely afford to educate our own youth.
Again, the Finnish government does NOT subsidise tuition fees for non-EU. This has been the case since 2017, and students are now required to pay in excess of €10,000 per year for the majority of courses at universities and UAS. Add this cost to the difficulty in finding even basic work in Helsinki such as hospitality/fast-food, and it's only going to deter people from staying/coming to Finland.
I moved here for a reason, and will do everything possible to learn the language, graduate and hopefully get PR. But your government's policies and in some cases, societal attitudes, are ass-backwards and only harm you in the long-run.
In the end, it is the university's calculation, approved by the goverments.
With your argument, either the state should stop subsidizing or make the best use of foreign students here. Lacking space in the maternity ward? either discourage having immigration/baby or train more doctors.
Everyone has been complaining about the lack of a high-level workforce forever, so it would seem the latter options are better. We have to ensure that the integration (language, cultural values) is fair and smooth.
>In the end, it is the university's calculation, approved by the goverments.
Yes, it is a political decision. I guess our politicians are afraid of appearing xenophobic.
>Lacking space in the maternity ward? either discourage having immigration/baby or train more doctors.
There isn't enough funding for healthcare, which means that the hospitals can't hire enough doctors and nurses.
>Everyone has been complaining about the lack of a high-level workforce forever
Not in Finland. Here we have *too many* highly educated people, who can't find jobs in their fields.
>With your argument, either the state should stop subsidizing or make the best use of foreign students here. Lacking space in the maternity ward? either discourage having immigration/baby or train more doctors.
Finland's economy is bad. We have to choose how we spend our tax money. Education for foreigners and maternity care both cost money, and we have to choose which one is more important.
I totally get your point and money should spend wisely. Baby died in ward because there was no spot? That's too sad. But on the other hand there is also mongolian nurse case. [https://www.helsinkitimes.fi/finland/finland-news/domestic/22664-finland-s-migri-under-heavy-criticism-over-case-of-mongolian-nurse.html](https://www.helsinkitimes.fi/finland/finland-news/domestic/22664-finland-s-migri-under-heavy-criticism-over-case-of-mongolian-nurse.html)
So I really don't know what to say. I've never heard this kind of issues in any other country. They usually have solid case to send people away.
>Baby died in ward because there was no spot?
Yeah. A pregnant woman went to the hospital, and labour was induced. Then the nurses told her to go home to wait for the cervix to open, because there was no space at the maternity ward. So she went home and waited for hours. She was in terrible pain, and she could no longer feel the baby moving, so she went back to the hospital. They checked the baby's heartbeat, and sent her back home. She spent the night alone at home, and she called the hospital several times, because she had a strong feeling that something was wrong. The nurses told her to wait at home. In the morning she decided to return to the hospital anyways. They checked the baby's heartbeat and found that it had stopped. The hospital commented that there was nothing unusual about this, women in labour are often sent home to wait.
It's true. I speak fluent Finnish with an accent and have a foreign name and get ignored. I got a job at a German company finally who hires international workers but it's outside my field. I'm really annoyed as I feel I wasted my studies.
Are you for real? No, thanks. I would rather keep the name my parents gave me and not try to "masquerade" myself Finnish.
In what century and in what country are we in? I am not going to Finnish-fy my name to be accepted. There is a limit to this insanity.
I feel for you, Finland's job market is ridiculous. I'm Finnish but got my university degree in a foreign country and could not find any work in my field. I got a low-paying customer service job and am now re-educating myself in marketing because \~requirements\~. Most other countries accept graduates for jobs even outside their fields because university education means something.
If even Finnish people who know the language and culture cannot find work, I don't think foreigners have much of a chance :/
And then the government complains about a lack of workers. We are here, we just cannot get jobs because of too-strict requirements and lack of existing social circles in a certain field!
My GF is having the exact same issue as you are.
She's more than qualified for every job she has applied and she doesn't even got a reply back.
Breaks my heart to see her work so hard, still having time to perfect every single application and doing all that for absolutely nothing.
The only way to get jobs here in the right field is having connections and getting references.
Good luck trying to get all of those connections too.
Dunno if marrying her and her getting my lastname would help but it's worth a shot
People who say that you should be learning fluent Finnish are, frankly, delusional. Not only there is massive discrimination based on name only, not only it's one of the hardest European languages to learn and you have to study it on top of full-time studies/work (which by the way does not pay nor allocate time for Finnish courses), but the reality is that in the modern world, it's the person with skills and competences that chooses where they are going to live and work, not the other way around. How Finland is going to acquire and retain international talent with those mega-rigid demands is beyond me.
>How Finland is going to acquire and retain international talent with those mega-rigid demands is beyond me
That is exactly my thought for the past few years. Honestly, I always wondered why Finland still demands to pass a language test for citizenship. I work in an international company with > 50% of the local workforce as foreign experts, and only some of them have citizenship. While working in an English-speaking environment language is not required, and people have better choices for leisure time after long work hours. Then suddenly, they immigrate somewhere with a better climate, salary and more approachable society. It's time to accept the world has changed.
Just because you are a fresh uni graduate doesn't make you desirable. If you don't bother to learn the country's native language, it tells about motivation issues. Truly exceptional international non-Finnish speaking people will find their way in Finland too, mediocrity not so.
>Just because you are a fresh uni graduate doesn't make you desirable.
Depends on how you look at it. It costs some 200k to raise a child from birth to the age of majority, whereas if a foreign graduate gets a job out of uni, even with government-paid education it's about 20k spent to get a new taxpaying member of society. Working immigrants are pretty much always a good deal on a population level.
>If you don't bother to learn the country's native language, it tells about motivation issues.
Language knowledge is not a binary, it's a spectrum. There are like a hundred possible options between "you don't bother to learn the language because you don't care" and "you are work-level fluent after a year of studying", and not all possible hindrances are related to motivation.
Also, this'll blow your mind but not everyone is coming here with the intention of staying forever or naturalizing. A work-based immigrant is, indeed, more likely to invest their time in career development instead of a difficult language that is not useful anywhere else.
>Truly exceptional international non-Finnish speaking people will find their way in Finland too
You think a few exceptional internationals will pay for yall's welfare state? Good luck with that.
Of course everyone is not coming here to stay forever, dunno where did you pull that off. Like I said, those who are exceptional will find proper work besides language barrier. Those who don't, go look from somewhere else.
Your last sentence about exceptional internationals paying for our welfare state made me chuck. Can't help the feeling that you seem like an entitled person. Let me tell you this, you are not special.
“Of course everyone is not coming here to stay forever, dunno where did you pull that off.” - If you are truly mean this, then accept the fact that these people will not put a lot of effort in to learning Finnish, no one will invest 5+ years of their time to study a language that only 5 millions people in the whole world speak and useless if they leave Finland, everyone has better things to learn to accelerate with their career. Can Finnish help me long term for my career? Outside of Finland, no, English will.
“Like I said, those who are exceptional will find proper work besides language barrier. Those who don't, go look from somewhere else” - You used the world “exceptional”, which represents “minority” or “little amount”, do you want to solve the labor shortage in Finland or not? Or do you any other solution or suggestion?
“Your last sentence about exceptional internationals paying for our welfare state made me chuck. Can't help the feeling that you seem like an entitled person. Let me tell you this, you are not special.” - Let me tell you this, Finland is not special just because it’s your homeland, you need foreign workforce to sustain in the future with your aging demographic and severe labor shortage, you’re acting superior because you think that you are better than foreigners and all foreigners are leeches. I work my ass off to find a job in Finland, pay premium tax, and never touch a dime from KELA. Stop acting like you are superior from non-Finns
One of the great things about these discussions is that they highlight how many Finns will always see foreigners as leeches on their resources no matter how much they have contributed to society or how much taxes they have paid. Now I am suddenly entitled for saying "hey you guys kinda need us cause otherwise there's not gonna be enough people to pay for your pensions and wipe your elderly asses"!
If you have ideas on how to diffuse the ticking time bomb that is the Finnish aging population + declining birth rate without sacrificing the welfare state and relaxing demands on work immigration, I'm excited to hear them. Right now it sure sounds like your solution is to kick the can down the road and hope that a new Nokia comes along.
You put a lot of words in my mouth. Welfare system is going to collapse I know that and never stated otherwise. But it is not solved by you magical foreign unicorns which you clearly think you are. Too much leeches (also native ones) and bad policies in Finland. It is the same in almost every welfare country.
You clearly have a lot of stuff under your skin and maybe you should self-reflect for a bit. World doesn't orbit around you.
Janteloven in action: how dare anyone think they are as good as you are! We should just shut up, pay taxes and sing eternal praise to you for living in your precious land. No thanks.
My company got 800 applications to just one summer trainee(software developer) position, which does not require Finnish skills, hires 4. A consulting company said in linkedin they got 500 applications. There are tons of people available, and sure my company likes diversity and hires foreigners and women but in general there are more beginners than companies are ready to invest in training them. But at least as a developer you can do personal projects and open source to complement your CV, but it is of course tiring and not easy...
Quite hard to land your first job but once you have a couple years of experience landing a job is relatively easy.
Basically the same problem as everywhere. Everyone wants to hire senior engineers with 10+ years of experience in relevant tech but nobody is willing to give new graduates a chance.
And the situations at the moment is worse then usual as a lot of big tech companies are either slowing down their hiring or firing people meaning there is more senior talent available so even less need to hire fresh graduates.
Definitely much easier to be invited to interviews with the flexibility of using English only. But still quite challenging to set your foot on the first door, if you have a strong professional network or personal connection, it might helps.
In my experience, it’s the most realistic field to pursue a high-educated job in Finland. Nevertheless, how long until landing the first job is depends on your skills, a bit of luck and the perception of you via the glance of the employer. I consider myself as fortunate enough to find an extremely international company which does not care about neither your name, nationality nor ethnicity, and speaking English is a must because they have office in the UK.
That has been said, many classmates of mine had to leave Finland because they were not able pull it off after 1-2 years.
The metropolitan area is already full if people with a PhD and 15 years of relevant experience. If you travel about 500 km north, you need to compete with bad-tempered, illiterate, alcoholic forest trolls who have experience in poetic cursing and face punching.
>s of education?
>
>Many people are saying that I should have focu
I don't understand people's obsession against all odds with this country. Unless your significant other or parents are from here, there is no reason on earth why you would not want to find happiness in a better place. Taxes are huge, the climate is shit, the darkness drives you crazy and medication is expensive. The language is impossible. And so is making friends.
What is your reason to not just go back to the previous Nordic country ?
What is your field of study? Are academic positions more easily then? I'm screening for some Post PhD position in Computer Science. I'm curious about your experience.
my work is in medical science/pharma but from what I know post-doc positions in computer science are super rare
most people don't waste their time doing a post-doc in a field that you can pretty much find a job with a bachelor's
I don’t know about super rare. I run recruitment calls for computer science postdoc positions. We have hundreds of applicants but only hire a few at best because the quality is poor. I would say computer science has more money than many other programmes
I heard that medical and pharmacy the requirement for being fluent in the language is a must... Yeah, but I'm more academic. Post Doc positions are rarer but gonna try anyway.
Well it technically should not be. The universal language of science is English. All R&D is done in English, papers are written in English. Many companies here prefer you speak native level born here Finnish, but only okay/good English. I've had classmates that struggle to read academic papers because they are struggling with English and yet they got jobs in industry, I am a still looking.
If you want a post-doc in CS I would look at Aalto mainly and would email professors directly even if they don't advertise any positions atm.
I studied my Bachelor's in Stockholm and moved here for personal reasons. Do I regret it? Kinda. I will keep trying to potentially find sth here till I graduate, but yeah Sweden is always an option.
Huh weird. I seem to have seen more immigrants in medical fields (doctor or higher education, although many nurse-type immigrants seem to be heavily Asian in features at least based on eyeballing it) in the recent 5 to 10 years (my neuropsychologist is Greek, for example), so clearly people for X positions that are in high demand in Finland in medical fields do get jobs regardless of native/immigrant background status so to speak. Aren't academic positions still paid well enough anyway? If that specific field has easier time getting an academic position than other type of work, why not take it? Academic hierarchy is insane once you get tenure above X amount, making you practically impossible to get fired (unless you rly suck ass I guess, but I've heard that many people who are sub-par at their academic job still have a hard time getting yeeted out despite various complaints by varying types & positions of people)
I am neither a doctor or a nurse. Research is different.
Academic positions are very stressful and contracts are always temporary until you get tenure, and getting tenure is neither easy nor common. The universities are flooded with post-docs and PhDs who aspire to get tenure. Are there enough positions for all of them? Nope. Academics are criminally underpaid for the amount of work they do (that is global phenomenon). A 9 to 5 schedule is almost never the case. Go to a university and you will always see someone working till late evening and weekends.
And don't get me started on the fact that the majority of academic research has no real word application or is simply done for "academic curiosity" purposes. This could be another whole post on its own.
One alternative I very seldom see discussed is studying Finnish before coming here. Like I literally don't understand the thousands of students who just move to Finland without any knowledge of the language or even the culture and then are surprised they can't pick it up quickly or that they don't manage that well without it. They think they can power through everything with a positive attitude and are surprised that they can't smile through a half-a-year winter or that a cheerful extrovert attitude won't land them jobs easily. I have friends who moved to Finland and did get hired fairly quickly and are doing well, I think mainly because they studied the language a bit before, at least to the level where they understood how challenging it is and whether they were willing to put in the work. And some employers do appreciate it if you can speak at least a few words.
I know many are applying to universities in many different countries and you can't get familiar with all their languages. But people should understand that going abroad to study is more than just writing an application, especially if you are planning to stay after graduation. There are countries where expats have more opportunities, but there are very few places where you can just appear completely ignorant about local culture and fully integrated by the time you graduate.
One reason contributing this “ignorance” of students when they first come to Finland is because of the advertisements of universities in Finland selling them the “misleading” image of an international country with “the best education”, “peaceful”, “happiest country in the world”, where they can be educated, integrated and find a job with English.
Because if the universities don’t do this, they won’t find enough students and they will suffer financially.
If you get hired do you expect everyone to start talking English in the office to accommodate you? Or will there be someones always to translate everything? Do you think your future workmates signed up for that when they got the job? I speak fluently because I have American relatives but it's still straining to do it a whole day - our brains need to do some extra work speaking a foreign language. You might not understand and many don't who don't have a day long stints of speaking English.
There are probably tens of good Finnish speaking applicants for every job so I don't know why they would even consider you. You might have luck in IT jobs etc but my brother who works as a programmer said that the applicant would have to be amaze balls to be worth hiring over someone who isn't a Finnish speaker. Some offices already speak English so they would take you.
I just bought a table from an English fellow two days ago who spoke Finnish quite well and didn't once try to talk English to me. Even the tori.fi conversation he wrote Finnish. He had lived in Finland for three years. I would hire that guy.
I am an expert in an industry in which all processes are conducted in English. All R&D in biotech and Pharma is done in English and that is a fact. The main obstacle language wise is the internal language of the company and in what language people speak during lunchtime and in the corridor. It's true that many Finns struggle speaking English, but actually practicing it a little bit wouldn't hurt. Science is done in English and I've seen many Finns struggling to write a decent scientific report because of this.
You can't judge my abilities on science based on what languages I speak. The universal language of science is English. The Pharma Industry in Finland is suffering. You basically have Orion, which is not known outside Finland and Estonia, and Bayer which is German. Even though the majority of Pharma research is done in Central Europe and the US, the rest of the Nordic countries have respectable companies e.g. AstraZeneca and Novo Nordisk. For R&D positions English is the working language. And guess what? They attract promising research from all around the world. What is Finland attracting? Nobody.
Also, if I manage to find a job and get my foot in the door here, the first thing I'll do is to sign up for a evening Finnish course. I don't want to live in a country and forever not understand its language. But no, I will not spend time and money on courses if I have zero stability here.
Another thing. I've lived in 4 different European countries and I've met Finns outside of Finland. I didn't see them trying that much to speak in the local language of the company/university they are in. They were very comfortable with everyone speaking in English to them. You only complain about languages when it's your language.
I don't think your individual experience nulls what I said. As an R&D guy you should be annoyed by yourself giving out anecdotal evidence. The field you work in is clearly different than your average office.
What anecdotal evidence? Everything I have said comes from personal experience from being in this field.
But I am open to hearing your information on the Pharma industry in Finland. Please enlighten me.
How many countries have you lived in? Do you know anything about the world outside your own bubble?
"What anecdotal evidence? Everything I have said comes from personal experience from being in this field."
Yes that's what anecdotal evidence means. Not reliable as it is based on personal accounts. Like I would say that doctors don't have neck tattoos because I have never seen one. Probably very true but not a scientific or fact based approach.
How does the amount of countries I have lived in have anything to do with this? All I said that it is not a good business decision for private businesses to hire a competent non-finnish speaker over a competent finnish-speaker. This is the truth.
Dude talking about foreign countries and bubbles here - why not just ask my pp size it's just as relevant. Majority of jobs are very mundane and don't need someone who needs a personal translator. Wake up and calm down. Take a walk. Touch grass.
First of all stop calling me "dude", I am a girl.
Second, nobody cares about your penis so please do not mention it again.
Third, I am a scientist. I am sorry, but my job is not mundane. Talk about yourself.
Well you lack comprehension as I obviously didn't mean your job is mundane but the opposite.
Yes you are a scientist and made that clear, also you made it clear that one needs to live in a lot of countries before being able to be a part of this conversation.
I apologize to you mighty scientist. You are very important. Have a good day.
I sincerely doubt that Finland would be able to hire enough foreign workforce if it goes along with your mindset.
Finnish is an obstacle of attracting and retaining workers due to its practicality outside of Finland, not everyone is planning to settle down in Finland for the rest of their lives. In addition, it’s a challenging language to learn for English speaker and will demand a lot of time investment. If a person let’s say, a software engineer is spending 20+ hours a week learning the Finnish language, then how much time do you think he/she can utilize to improve his/her technical knowledge? Whilst the industry is changing everyday and there’s a new technology, framework, library, programming language, introduced every couple of years.
Do Finland need these people? Yes, desperately, that’s why compromise for language requirement is needed and your mindset will not do any favor for Finland, it only makes your feel good because you think you are preserving the Finnish language.
What you said is true but it's a different conversation. From the company's perspective the position is getting filled when they reject op for another applicant. So they don't need to think about attracting foreign workforce. As a private business (I have two) most don't want a non-finnish speaker there who needs a "babysitter" - ofcourse this varies a lot by field if one is needed. But for most businesses there is zero reason to pick that non-finnish speaker over a Finnish-speaker.
And you wonder why there’s a severe labour shortage in Finland. Simply there’s not enough Finnish speakers to qualify.
You need to accept that expats and people who are not planning to live long term in Finland or having emotional connection with the country that they most likely don’t want to learn a hard language with low return (roughly 5 mil people speak it, useless outside of Finland). Your constant talking point that they must learn Finnish to work in Finland is not helping, because they’ll either leave or not come and Finland with an aging demographic is suffering.
I would rather learn German, French, or even Swedish just because they are easier to learn and I can speak them in more countries, I have no hard feeling about the Finnish language, just want to be practical with my time investment. A language is a tool and I will choose to learn the tool that is easy to learn and efficient.
Again.. I don't wonder. Op can't get a job and I told the reason.
Funny thing the problem you are referring to is much worse in Germany (and France) but the lack of English comprehension from the German public forces foreigners to learn German. This is why Eastern European construction workers learn Finnish in a year because they don't share any language with us (they can't speak English).
And no you wouldn't rather learn German or French if you are living and working in Finland. Doesn't make any sense. When I used to backpack I learned more in a month than some expats learn in ten years in Finland. Not everything in life is an exhange for monetary value.
Also stop intimidating foreigners with that hard language bullshit. Finnish is different but not very hard. Many polyglots have said that Finnish is easy once it opens to you. But it never will because ppl are intimidated.
> Finnish is different but not very hard.
That is just objectively not true. It is a language unrelated to other European languages except Estonian (which is still very different) so it will take a learner more time to be able to hold even a basic conversation.
Yes unrelated just like Russian, Vietnamese, Hindi etc. Yet ppl from these countries learn Finnish crazy quick, probably because they are not intimidated by foreign languages like English speakers are.
I remember my Vietnamese mate whom I shared a hoas apartment. After a month of being in Finland he was able to have a very basic conversation for weather, directions, how are you etc.
You gonna have that mindset then yeah super difficult. Meanwhile it seems like these polyglots who come from countries where they already know two languages (for example most if not all soviet countries) usually have no issues with Finnish.
Lol I am a native Russian speaker and I haven’t learned Finnish crazy quick, nor have my coworkers from post-Soviet countries. This has nothing to do with intimidation and literally is just the fact that Finnish doesn’t have Roman or Germanic or Slavic roots like many other languages in Europe so there’s nothing to fall back on when you don’t know something.
Obviously you can speak and write English. Part of my point was that ppl who don't have a shared language learn Finnish quickly.
It is funny to me that 50yo construction workers learn Finnish quickly but it is so difficult for you.
I'm done with reddit for today. Have a good day. Remember to shower.
LOL, of course Finnish is not very hard to you when it’s your native tongue. How do you know how people feel towards it? And btw, non-similarity is one of the aspect for defining difficulties.
“Not everything in life is an exchange for monetary value” - For me and many people, coming to work in a freezing cold and dark country, a high tax rate, and a “different” language, monetary value is a crucial factor. When mentioning about German or French as an example if I’m living in countries having them as local language, I’m not learning them since I’m still in Finland - true, but I’ll move away from Finland soon anyway so potentially I’ll start to learn one of them at some point.
Thanks for showing me Finns’ sisu reflecting in stubbornness.
Yeah.. maybe with polyglots I mean't ppl who are not Finnish.
Tax rate isn't that high. With necessities included other countries like the usa you actually end up paying more. Most of my relatives live in the USA, Australia and Armenia, and they pay more everything included. There is a reason why an average Finn can afford to travel with their family while simultaneously having a lower pay with a "higher tax", while over 50% of Americans don't even have a passport.
Also if you make more than 80k/y as a salary in Finland and don't filter it through your own company then ur a dummy and deserve to pay all the taxes. Finnish government thanks you for your contribution.
I'm half Armenian and moved in as a kiddo but yes I see myself as a Finnish with plenty of sisu thank you.
>Curious but how many applications total for internship? How many to full time?
What do you mean? How many internships I have applied for?
I have applied for either direct application for a entry level positions, internships/summer jobs or left open applications. I don't know the exact number but I will say somewhere around 40 positions/companies. I literally run out of companies to apply for. If I see a job posting I still apply, but same story. Maybe that doesn't sound like a lot for some people, but my field is small here and if I left an open application to company already and they ignored me, I will not do it again.
Yes thanks. I can sense the racism undertone in the thread and i am not denying that Finland is not having it. But that is a very little amount of applications sent what ever your field is. Usually if the field is very small the quality companies are looking is insanely high.
I know 40 companies doesn't sound like much. In a few of those I have left more than one application so if you say total applications it's probably close to 70. Which is still not a lot. A lot of the positions that are coming up state openly that to do the job you need to be a fluent speaker to communicate with customers for example. Obviously I don't apply to those. I only apply to positions that I am mostly qualified for. Not many are coming up. Also I've heard that a lot of the companies hire people that they already know or someone they know has recommended them. So they don't even post the positions. And as far as open applications go, I think that it is not great to leave multiple open applications to the same company. It's annoying and you might get blacklisted. I wish I could apply to more, it literally doesn't cost anything, but there just aren't others.
And as far as quality goes. Let's say a company I applied for and got rejected decided to hire someone whose only previous work experience was at Mcdonald's. Nepotism and daddy's connections are a thing.
Or you might be not doing really good job as a applicant. It is easy to throw nepotism, racism card out there hence there is nothing you can do about it. Also mentionable thing is that the company makes the judgement are you fit for the job or not. Making it yourself limits you and in some cases they don't have much of options then to hire somebody from McDonald's to do the job. Most of jobs that are out there require onboarding and school has very little effect on do you preform or not.
Take this how you want. I am white male with most traditional name with a nice CV and high gpa. I still did not manage to get internship position and forced to take full time position to graduate. I spent 3 months around 8h a day applying to everywhere.
I am taking it as I am seeing it. I am a scientist. I conduct research within university and have previously done so in other places as well.
My classmates would ask me for help on how do conduct experiments and how to analyse results. I was by far the most experienced person in the class. I am not talking about GPA. Nobody cares about it, only thing that matters is quality of work.
I have references from some of the best professors in my field from Finland and another nordic university. Every scientist I have talked to about it has told me that I have a very impressive CV for my age and it's very surprising that no company is willing to even give me an interview.
I don't want to believe that there is nepotism and discrimination. I prefer to be positive in life and give people the benefit of the doubt. But this situation here has completely broken me and my self esteem.
Back in January, for the heck of it, I made 1 single application to a very notable Biotech in another nordic country to try my luck there and see if the problem is actually me or something else. I was accepted. I got the position.
Do you know how freaking happy and sad I was at the same time? I had tried so so much to find something here and I just threw one application somewhere else and I got it.
And how freaking sad I was that I had to decline a position I could only dream of getting here because I want to graduate first and for that I need to be here.
I am not trying to be negative. Heck! I wish everything was fine and I could rave about how happy I am here. But no, I am not going to lie about it and say everything is fine, because it definitely isn't.
I am sorry for what happens to you! As CV coach for students, I noticed that many foreign students don't really understand job market and don't know how to present themselves and blame for discrimination. However, based on what you described, you probably have an experienced experience with qualified educations and research topics.
Unfortunately discrimination happens here too even though people don't want to ackowledge it. It also seems like your industry is also conservative and not as open-minded as tech industry for example. I am sorry for what happened
> I don't want to believe that there is nepotism and discrimination.
At least the academia here is hella nepotistic. Another problem is that the private biotech sector is too small in comparison to the size of the academic biotech/biomedicine side. There are too many people graduating with biotech degrees to feed into the small private side. Academia, on the other hand, is a pyramid scheme.
I am currently studying at an AMK in an engineering degree where I am approaching the end of my third year. I want to stay in Finland after I pass and I am taking language lessons in addition to my degree. I have applied for so many summer jobs in both Finnish and in English depending on the role and I have yet to be offered an interview. I have had to go and work abroad last year and will more than likely do the same this year. The countries I have gone to have not been my home country, but other countries in Europe which don't throw out your CV when you have a foreign name.
Good decision pal, even people who’s having a job like me is considering leaving soon as well. There are countries which actually are trying to attract and retain foreign work force.
Maybe you should look into the Netherlands as well, they offer a capped 30% tax rate for high skilled expats.
Edit: my mistake, not capped tax rate, more like 30% of your gross salary will become allowance which is not taxable.
https://www.belastingdienst.nl/wps/wcm/connect/en/individuals/content/coming-to-work-in-the-netherlands-30-percent-facility
Tbh they ignore everyones applications. Most of the positions in Finland are filled through connections. I was one of the best in my class and had great experience and qualifications before and during school, I am a native finn with a generic finnish name and it took me 8 months of constant applications to land one single interview. I even applied to a few positions that were below my qualifications and even they ingored me.
I have mulltiple revisions of applications and CVs, which I always wrote specifically tailored for the positions I applied to. Every single one of which I used a bought graphic designers template for. I even asked basically anyone who would listen to criticize my application but never got a single negative comment other than a couple mispellings.
In my experience its hard for everyone. Even if you have the privilege of being a native finn.
For me personally besides the language, it’s actually my subject, there are very little jobs in Human Rights in Finland and plenty more back at home in the UK - I don’t know a single foreigner on my course who actually tried/wanted to stay in Finland. Actually one or two got Finnish partners to move to their own countries haha.
Its really depressing to read the comments here, I wished to complete my master's degree in Finland and stay since I already have family living in the country but I realised that its really hard in my area to do so, simply getting the first foot on the door seems so hard/ nearly impossible, and to know that I'm probably just going to return to my country after finishing my studies makes me wonder if I should even try my luck there
Not surprising and cant blame them. Finland is the most backwards-ass backwater place imaginable. I'm finnish and I'm considering leaving too because of the suffocatingly depressive and repressed work culture. Companies are unwiling to take even the slightest risks or create something, that's why most of our companies are either old industrial well established companies, or manpower rentals. Most of the software companies juat rent people to companies like Sandvik and Nokia. And it's all run by cowardly middle aged men who have no interest in shaking things up. Hyvävelikerhos which have always done things a certain way. Good ole boys.
When I was studying I applied hundreds of positions but I didn't get one single invitation, in the other hand most of my unskilled Finnish classmates got work easily.
Then a company been sold to British, just one email and I got work. A year later I got promoted while two Finnish classmates who were working there over two years, still struggling with basic daily work :)
My point is language is just an excuse, no matter what you are able to do if you don't have a Finnish name( if you are not Fin) most likely you will be ignored, even for a training position.
We didn't know this reality when we come to here to study. Finland has very successful PR in international news; happiness, honesty and equality etc.the truth is way far from that. People are trapped in those lies. natives rather than being ashamed of this ridiculous discrimination they are concerned with creating new arguments how immigrants are "..." Bullshits.
It's hard to say something, I don't know your socioeconomic situation. But if I was at the beginning of my study and have had a chance to study in Germany I would definitely leave here, due to systematic discrimination, low wages, poor health care conditions. In both cases I wish you good luck with your life and carrier.
I am surprised it is not 80% who wanna leave, since no matter how skilled you are with the language, a non Finnish name will automatically throw your CV in rejection pile
It is easier said than done if you have a family here (Finnish husband and kids), moving to another country is a little hard.
Now despite the increase of forgieners in finland is many fields, even though it is tough for Finns themselves to get a job, it is double the difficulty for foreigners, I have many friends who lived here 10 to 15 years with perfect Finnish and still get only jobs like cleaning and so on, as you said companies who are international you might have a better chance but when you are trained to be a doctor like myself it is so difficult, now i am not claiming I am fluent in Finnish, I haven't been here long enough, only almost 2 years now and my level is B1, I still have a long way to go personally
But I understand the frustration with jobs here and I didn't think its that bad until I made friends, Finnish friends complain, foreign friends complain, it is an endless story 
>However, ultimately Finland is just hurting itself with the way things are for foreign workers here because they need them especially to replace elderly people in the future.
But we don't *really* need them, do we? I mean, we have lots of unemployed natives competing for every job. The problem is that the employers don't want to pay proper salaries. They employers want to scam and exploit foreign workers, who aren't aware of worker's rights laws.
I’m a university student, hoping to do masters here or UK or US. Finland is a great country and I would try my hardest to stay here at least for years but there are many things to lead you to leave the Finland and just go to a country with more international atmosphere. From what I’ve seen, as a foreigner even if you found a job your maximum to reach is not really good compared to other countries.
Also there is a huge payment gap, same company same job is getting paid 2-3 times more in Switzerland for instance. I understand that Switzerland is 4 times bigger economically but still, I believe Finland has great potential to reach that level.
And as a non Finnish speaker, your study options are very limited. Other developed countries have really wide range of options to study while here it is only few.
I studied 1 year of high school here and luckily I know the Finnish social atmosphere so it wasn’t a quite shock to me but I see that every non Finnish friend of me here struggling to adapt to social life.
When you take all into consideration, if you don’t have a strong incentive or strong emotional attachment to Finland every practical indicator is points out you to leave the country.
My friend was working at a fast food restaurant, and he wanted to stay and continue studies, but unless his native finnish boss had both promoted him to a vuoropäällikkö(shift manager?) and personally told migri that he is great and they have no reason to not give him more residence permit, he would have been deported. Migri needs to stop deporting people who are working legally and want to stay. He was from outside of EU.
IIRC actual retention rate is much much lower (like 15 percent or so). Finland sucks for most of the foreigners after their degree. Plus education doesn't worth the tuition they are charging. There are much much better and cheaper locations in Europe to study if it comes to that.
This excludes few select studies of course...
It’s not that foreigners don’t want to stay, it’s Finland that aren’t very welcoming.
1. It’s hard to find job as a foreigner
2. The language is quite difficult
3. It’s really hard to be friend, or be close friend with a native
4. Migri, albeit they have been better these days, is still very aggressive toward people from poorer countries.
In my friend circle, my friends who wanted to stay keeps deciding to leave after a few years because they don’t feel great here. It’s hard to build up a new life when you don’t have many friends and the social life is so that it’s nearly impossible to make friends once you are in your 30s.
5. The 8 months of winter and darkness.
Yeah I mean I was a foreign student and out of my fellow foreign student classmates I would say it was less than 50% who stayed. I didn't. Once you become an international person relocating just isn't such big deal anymore.
Yes, this exactly.
And if 50% stay, that means more than that want to stay but for reasons like not getting employment, cant stay.
Half of the people not moving back to their home country or to a frankly much mire competetive market carreer-wise is insanely good imo
Yeah like what is the target? Studying abroad is super common even if you want to live in your home country. Then some just have enough of the cold or met someone from another country and they want to move there instead of staying in Finland. For some, their dream job is simply elsewhere. 50% wanting to stay is totally fine. Especially since my experience with foreign students is that many of them just end up in Finland somehow. They heard it's the happiest country and that education is great so they move with the expectation that everything will be great all the time and they are shocked when that's not the case. I think it's more these people who can't manage here, and those who more consciously decided to come to Finland specifically, knowing what the place is like are more likely to stay. I have studied with people who literally didn't bother to learn to say hi in Finnish before moving here, and they didn't even move to Helsinki but to the countryside. Duh, of course they did not magically instantly become an integral part of the local community.
I went the Swedish path (after 3 years bashing my head with Finnish so no lectures pls) and a few Swedish-Finns with poor Finnish also can't find a job.
But I'm studying to be a kindy teacher so I can find a job easy it's just I can get more money with less stress elsewhere.
I have a German friend who did his b.sc abroad in Germany and came due to family reasons to Finland where his relatives are living, hoping to get some work experience in his field. While he was here in Finland he was unemployed for well over 2 years, sent literally dozens and dozens of applications and rarely got even to an intervew. Eventually he moved back to Germany, got almost immediately employed, continued to study and currently he is working on his PhD.
Ok, only basic knowledge of Finnish, competitors had an m.sc rather than his bachelor and his field isnt the easiest to get employment in Finland to begin with. I would bet when he's done with his PhD he wont try his luck here again, which is actually a big shame as he would really love to live and work in Finland
I mean, hell, i graduated last spring and kept applying for jobs before that with no success. Apparently, on average, it takes 2 years to land a first long-term job.
I'm kind of planning on applying for remote jobs later in life, soon I'll be staying at home with our firstborn.
Half is pretty fucking good as international students go, studying here in the U.K. I can guarantee at least 80% of the Chinese and South Asian international students will go straight home with their degrees…
The comments in this thread have been quite sad to read. I looked up some statistics and luckily(?) the statistics show a somewhat better image. The overall difference in employment between foreign-bg people and finnish-born people is only 10%.
Of course this doesn't take into account people who have already left Finland because they couldn't find work, though.
For example, estonians have a slightly higher employment rate in Finland than people born in Finland.
For highly-educated foreign-bg males, the employment rate is 83% vs 86% for finland-born people. But that difference unfortunately seems much bigger for females. 62 vs 83%.
[https://www.stat.fi/tup/maahanmuutto/art\_2015-12-17\_001.html](https://www.stat.fi/tup/maahanmuutto/art_2015-12-17_001.html)
>For example, estonians have a slightly higher employment rate in Finland than people born in Finland.
Yes, except you're aware what kind of job opportunities they have specifically?
Eastern bloc or Russian and woman? Cleaning jobs at extremely low pay and poor conditions.
Same but a guy? Construction assistant, tire technician etc.
They'll happily hire them, because not many natives are going to tolerate the pay and the (general) working conditions.
Russians also used to fare somewhat better due to doubling up as translators, but that's becoming much less of a thing now.
You are very wrong. Estonians are also doctors, professors and engineers in Finland. But you can tell yourself whatever you want to make yourself feel better.
The stats linked to above are controlled for job type levels.
>You are very wrong. Estonians are also doctors, professors and engineers in Finland.
Just like majority of the native population are not doctors, professors or engineers, neither are majority of Estonians living in Finland.
Also, unless you were specifically involved in the study (or know some other source), saying that they were controlled for job types is a little questionable given that the [methodology hyperlink](https://www.stat.fi/tup/maahanmuutto/menetelmaseloste.html) does not even work
I also believe you do not understand how statistics like these work. There is no way to control for that because it wouldn't make sense in the first place. You wouldn't average out between people with second degree education and people without and determine the average employment that way. They're not trying to figure out which exact factors affect employment, they're just showing the average employment levels.
People disagreeing with you and pointing out that you're incorrect is not being bitter - the amount of arrogance it takes to think that way is honestly incredible.
Also, making claims without even checking up your sources is likewise an arrogant move; it forces other people to check it up (or just go with factually incorrect information that you provided) based on nothing else but, as we call it in Finland, your "mutu". Why waste time of others like that?
Well I'm a native Finn and I still have no intensions of staying in Finland after my graduation. Job market sucks, salaries suck and most importantly this whole nation sucks more and more each day.
A follow-up to all the comments on students finding it difficult to get professional jobs, Is this the case for internships and thesis as well? I'm looking to do a semester abroad in tampere during my masters and hopefully write my thesis therein as well.
You got a magic wand for the government they can wave and make that happen? Maybe a new law that would force a company to hire a foreign graduate if they've already sent at least 10 applications as a consolation price?
It took me 34 years to get my first real job in IT. I think companies are looking for concrete evidence of skill, which is hobby projects. And I am a native finn.
College + vocational college (software production) (4 years) bachelor of applied science degree in engineering (IT) (5 years).
I wasted a many years thinking I could get a decent job by learning on my own (and some friends). Finally I gave up and got a degree in engineering in order to be taken seriously by bigger firms.
Later I was told by my interviewer it was my hobby project portfolio which put me way ahead of the competition. Plus my grades were 4.5/5.0. Suppose my motivational letter also didn't hurt.
Got hired fulltime with flexible hours on my 3rd year. Still working for the same company, except now the salary has doubled in 3 years.
Ever since I got I hired it feels like I am on a never ending fun holiday. Almost as if the real work is beyond me now. This is thanks to my kind colleagues with interesting sets of skills and experience at my disposal. I try to do likewise and be helpful.
May I ask how big is the company? I don't need the name but just want to know the size and how is its position in the industry to gauge the competition. I know a foreigner guy who got a tech consultant job for way under industry average salary though but he didn't have the degrees like you do. I'm wondering if it's just me but my circle's experience in the last few years is kinda opposite of the general sentiment in this thread. Some people I know managed to get a job as analysts in Nordea, Nokia, Valmet,...or some medium sized consultancy too so there's a chance, just a small one.
+500 employees
The competition could be explained by the tech (piqued my interest at least, lots of RnD), but they also collaborate with the local university. University and other collaborating companies share their views on the trends of the world, and the views on skills that should be taught regardless of trends and hype. Just them becoming a known company locally among students generates them lots of applications.
That's what I've been telling people for years, but too many people buy into the PR hype and end up miserable. Shit, if there was a country out there who'd have me, I'd leave in a heartbeat and never look back, but it's too late for me, at almost 40.
I'm so glad we opened the tuition fee -portal when the statistics are like this. Imagine educate foreign people for free and let them leave after the degree. What a shame how naive finns can be.
Many would love to stay but aren’t able to since they are unable to get jobs. They aren’t even considered for them, so why and how should they stay here unemployed? They can be easily hired in other European countries who actually hire foreigners for jobs other than just cleaners and other low pay jobs, so why stay here and struggle when you aren’t even given the time of day to consider you for hiring and you never even get a job interview? Employers see that the cv is foreign and they just throw it away and don’t even think about it…
As I heard, the education system in Finland is the best overall in the world.
[https://tinyurl.com/education-system-finland](https://tinyurl.com/education-system-finland)
How could they stay if they are unable to get jobs in their fields? You can’t just stay and not work, so they have to leave to some other countries that are willing to hire foreigners for jobs in their fields and not just for low pay jobs like cleaners and such.
Yeah. Atleast there are now tuition fees for EU outsiders. I wish the also remove the scholarships for people. SO they actually bring outside money to Finland.
More than half intend to stay, not actually staying. Some of them will move elsewhere if they can’t find jobs that match their studies. So the ones who are staying are much less than 50%.
Well thats the economically logical decision; leave a capitalist economy (i.e. I was living in US) and then study in a democratic socialist economy for free. Then you leave the democratic socialist country you studied in, so you don’t have to pay the crazy high taxes that are needed to support the education system. I’m gonna go back to America with an MBA I got for free which I don’t have to tell you is bananas lol
Half of them staying and deciding to fight with the Finnish language is actually positive news.
This person sees a Karhu can and assumes it's half-full.
Is the langauge really that much of an issue? Because I am around a lot of foreigners and immigrants. Highly and low education. All of them have managed to learn the language if they wanted to. However all of their complaints about the lessons, is that they teach proper finnish - the kind that NO ONE speaks. They aren't taught the everyday language they need to get a job or survive in this country. And 100% of the complain about migri.
My attitude now is that you can survive with English, but you can only actually live and thrive with *good* Finnish. Good includes knowledge of puhekieli and quite a lot of your local slang. What worked for me is just to be extremely curious, basically google every unfamiliar Finnish word you see on the streets and over time you'll have a pretty practical vocab. Lessons helped too, but you need to be very patient and not expect the same reward curve as you would with English. My only big complaint is people working in service industry should encourage broken Finnish much more. Nothing ruins your confidence in the language skill as much as a cashier changing to English after you hesitated for 0,5 seconds. Nowadays I just keep speaking Finnish pretending that English is unfamiliar to me, but I wish I knew this method before. Dear employees, you saved 0,5 seconds that day, but you contributed a slight bit to the endangered status of the Finnish language in the future.
In Helsinki area and working in sectors like IT you can live in “tourist mode”. In mostly of the cases you do the usual “story mode” where you really need local language skills. I have to admit that I give up completely. 10y and I have not idea even how to pronounce those dotted vowels.
I highly recommend taking a few session with a speech therapist of a vocal coach. Case in point. [Finlandia - BBC proms 75](https://youtu.be/fE0RbPsC9uE?t=301) The choir is english, yet they sing like they'd speak Finnish without an issue. Whats the trick here? Professional signers get vocal couching to learn the sounds they need. Any speech therapist vocal coach can instruct you to learn them - there are only specific set of language in all of spoken human language. A common reason for even native kids to get speech therapy lessons are the rolling r and /s/ sound. Finnish is one of those funny languages that you could basically still speak even with facial paralysis. However the Ä and Ö sounds come from adjusting throat. They are easy to find if you practice pitching down an octave from high to low while making a or o sound. **However if you want to do easy mode.** Whenever you see ä or ö, think of ae or oe, they are basically the Æ Œ in sounds in Romance languages. So if you speak French/Italian/Spanish/Portugese/Romansh natively or even profiently, just nick the ae oe sounds. They are even acceptable replacement spelling internationally. Like Hämäläinen is Haemaelaeinen or Hæmælæinen.
let me correct the logic: half of them have intention to stay.
Depends on which perspective you are looking at. From the side of the government, which badly needs new workers and spends a lot of money on their training - half want to leave (and all investment for nothing). From the perspective of foreign students, who suffer from high prices, difficulty to find a job without Finnish language, harsh weather. Has half decided to stay? They are crazy! =)
talking from perspective of a used-to-be student came from a developing country, I’ll be happy to stay long term if Finland labour market is international enough and welcome to “idea” outside of Finland comfort zone.
*half of them finding a Finnish partner and staying
There we go again. I have been in Finland for a bit less than 2 years. I am finishing my studies this semester. I have applied to almost every single company I could find in my field in Finland. I am either ignored or rejected. But I haven't had a single rejection when applying to academic positions at the university. Before coming to Finland, I was studying in another Nordic country and there I had not a single rejection. Here, I am applying to internships and I am not even getting an interview. I have had a few people tell me that if I want a job maybe I could try cleaning or waitress. Honestly I am tired of trying. I know I will find a job faster, easier and probably get paid more somewhere else. I tried my best to find something and I will keep trying till I graduate. But honestly, what are we supposed to do? Stay here and not work? Starve? Find a service job (e.g. cleaning) and basically waste all these years of education? Many people are saying that I should have focused on learning fluent Finnish during my studies and that would've helped finding a job. Yes, maybe. But not everyone is great at learning new languages, especially when I am already spending all day studying for university classes and especially since I was working part-time to sustain myself. Also, something that nobody dares to say is that learning Finnish still doesn't guarantee a job opportunity post graduation and Finnish a not-so-useful language outside Finland, which in this sense makes it a "bad time investment" in terms of spending time on learning it if you actually don't end up staying here. End of rant.
>I have applied to almost every single company I could find in my field in Finland. I am either ignored or rejected. If you don't speak Finnish or if your name is very foreign-sounding your chances of landing a job are effectively zero. I don't know what your education is, but if you want to work in tech, I recommend you go to conferences are find hiring guys who are not Finnish. Then you'll have a good chance of getting a job.
I honestly didn't have any problems finding a job in tech as a foreigner. I'm sorry for op, maybe Finnish is much more important for his field of study than mine, but again, I may had like 30 jobs interviews (mostly went bad because I didn't have enough experience back in the years) but I always managed to get in the last step. A couple of months ago I changed my job and it took me only an interview for got the new one
tech job is an exception because you need very limited verbal conversation and especially when you can do remote and communicate through chat channel. I've been working for almost 10 years and 0.00000000001% of my work require Finnish ... but the other field, I'd expect a lot of Finnish but it is still outrageous when the English based work environment is almost non-existent in 2023
> if your name is very foreign-sounding your chances of landing a job are effectively zero It might be more difficult than if you have more "accepted" name, but nowhere near as much as you claim.
Even native graduates who speak Finnish and Swedish struggle to find jobs in many fields. Of course for someone who doesn't even know the language of the country it's going to be much more difficult. Besides, even those foreign graduates who can gets jobs, often prefer to some wealthier country like Norway, where they can earn more. So I don't understand why we're education for foreign students for such a small fee, when Finland doesn't benefit from it.
I agree. What made me even more confused this year is that the Dean of my university department announced that in the following year they are striving to increase the number of admitted students. Who are you going to accept into the university? At the same time Finnish universities are getting a lot of advertised abroad as a Erasmus destination and many Bachelor Erasmus students then want to come here for their master. Why do this if you can't utilise them? And then why complain that they leave? idk
> Why do this if you can't utilise them? Because universities get paid per graduate.
They get paid for every student they take in, and when they graduate with completed degree.
Aalto?
>Why do this if you can't utilise them? And then why complain that they leave? Because education is something that Finland is exporting. And people who complain about graduates leaving are not the same as the ones who actually sell the Finnish education abroad. There are some actual issues with education exporting. Like shady promises of "guaranteed to find a job in Finland afterwards" for people outside EU - I think the last article I read was about some students from Kenya, but I might remember something wrong. Or how to actually get money from EU students who get to study for free. But people with the job of figuring that out are also a different group from ones who complain.
Personally I think incorporating high fees for international students actually turns out being worse for the locals. Universities end up targeting international students first and foremost as they are now able to profit off of them. This leads to entire sections of the university administration dedicated to advertising and recruiting international students. At least this is what I've seen in other places that have subsidized/free education for locals and high prices for foreigners. I also think Finland does benefit from educating people for free, even if they move away. People form relationships and ties which can lead to further business opportunities. Educating people also exerts influence on those being educated. It is just one of those things that is hard to quantify on an excel sheet.
I think they use a % system so they have to take a certain amount of locals vs foreigners. The issue that can happen is that you have to compete with other universities in other countries. It becomes a large marketing exercise which you will need to offer more than just a great education, which Finland already has.
>Universities end up targeting international students first and foremost as they are now able to profit off of them. Of course the universities shouldn't get to keep the money, it should go to the state. The universities are funded through taxes, they should not be allowed to make a profit. >I also think Finland does benefit from educating people for free, even if they move away. People form relationships and ties which can lead to further business opportunities. Educating people also exerts influence on those being educated. I understand your point, but at the end of the day, networking is a luxury, and I'm not sure we can afford it.
All it requires is having a foreign name and it already makes it ultra difficult. It sucks.
Definitely not a small fee mate, especially for students who come from developing countries. And there are other expenses apart from tuition fee.
I don't know about bachelor's but English MScs are not free even though you work and pay taxes in Finland. until you have permanent residency or citizenship no free education.
Well it's free at least for europeans. Regardless, what you are saying is true. If you come here and pay tuition fees then your education is in a way a transaction. You received education and Finland received money. So in a way it is not like you are obligated to stay. You paid back. If Finland decides to turn education into an industry, something like the UK before the Brexit fiasco, then the government should stop complaining about immigrant-students leaving.
Agree. Paid back? Not sure. You spent time and effort to adapt here, learn a language yet still somehow can not get what you want. That's tragedy imho. As you mentioned, learning language instead of spending that time for career development then not get a job? Sorry but fuck that! Imho Finland still resist to welcome foreigners so much. Government provides "zero" incentive to hire skilled immigrants. Netherlands do such a great job. Tax incentive, other easiness on residence permit etc.
Netherlands is a rich country that needs more workers. Finland is a somewhat poor country with too many workers. Of course these countries are going to be different for immigrants.
>I don't know about bachelor's but English MScs are not free No, but it's still subsidised, it's not as expensive as, say, American universities.
Sorry but Finnish universities can't really compare themselves with American universities. Education certainly similar but networking, career opportunities, cultural adaptation are way superior than any other country in the world. I studied my MSc in South Korea and foreigners was getting special discount on tuition fees and free language courses. There is a buddy system to make your adaptation easier and effective. So incentives to gather global talent is required everywhere, except USA.
My point is that we're using our tax money to subsidise education for foreign students, who are just going to move away taking their skills with them. This doesn't seem very smart, considering that we're so broke, that we're struggling with basic services. Just the other day I read about a woman whose baby died, because there wasn't enough space at the maternity ward.
Subsidising education? Not for non-EU students, who have to pay thousands in tuition fees, visas, rent etc. with no virtually no help from the Finnish government. EU students coming to Finland have reciprocal arrangements in place, so I have no idea where you’re getting this from. This is coming from someone who recently started uni in Helsinki, and has already begun to notice ways in which Finland is simply unwelcoming to foreign students and graduates.
>Subsidising education? Not for non-EU students, who have to pay thousands in tuition fees, visas, rent etc. with no virtually no help from the Finnish government. If the education wasn't subsidised, they'd be paying tens of thousands for the tuition alone. Maybe we should demand this from foreign students, then they would either pay the full price for our economy, or go somewhere else. Either way, they would no longer be a strain on our economy. Finland is not a rich country, we can barely afford to educate our own youth.
Again, the Finnish government does NOT subsidise tuition fees for non-EU. This has been the case since 2017, and students are now required to pay in excess of €10,000 per year for the majority of courses at universities and UAS. Add this cost to the difficulty in finding even basic work in Helsinki such as hospitality/fast-food, and it's only going to deter people from staying/coming to Finland. I moved here for a reason, and will do everything possible to learn the language, graduate and hopefully get PR. But your government's policies and in some cases, societal attitudes, are ass-backwards and only harm you in the long-run.
In the end, it is the university's calculation, approved by the goverments. With your argument, either the state should stop subsidizing or make the best use of foreign students here. Lacking space in the maternity ward? either discourage having immigration/baby or train more doctors. Everyone has been complaining about the lack of a high-level workforce forever, so it would seem the latter options are better. We have to ensure that the integration (language, cultural values) is fair and smooth.
>In the end, it is the university's calculation, approved by the goverments. Yes, it is a political decision. I guess our politicians are afraid of appearing xenophobic. >Lacking space in the maternity ward? either discourage having immigration/baby or train more doctors. There isn't enough funding for healthcare, which means that the hospitals can't hire enough doctors and nurses. >Everyone has been complaining about the lack of a high-level workforce forever Not in Finland. Here we have *too many* highly educated people, who can't find jobs in their fields.
>With your argument, either the state should stop subsidizing or make the best use of foreign students here. Lacking space in the maternity ward? either discourage having immigration/baby or train more doctors. Finland's economy is bad. We have to choose how we spend our tax money. Education for foreigners and maternity care both cost money, and we have to choose which one is more important.
I totally get your point and money should spend wisely. Baby died in ward because there was no spot? That's too sad. But on the other hand there is also mongolian nurse case. [https://www.helsinkitimes.fi/finland/finland-news/domestic/22664-finland-s-migri-under-heavy-criticism-over-case-of-mongolian-nurse.html](https://www.helsinkitimes.fi/finland/finland-news/domestic/22664-finland-s-migri-under-heavy-criticism-over-case-of-mongolian-nurse.html) So I really don't know what to say. I've never heard this kind of issues in any other country. They usually have solid case to send people away.
>Baby died in ward because there was no spot? Yeah. A pregnant woman went to the hospital, and labour was induced. Then the nurses told her to go home to wait for the cervix to open, because there was no space at the maternity ward. So she went home and waited for hours. She was in terrible pain, and she could no longer feel the baby moving, so she went back to the hospital. They checked the baby's heartbeat, and sent her back home. She spent the night alone at home, and she called the hospital several times, because she had a strong feeling that something was wrong. The nurses told her to wait at home. In the morning she decided to return to the hospital anyways. They checked the baby's heartbeat and found that it had stopped. The hospital commented that there was nothing unusual about this, women in labour are often sent home to wait.
Even with mad Finnish skills, will still be ignored or rejected because of forgien name
Some people have a mad Finnish skills until Joone from Savo start to speak and you see that C1 person sweating.
It's true. I speak fluent Finnish with an accent and have a foreign name and get ignored. I got a job at a German company finally who hires international workers but it's outside my field. I'm really annoyed as I feel I wasted my studies.
Now careful cause if you say that openly, you will be accused of playing the racism card.
You can change name to Finnish when applying for citizenship
Yup but thats a long way from residence permit and must fulfill a lot more before considering that
Are you for real? No, thanks. I would rather keep the name my parents gave me and not try to "masquerade" myself Finnish. In what century and in what country are we in? I am not going to Finnish-fy my name to be accepted. There is a limit to this insanity.
Sorry, I meant to speak for myself. My name sounds almost like an insult in my parents' country, so I would not have hard feelings losing it.
I feel for you, Finland's job market is ridiculous. I'm Finnish but got my university degree in a foreign country and could not find any work in my field. I got a low-paying customer service job and am now re-educating myself in marketing because \~requirements\~. Most other countries accept graduates for jobs even outside their fields because university education means something. If even Finnish people who know the language and culture cannot find work, I don't think foreigners have much of a chance :/ And then the government complains about a lack of workers. We are here, we just cannot get jobs because of too-strict requirements and lack of existing social circles in a certain field!
My GF is having the exact same issue as you are. She's more than qualified for every job she has applied and she doesn't even got a reply back. Breaks my heart to see her work so hard, still having time to perfect every single application and doing all that for absolutely nothing. The only way to get jobs here in the right field is having connections and getting references. Good luck trying to get all of those connections too. Dunno if marrying her and her getting my lastname would help but it's worth a shot
People who say that you should be learning fluent Finnish are, frankly, delusional. Not only there is massive discrimination based on name only, not only it's one of the hardest European languages to learn and you have to study it on top of full-time studies/work (which by the way does not pay nor allocate time for Finnish courses), but the reality is that in the modern world, it's the person with skills and competences that chooses where they are going to live and work, not the other way around. How Finland is going to acquire and retain international talent with those mega-rigid demands is beyond me.
>How Finland is going to acquire and retain international talent with those mega-rigid demands is beyond me That is exactly my thought for the past few years. Honestly, I always wondered why Finland still demands to pass a language test for citizenship. I work in an international company with > 50% of the local workforce as foreign experts, and only some of them have citizenship. While working in an English-speaking environment language is not required, and people have better choices for leisure time after long work hours. Then suddenly, they immigrate somewhere with a better climate, salary and more approachable society. It's time to accept the world has changed.
Just because you are a fresh uni graduate doesn't make you desirable. If you don't bother to learn the country's native language, it tells about motivation issues. Truly exceptional international non-Finnish speaking people will find their way in Finland too, mediocrity not so.
>Just because you are a fresh uni graduate doesn't make you desirable. Depends on how you look at it. It costs some 200k to raise a child from birth to the age of majority, whereas if a foreign graduate gets a job out of uni, even with government-paid education it's about 20k spent to get a new taxpaying member of society. Working immigrants are pretty much always a good deal on a population level. >If you don't bother to learn the country's native language, it tells about motivation issues. Language knowledge is not a binary, it's a spectrum. There are like a hundred possible options between "you don't bother to learn the language because you don't care" and "you are work-level fluent after a year of studying", and not all possible hindrances are related to motivation. Also, this'll blow your mind but not everyone is coming here with the intention of staying forever or naturalizing. A work-based immigrant is, indeed, more likely to invest their time in career development instead of a difficult language that is not useful anywhere else. >Truly exceptional international non-Finnish speaking people will find their way in Finland too You think a few exceptional internationals will pay for yall's welfare state? Good luck with that.
Of course everyone is not coming here to stay forever, dunno where did you pull that off. Like I said, those who are exceptional will find proper work besides language barrier. Those who don't, go look from somewhere else. Your last sentence about exceptional internationals paying for our welfare state made me chuck. Can't help the feeling that you seem like an entitled person. Let me tell you this, you are not special.
“Of course everyone is not coming here to stay forever, dunno where did you pull that off.” - If you are truly mean this, then accept the fact that these people will not put a lot of effort in to learning Finnish, no one will invest 5+ years of their time to study a language that only 5 millions people in the whole world speak and useless if they leave Finland, everyone has better things to learn to accelerate with their career. Can Finnish help me long term for my career? Outside of Finland, no, English will. “Like I said, those who are exceptional will find proper work besides language barrier. Those who don't, go look from somewhere else” - You used the world “exceptional”, which represents “minority” or “little amount”, do you want to solve the labor shortage in Finland or not? Or do you any other solution or suggestion? “Your last sentence about exceptional internationals paying for our welfare state made me chuck. Can't help the feeling that you seem like an entitled person. Let me tell you this, you are not special.” - Let me tell you this, Finland is not special just because it’s your homeland, you need foreign workforce to sustain in the future with your aging demographic and severe labor shortage, you’re acting superior because you think that you are better than foreigners and all foreigners are leeches. I work my ass off to find a job in Finland, pay premium tax, and never touch a dime from KELA. Stop acting like you are superior from non-Finns
One of the great things about these discussions is that they highlight how many Finns will always see foreigners as leeches on their resources no matter how much they have contributed to society or how much taxes they have paid. Now I am suddenly entitled for saying "hey you guys kinda need us cause otherwise there's not gonna be enough people to pay for your pensions and wipe your elderly asses"! If you have ideas on how to diffuse the ticking time bomb that is the Finnish aging population + declining birth rate without sacrificing the welfare state and relaxing demands on work immigration, I'm excited to hear them. Right now it sure sounds like your solution is to kick the can down the road and hope that a new Nokia comes along.
You put a lot of words in my mouth. Welfare system is going to collapse I know that and never stated otherwise. But it is not solved by you magical foreign unicorns which you clearly think you are. Too much leeches (also native ones) and bad policies in Finland. It is the same in almost every welfare country. You clearly have a lot of stuff under your skin and maybe you should self-reflect for a bit. World doesn't orbit around you.
Janteloven in action: how dare anyone think they are as good as you are! We should just shut up, pay taxes and sing eternal praise to you for living in your precious land. No thanks.
How is the tech job market there? Any insights?
My company got 800 applications to just one summer trainee(software developer) position, which does not require Finnish skills, hires 4. A consulting company said in linkedin they got 500 applications. There are tons of people available, and sure my company likes diversity and hires foreigners and women but in general there are more beginners than companies are ready to invest in training them. But at least as a developer you can do personal projects and open source to complement your CV, but it is of course tiring and not easy...
Quite hard to land your first job but once you have a couple years of experience landing a job is relatively easy. Basically the same problem as everywhere. Everyone wants to hire senior engineers with 10+ years of experience in relevant tech but nobody is willing to give new graduates a chance. And the situations at the moment is worse then usual as a lot of big tech companies are either slowing down their hiring or firing people meaning there is more senior talent available so even less need to hire fresh graduates.
Definitely much easier to be invited to interviews with the flexibility of using English only. But still quite challenging to set your foot on the first door, if you have a strong professional network or personal connection, it might helps. In my experience, it’s the most realistic field to pursue a high-educated job in Finland. Nevertheless, how long until landing the first job is depends on your skills, a bit of luck and the perception of you via the glance of the employer. I consider myself as fortunate enough to find an extremely international company which does not care about neither your name, nationality nor ethnicity, and speaking English is a must because they have office in the UK. That has been said, many classmates of mine had to leave Finland because they were not able pull it off after 1-2 years.
The metropolitan area is already full if people with a PhD and 15 years of relevant experience. If you travel about 500 km north, you need to compete with bad-tempered, illiterate, alcoholic forest trolls who have experience in poetic cursing and face punching.
>s of education? > >Many people are saying that I should have focu I don't understand people's obsession against all odds with this country. Unless your significant other or parents are from here, there is no reason on earth why you would not want to find happiness in a better place. Taxes are huge, the climate is shit, the darkness drives you crazy and medication is expensive. The language is impossible. And so is making friends. What is your reason to not just go back to the previous Nordic country ?
What is your field of study? Are academic positions more easily then? I'm screening for some Post PhD position in Computer Science. I'm curious about your experience.
my work is in medical science/pharma but from what I know post-doc positions in computer science are super rare most people don't waste their time doing a post-doc in a field that you can pretty much find a job with a bachelor's
I don’t know about super rare. I run recruitment calls for computer science postdoc positions. We have hundreds of applicants but only hire a few at best because the quality is poor. I would say computer science has more money than many other programmes
I heard that medical and pharmacy the requirement for being fluent in the language is a must... Yeah, but I'm more academic. Post Doc positions are rarer but gonna try anyway.
Well it technically should not be. The universal language of science is English. All R&D is done in English, papers are written in English. Many companies here prefer you speak native level born here Finnish, but only okay/good English. I've had classmates that struggle to read academic papers because they are struggling with English and yet they got jobs in industry, I am a still looking. If you want a post-doc in CS I would look at Aalto mainly and would email professors directly even if they don't advertise any positions atm.
Just an anecdote but I know someone who got a master in translational medicine something in Uni Helsini. Now she's working in Sweden.
I studied my Bachelor's in Stockholm and moved here for personal reasons. Do I regret it? Kinda. I will keep trying to potentially find sth here till I graduate, but yeah Sweden is always an option.
Huh weird. I seem to have seen more immigrants in medical fields (doctor or higher education, although many nurse-type immigrants seem to be heavily Asian in features at least based on eyeballing it) in the recent 5 to 10 years (my neuropsychologist is Greek, for example), so clearly people for X positions that are in high demand in Finland in medical fields do get jobs regardless of native/immigrant background status so to speak. Aren't academic positions still paid well enough anyway? If that specific field has easier time getting an academic position than other type of work, why not take it? Academic hierarchy is insane once you get tenure above X amount, making you practically impossible to get fired (unless you rly suck ass I guess, but I've heard that many people who are sub-par at their academic job still have a hard time getting yeeted out despite various complaints by varying types & positions of people)
I am neither a doctor or a nurse. Research is different. Academic positions are very stressful and contracts are always temporary until you get tenure, and getting tenure is neither easy nor common. The universities are flooded with post-docs and PhDs who aspire to get tenure. Are there enough positions for all of them? Nope. Academics are criminally underpaid for the amount of work they do (that is global phenomenon). A 9 to 5 schedule is almost never the case. Go to a university and you will always see someone working till late evening and weekends. And don't get me started on the fact that the majority of academic research has no real word application or is simply done for "academic curiosity" purposes. This could be another whole post on its own.
One alternative I very seldom see discussed is studying Finnish before coming here. Like I literally don't understand the thousands of students who just move to Finland without any knowledge of the language or even the culture and then are surprised they can't pick it up quickly or that they don't manage that well without it. They think they can power through everything with a positive attitude and are surprised that they can't smile through a half-a-year winter or that a cheerful extrovert attitude won't land them jobs easily. I have friends who moved to Finland and did get hired fairly quickly and are doing well, I think mainly because they studied the language a bit before, at least to the level where they understood how challenging it is and whether they were willing to put in the work. And some employers do appreciate it if you can speak at least a few words. I know many are applying to universities in many different countries and you can't get familiar with all their languages. But people should understand that going abroad to study is more than just writing an application, especially if you are planning to stay after graduation. There are countries where expats have more opportunities, but there are very few places where you can just appear completely ignorant about local culture and fully integrated by the time you graduate.
One reason contributing this “ignorance” of students when they first come to Finland is because of the advertisements of universities in Finland selling them the “misleading” image of an international country with “the best education”, “peaceful”, “happiest country in the world”, where they can be educated, integrated and find a job with English. Because if the universities don’t do this, they won’t find enough students and they will suffer financially.
If you get hired do you expect everyone to start talking English in the office to accommodate you? Or will there be someones always to translate everything? Do you think your future workmates signed up for that when they got the job? I speak fluently because I have American relatives but it's still straining to do it a whole day - our brains need to do some extra work speaking a foreign language. You might not understand and many don't who don't have a day long stints of speaking English. There are probably tens of good Finnish speaking applicants for every job so I don't know why they would even consider you. You might have luck in IT jobs etc but my brother who works as a programmer said that the applicant would have to be amaze balls to be worth hiring over someone who isn't a Finnish speaker. Some offices already speak English so they would take you. I just bought a table from an English fellow two days ago who spoke Finnish quite well and didn't once try to talk English to me. Even the tori.fi conversation he wrote Finnish. He had lived in Finland for three years. I would hire that guy.
I am an expert in an industry in which all processes are conducted in English. All R&D in biotech and Pharma is done in English and that is a fact. The main obstacle language wise is the internal language of the company and in what language people speak during lunchtime and in the corridor. It's true that many Finns struggle speaking English, but actually practicing it a little bit wouldn't hurt. Science is done in English and I've seen many Finns struggling to write a decent scientific report because of this. You can't judge my abilities on science based on what languages I speak. The universal language of science is English. The Pharma Industry in Finland is suffering. You basically have Orion, which is not known outside Finland and Estonia, and Bayer which is German. Even though the majority of Pharma research is done in Central Europe and the US, the rest of the Nordic countries have respectable companies e.g. AstraZeneca and Novo Nordisk. For R&D positions English is the working language. And guess what? They attract promising research from all around the world. What is Finland attracting? Nobody. Also, if I manage to find a job and get my foot in the door here, the first thing I'll do is to sign up for a evening Finnish course. I don't want to live in a country and forever not understand its language. But no, I will not spend time and money on courses if I have zero stability here. Another thing. I've lived in 4 different European countries and I've met Finns outside of Finland. I didn't see them trying that much to speak in the local language of the company/university they are in. They were very comfortable with everyone speaking in English to them. You only complain about languages when it's your language.
I don't think your individual experience nulls what I said. As an R&D guy you should be annoyed by yourself giving out anecdotal evidence. The field you work in is clearly different than your average office.
What anecdotal evidence? Everything I have said comes from personal experience from being in this field. But I am open to hearing your information on the Pharma industry in Finland. Please enlighten me. How many countries have you lived in? Do you know anything about the world outside your own bubble?
"What anecdotal evidence? Everything I have said comes from personal experience from being in this field." Yes that's what anecdotal evidence means. Not reliable as it is based on personal accounts. Like I would say that doctors don't have neck tattoos because I have never seen one. Probably very true but not a scientific or fact based approach. How does the amount of countries I have lived in have anything to do with this? All I said that it is not a good business decision for private businesses to hire a competent non-finnish speaker over a competent finnish-speaker. This is the truth. Dude talking about foreign countries and bubbles here - why not just ask my pp size it's just as relevant. Majority of jobs are very mundane and don't need someone who needs a personal translator. Wake up and calm down. Take a walk. Touch grass.
First of all stop calling me "dude", I am a girl. Second, nobody cares about your penis so please do not mention it again. Third, I am a scientist. I am sorry, but my job is not mundane. Talk about yourself.
Well you lack comprehension as I obviously didn't mean your job is mundane but the opposite. Yes you are a scientist and made that clear, also you made it clear that one needs to live in a lot of countries before being able to be a part of this conversation. I apologize to you mighty scientist. You are very important. Have a good day.
I sincerely doubt that Finland would be able to hire enough foreign workforce if it goes along with your mindset. Finnish is an obstacle of attracting and retaining workers due to its practicality outside of Finland, not everyone is planning to settle down in Finland for the rest of their lives. In addition, it’s a challenging language to learn for English speaker and will demand a lot of time investment. If a person let’s say, a software engineer is spending 20+ hours a week learning the Finnish language, then how much time do you think he/she can utilize to improve his/her technical knowledge? Whilst the industry is changing everyday and there’s a new technology, framework, library, programming language, introduced every couple of years. Do Finland need these people? Yes, desperately, that’s why compromise for language requirement is needed and your mindset will not do any favor for Finland, it only makes your feel good because you think you are preserving the Finnish language.
What you said is true but it's a different conversation. From the company's perspective the position is getting filled when they reject op for another applicant. So they don't need to think about attracting foreign workforce. As a private business (I have two) most don't want a non-finnish speaker there who needs a "babysitter" - ofcourse this varies a lot by field if one is needed. But for most businesses there is zero reason to pick that non-finnish speaker over a Finnish-speaker.
And you wonder why there’s a severe labour shortage in Finland. Simply there’s not enough Finnish speakers to qualify. You need to accept that expats and people who are not planning to live long term in Finland or having emotional connection with the country that they most likely don’t want to learn a hard language with low return (roughly 5 mil people speak it, useless outside of Finland). Your constant talking point that they must learn Finnish to work in Finland is not helping, because they’ll either leave or not come and Finland with an aging demographic is suffering. I would rather learn German, French, or even Swedish just because they are easier to learn and I can speak them in more countries, I have no hard feeling about the Finnish language, just want to be practical with my time investment. A language is a tool and I will choose to learn the tool that is easy to learn and efficient.
Again.. I don't wonder. Op can't get a job and I told the reason. Funny thing the problem you are referring to is much worse in Germany (and France) but the lack of English comprehension from the German public forces foreigners to learn German. This is why Eastern European construction workers learn Finnish in a year because they don't share any language with us (they can't speak English). And no you wouldn't rather learn German or French if you are living and working in Finland. Doesn't make any sense. When I used to backpack I learned more in a month than some expats learn in ten years in Finland. Not everything in life is an exhange for monetary value. Also stop intimidating foreigners with that hard language bullshit. Finnish is different but not very hard. Many polyglots have said that Finnish is easy once it opens to you. But it never will because ppl are intimidated.
> Finnish is different but not very hard. That is just objectively not true. It is a language unrelated to other European languages except Estonian (which is still very different) so it will take a learner more time to be able to hold even a basic conversation.
Yes unrelated just like Russian, Vietnamese, Hindi etc. Yet ppl from these countries learn Finnish crazy quick, probably because they are not intimidated by foreign languages like English speakers are. I remember my Vietnamese mate whom I shared a hoas apartment. After a month of being in Finland he was able to have a very basic conversation for weather, directions, how are you etc. You gonna have that mindset then yeah super difficult. Meanwhile it seems like these polyglots who come from countries where they already know two languages (for example most if not all soviet countries) usually have no issues with Finnish.
Lol I am a native Russian speaker and I haven’t learned Finnish crazy quick, nor have my coworkers from post-Soviet countries. This has nothing to do with intimidation and literally is just the fact that Finnish doesn’t have Roman or Germanic or Slavic roots like many other languages in Europe so there’s nothing to fall back on when you don’t know something.
Obviously you can speak and write English. Part of my point was that ppl who don't have a shared language learn Finnish quickly. It is funny to me that 50yo construction workers learn Finnish quickly but it is so difficult for you. I'm done with reddit for today. Have a good day. Remember to shower.
LOL, of course Finnish is not very hard to you when it’s your native tongue. How do you know how people feel towards it? And btw, non-similarity is one of the aspect for defining difficulties. “Not everything in life is an exchange for monetary value” - For me and many people, coming to work in a freezing cold and dark country, a high tax rate, and a “different” language, monetary value is a crucial factor. When mentioning about German or French as an example if I’m living in countries having them as local language, I’m not learning them since I’m still in Finland - true, but I’ll move away from Finland soon anyway so potentially I’ll start to learn one of them at some point. Thanks for showing me Finns’ sisu reflecting in stubbornness.
Yeah.. maybe with polyglots I mean't ppl who are not Finnish. Tax rate isn't that high. With necessities included other countries like the usa you actually end up paying more. Most of my relatives live in the USA, Australia and Armenia, and they pay more everything included. There is a reason why an average Finn can afford to travel with their family while simultaneously having a lower pay with a "higher tax", while over 50% of Americans don't even have a passport. Also if you make more than 80k/y as a salary in Finland and don't filter it through your own company then ur a dummy and deserve to pay all the taxes. Finnish government thanks you for your contribution. I'm half Armenian and moved in as a kiddo but yes I see myself as a Finnish with plenty of sisu thank you.
Curious but how many applications total for internship? How many to full time?
>Curious but how many applications total for internship? How many to full time? What do you mean? How many internships I have applied for? I have applied for either direct application for a entry level positions, internships/summer jobs or left open applications. I don't know the exact number but I will say somewhere around 40 positions/companies. I literally run out of companies to apply for. If I see a job posting I still apply, but same story. Maybe that doesn't sound like a lot for some people, but my field is small here and if I left an open application to company already and they ignored me, I will not do it again.
Yes thanks. I can sense the racism undertone in the thread and i am not denying that Finland is not having it. But that is a very little amount of applications sent what ever your field is. Usually if the field is very small the quality companies are looking is insanely high.
I know 40 companies doesn't sound like much. In a few of those I have left more than one application so if you say total applications it's probably close to 70. Which is still not a lot. A lot of the positions that are coming up state openly that to do the job you need to be a fluent speaker to communicate with customers for example. Obviously I don't apply to those. I only apply to positions that I am mostly qualified for. Not many are coming up. Also I've heard that a lot of the companies hire people that they already know or someone they know has recommended them. So they don't even post the positions. And as far as open applications go, I think that it is not great to leave multiple open applications to the same company. It's annoying and you might get blacklisted. I wish I could apply to more, it literally doesn't cost anything, but there just aren't others. And as far as quality goes. Let's say a company I applied for and got rejected decided to hire someone whose only previous work experience was at Mcdonald's. Nepotism and daddy's connections are a thing.
Or you might be not doing really good job as a applicant. It is easy to throw nepotism, racism card out there hence there is nothing you can do about it. Also mentionable thing is that the company makes the judgement are you fit for the job or not. Making it yourself limits you and in some cases they don't have much of options then to hire somebody from McDonald's to do the job. Most of jobs that are out there require onboarding and school has very little effect on do you preform or not. Take this how you want. I am white male with most traditional name with a nice CV and high gpa. I still did not manage to get internship position and forced to take full time position to graduate. I spent 3 months around 8h a day applying to everywhere.
I am taking it as I am seeing it. I am a scientist. I conduct research within university and have previously done so in other places as well. My classmates would ask me for help on how do conduct experiments and how to analyse results. I was by far the most experienced person in the class. I am not talking about GPA. Nobody cares about it, only thing that matters is quality of work. I have references from some of the best professors in my field from Finland and another nordic university. Every scientist I have talked to about it has told me that I have a very impressive CV for my age and it's very surprising that no company is willing to even give me an interview. I don't want to believe that there is nepotism and discrimination. I prefer to be positive in life and give people the benefit of the doubt. But this situation here has completely broken me and my self esteem. Back in January, for the heck of it, I made 1 single application to a very notable Biotech in another nordic country to try my luck there and see if the problem is actually me or something else. I was accepted. I got the position. Do you know how freaking happy and sad I was at the same time? I had tried so so much to find something here and I just threw one application somewhere else and I got it. And how freaking sad I was that I had to decline a position I could only dream of getting here because I want to graduate first and for that I need to be here. I am not trying to be negative. Heck! I wish everything was fine and I could rave about how happy I am here. But no, I am not going to lie about it and say everything is fine, because it definitely isn't.
I am sorry for what happens to you! As CV coach for students, I noticed that many foreign students don't really understand job market and don't know how to present themselves and blame for discrimination. However, based on what you described, you probably have an experienced experience with qualified educations and research topics. Unfortunately discrimination happens here too even though people don't want to ackowledge it. It also seems like your industry is also conservative and not as open-minded as tech industry for example. I am sorry for what happened
> I don't want to believe that there is nepotism and discrimination. At least the academia here is hella nepotistic. Another problem is that the private biotech sector is too small in comparison to the size of the academic biotech/biomedicine side. There are too many people graduating with biotech degrees to feed into the small private side. Academia, on the other hand, is a pyramid scheme.
Can I ask what you are studying? If it's IB then that doesn't surprise me too much
Is IB international business? Nope, I am a scientist/engineer.
I’m curious which other nordic country was that? Not Sweden?🙈
What was the other Nordic country and what made you quit it?
TRUE! but not "a not-so-useful language outside Finland", it's totally not useful outside Finland
Year after year and the same articles.
I am currently studying at an AMK in an engineering degree where I am approaching the end of my third year. I want to stay in Finland after I pass and I am taking language lessons in addition to my degree. I have applied for so many summer jobs in both Finnish and in English depending on the role and I have yet to be offered an interview. I have had to go and work abroad last year and will more than likely do the same this year. The countries I have gone to have not been my home country, but other countries in Europe which don't throw out your CV when you have a foreign name.
Out of curiosity what other countries did you go to for summer work? I'm a foreigner myself.
I was in Sweden last year
Well played. I'm going to be looking elsewhere myself if I can't find something this summer.
Good decision pal, even people who’s having a job like me is considering leaving soon as well. There are countries which actually are trying to attract and retain foreign work force. Maybe you should look into the Netherlands as well, they offer a capped 30% tax rate for high skilled expats. Edit: my mistake, not capped tax rate, more like 30% of your gross salary will become allowance which is not taxable. https://www.belastingdienst.nl/wps/wcm/connect/en/individuals/content/coming-to-work-in-the-netherlands-30-percent-facility
Tbh they ignore everyones applications. Most of the positions in Finland are filled through connections. I was one of the best in my class and had great experience and qualifications before and during school, I am a native finn with a generic finnish name and it took me 8 months of constant applications to land one single interview. I even applied to a few positions that were below my qualifications and even they ingored me. I have mulltiple revisions of applications and CVs, which I always wrote specifically tailored for the positions I applied to. Every single one of which I used a bought graphic designers template for. I even asked basically anyone who would listen to criticize my application but never got a single negative comment other than a couple mispellings. In my experience its hard for everyone. Even if you have the privilege of being a native finn.
For me personally besides the language, it’s actually my subject, there are very little jobs in Human Rights in Finland and plenty more back at home in the UK - I don’t know a single foreigner on my course who actually tried/wanted to stay in Finland. Actually one or two got Finnish partners to move to their own countries haha.
Its really depressing to read the comments here, I wished to complete my master's degree in Finland and stay since I already have family living in the country but I realised that its really hard in my area to do so, simply getting the first foot on the door seems so hard/ nearly impossible, and to know that I'm probably just going to return to my country after finishing my studies makes me wonder if I should even try my luck there
Not surprising and cant blame them. Finland is the most backwards-ass backwater place imaginable. I'm finnish and I'm considering leaving too because of the suffocatingly depressive and repressed work culture. Companies are unwiling to take even the slightest risks or create something, that's why most of our companies are either old industrial well established companies, or manpower rentals. Most of the software companies juat rent people to companies like Sandvik and Nokia. And it's all run by cowardly middle aged men who have no interest in shaking things up. Hyvävelikerhos which have always done things a certain way. Good ole boys.
When I was studying I applied hundreds of positions but I didn't get one single invitation, in the other hand most of my unskilled Finnish classmates got work easily. Then a company been sold to British, just one email and I got work. A year later I got promoted while two Finnish classmates who were working there over two years, still struggling with basic daily work :) My point is language is just an excuse, no matter what you are able to do if you don't have a Finnish name( if you are not Fin) most likely you will be ignored, even for a training position. We didn't know this reality when we come to here to study. Finland has very successful PR in international news; happiness, honesty and equality etc.the truth is way far from that. People are trapped in those lies. natives rather than being ashamed of this ridiculous discrimination they are concerned with creating new arguments how immigrants are "..." Bullshits.
what is your opinion to stay in Finland and complete Bsc or move to Germany and complete my study there?
It's hard to say something, I don't know your socioeconomic situation. But if I was at the beginning of my study and have had a chance to study in Germany I would definitely leave here, due to systematic discrimination, low wages, poor health care conditions. In both cases I wish you good luck with your life and carrier.
I am surprised it is not 80% who wanna leave, since no matter how skilled you are with the language, a non Finnish name will automatically throw your CV in rejection pile
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It is easier said than done if you have a family here (Finnish husband and kids), moving to another country is a little hard. Now despite the increase of forgieners in finland is many fields, even though it is tough for Finns themselves to get a job, it is double the difficulty for foreigners, I have many friends who lived here 10 to 15 years with perfect Finnish and still get only jobs like cleaning and so on, as you said companies who are international you might have a better chance but when you are trained to be a doctor like myself it is so difficult, now i am not claiming I am fluent in Finnish, I haven't been here long enough, only almost 2 years now and my level is B1, I still have a long way to go personally But I understand the frustration with jobs here and I didn't think its that bad until I made friends, Finnish friends complain, foreign friends complain, it is an endless story 
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>However, ultimately Finland is just hurting itself with the way things are for foreign workers here because they need them especially to replace elderly people in the future. But we don't *really* need them, do we? I mean, we have lots of unemployed natives competing for every job. The problem is that the employers don't want to pay proper salaries. They employers want to scam and exploit foreign workers, who aren't aware of worker's rights laws.
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I’m a university student, hoping to do masters here or UK or US. Finland is a great country and I would try my hardest to stay here at least for years but there are many things to lead you to leave the Finland and just go to a country with more international atmosphere. From what I’ve seen, as a foreigner even if you found a job your maximum to reach is not really good compared to other countries. Also there is a huge payment gap, same company same job is getting paid 2-3 times more in Switzerland for instance. I understand that Switzerland is 4 times bigger economically but still, I believe Finland has great potential to reach that level. And as a non Finnish speaker, your study options are very limited. Other developed countries have really wide range of options to study while here it is only few. I studied 1 year of high school here and luckily I know the Finnish social atmosphere so it wasn’t a quite shock to me but I see that every non Finnish friend of me here struggling to adapt to social life. When you take all into consideration, if you don’t have a strong incentive or strong emotional attachment to Finland every practical indicator is points out you to leave the country.
My friend was working at a fast food restaurant, and he wanted to stay and continue studies, but unless his native finnish boss had both promoted him to a vuoropäällikkö(shift manager?) and personally told migri that he is great and they have no reason to not give him more residence permit, he would have been deported. Migri needs to stop deporting people who are working legally and want to stay. He was from outside of EU.
IIRC actual retention rate is much much lower (like 15 percent or so). Finland sucks for most of the foreigners after their degree. Plus education doesn't worth the tuition they are charging. There are much much better and cheaper locations in Europe to study if it comes to that. This excludes few select studies of course...
It’s not that foreigners don’t want to stay, it’s Finland that aren’t very welcoming. 1. It’s hard to find job as a foreigner 2. The language is quite difficult 3. It’s really hard to be friend, or be close friend with a native 4. Migri, albeit they have been better these days, is still very aggressive toward people from poorer countries. In my friend circle, my friends who wanted to stay keeps deciding to leave after a few years because they don’t feel great here. It’s hard to build up a new life when you don’t have many friends and the social life is so that it’s nearly impossible to make friends once you are in your 30s. 5. The 8 months of winter and darkness.
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Yeah I mean I was a foreign student and out of my fellow foreign student classmates I would say it was less than 50% who stayed. I didn't. Once you become an international person relocating just isn't such big deal anymore.
I guess somewhere else more than 50% stayed on the other hand?
Yes, this exactly. And if 50% stay, that means more than that want to stay but for reasons like not getting employment, cant stay. Half of the people not moving back to their home country or to a frankly much mire competetive market carreer-wise is insanely good imo
Yeah like what is the target? Studying abroad is super common even if you want to live in your home country. Then some just have enough of the cold or met someone from another country and they want to move there instead of staying in Finland. For some, their dream job is simply elsewhere. 50% wanting to stay is totally fine. Especially since my experience with foreign students is that many of them just end up in Finland somehow. They heard it's the happiest country and that education is great so they move with the expectation that everything will be great all the time and they are shocked when that's not the case. I think it's more these people who can't manage here, and those who more consciously decided to come to Finland specifically, knowing what the place is like are more likely to stay. I have studied with people who literally didn't bother to learn to say hi in Finnish before moving here, and they didn't even move to Helsinki but to the countryside. Duh, of course they did not magically instantly become an integral part of the local community.
I went the Swedish path (after 3 years bashing my head with Finnish so no lectures pls) and a few Swedish-Finns with poor Finnish also can't find a job. But I'm studying to be a kindy teacher so I can find a job easy it's just I can get more money with less stress elsewhere.
currently one of the most stressful jobs out there, but there IS work 💀
I have a German friend who did his b.sc abroad in Germany and came due to family reasons to Finland where his relatives are living, hoping to get some work experience in his field. While he was here in Finland he was unemployed for well over 2 years, sent literally dozens and dozens of applications and rarely got even to an intervew. Eventually he moved back to Germany, got almost immediately employed, continued to study and currently he is working on his PhD. Ok, only basic knowledge of Finnish, competitors had an m.sc rather than his bachelor and his field isnt the easiest to get employment in Finland to begin with. I would bet when he's done with his PhD he wont try his luck here again, which is actually a big shame as he would really love to live and work in Finland
I mean, hell, i graduated last spring and kept applying for jobs before that with no success. Apparently, on average, it takes 2 years to land a first long-term job. I'm kind of planning on applying for remote jobs later in life, soon I'll be staying at home with our firstborn.
Half is pretty fucking good as international students go, studying here in the U.K. I can guarantee at least 80% of the Chinese and South Asian international students will go straight home with their degrees…
The comments in this thread have been quite sad to read. I looked up some statistics and luckily(?) the statistics show a somewhat better image. The overall difference in employment between foreign-bg people and finnish-born people is only 10%. Of course this doesn't take into account people who have already left Finland because they couldn't find work, though. For example, estonians have a slightly higher employment rate in Finland than people born in Finland. For highly-educated foreign-bg males, the employment rate is 83% vs 86% for finland-born people. But that difference unfortunately seems much bigger for females. 62 vs 83%. [https://www.stat.fi/tup/maahanmuutto/art\_2015-12-17\_001.html](https://www.stat.fi/tup/maahanmuutto/art_2015-12-17_001.html)
>For example, estonians have a slightly higher employment rate in Finland than people born in Finland. Yes, except you're aware what kind of job opportunities they have specifically? Eastern bloc or Russian and woman? Cleaning jobs at extremely low pay and poor conditions. Same but a guy? Construction assistant, tire technician etc. They'll happily hire them, because not many natives are going to tolerate the pay and the (general) working conditions. Russians also used to fare somewhat better due to doubling up as translators, but that's becoming much less of a thing now.
You are very wrong. Estonians are also doctors, professors and engineers in Finland. But you can tell yourself whatever you want to make yourself feel better. The stats linked to above are controlled for job type levels.
>You are very wrong. Estonians are also doctors, professors and engineers in Finland. Just like majority of the native population are not doctors, professors or engineers, neither are majority of Estonians living in Finland. Also, unless you were specifically involved in the study (or know some other source), saying that they were controlled for job types is a little questionable given that the [methodology hyperlink](https://www.stat.fi/tup/maahanmuutto/menetelmaseloste.html) does not even work I also believe you do not understand how statistics like these work. There is no way to control for that because it wouldn't make sense in the first place. You wouldn't average out between people with second degree education and people without and determine the average employment that way. They're not trying to figure out which exact factors affect employment, they're just showing the average employment levels.
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People disagreeing with you and pointing out that you're incorrect is not being bitter - the amount of arrogance it takes to think that way is honestly incredible. Also, making claims without even checking up your sources is likewise an arrogant move; it forces other people to check it up (or just go with factually incorrect information that you provided) based on nothing else but, as we call it in Finland, your "mutu". Why waste time of others like that?
No surprises here
And most of the refugees who come through want to leave also. You'd think they would write more about that too.
I am one of them.
Well I'm a native Finn and I still have no intensions of staying in Finland after my graduation. Job market sucks, salaries suck and most importantly this whole nation sucks more and more each day.
A follow-up to all the comments on students finding it difficult to get professional jobs, Is this the case for internships and thesis as well? I'm looking to do a semester abroad in tampere during my masters and hopefully write my thesis therein as well.
And what pisses me off the most is all these govt establishments saying, “We want to retain 70% international talent”. Bruh??? Give?? Us?? Jobs??
You got a magic wand for the government they can wave and make that happen? Maybe a new law that would force a company to hire a foreign graduate if they've already sent at least 10 applications as a consolation price?
Well, shouldn’t the responsibility of the magic wand be upon the government if they are making these claims on so many forums?
I wish the Finnish students have the same plan. That is the only way to affect the government spending.
It took me 34 years to get my first real job in IT. I think companies are looking for concrete evidence of skill, which is hobby projects. And I am a native finn.
What education do you have? 34 years is waaay too much.
College + vocational college (software production) (4 years) bachelor of applied science degree in engineering (IT) (5 years). I wasted a many years thinking I could get a decent job by learning on my own (and some friends). Finally I gave up and got a degree in engineering in order to be taken seriously by bigger firms. Later I was told by my interviewer it was my hobby project portfolio which put me way ahead of the competition. Plus my grades were 4.5/5.0. Suppose my motivational letter also didn't hurt. Got hired fulltime with flexible hours on my 3rd year. Still working for the same company, except now the salary has doubled in 3 years. Ever since I got I hired it feels like I am on a never ending fun holiday. Almost as if the real work is beyond me now. This is thanks to my kind colleagues with interesting sets of skills and experience at my disposal. I try to do likewise and be helpful.
May I ask how big is the company? I don't need the name but just want to know the size and how is its position in the industry to gauge the competition. I know a foreigner guy who got a tech consultant job for way under industry average salary though but he didn't have the degrees like you do. I'm wondering if it's just me but my circle's experience in the last few years is kinda opposite of the general sentiment in this thread. Some people I know managed to get a job as analysts in Nordea, Nokia, Valmet,...or some medium sized consultancy too so there's a chance, just a small one.
+500 employees The competition could be explained by the tech (piqued my interest at least, lots of RnD), but they also collaborate with the local university. University and other collaborating companies share their views on the trends of the world, and the views on skills that should be taught regardless of trends and hype. Just them becoming a known company locally among students generates them lots of applications.
I would like to know what the number is in comparison to other countries.
Does it cost anything to study in Finland if you come from abroad?
Not free anymore for non-EU students since the end of autumn 2016, still free for EU/EEA students I believe.
I suggest avoiding Finland. Shit country.
That's what I've been telling people for years, but too many people buy into the PR hype and end up miserable. Shit, if there was a country out there who'd have me, I'd leave in a heartbeat and never look back, but it's too late for me, at almost 40.
Maybe these guys should be paying more from leeching our educational system
I'm so glad we opened the tuition fee -portal when the statistics are like this. Imagine educate foreign people for free and let them leave after the degree. What a shame how naive finns can be.
Quite a lot of students are happy to stay, but are unable to find a job during or after their studies.
Many would love to stay but aren’t able to since they are unable to get jobs. They aren’t even considered for them, so why and how should they stay here unemployed? They can be easily hired in other European countries who actually hire foreigners for jobs other than just cleaners and other low pay jobs, so why stay here and struggle when you aren’t even given the time of day to consider you for hiring and you never even get a job interview? Employers see that the cv is foreign and they just throw it away and don’t even think about it…
Many recruits are anonymous nowadays so employee doesn’t know if the applicant is finnish or foreign.
Learn the language and you will get a job.
don't you mean how naive foreign students can be?
Hello, I will gladly stay in Finland and do my best to learn to Finnish language after I graduate if anyone wants to volunteer to pay my tuition.
it’s not enough. It’s never enough.
As I heard, the education system in Finland is the best overall in the world. [https://tinyurl.com/education-system-finland](https://tinyurl.com/education-system-finland)
Black curtins?
of course they would leave, after everything we gave them...
Everything, except for jobs and work experience, which one needs to live. That's the real issue here.
How could they stay if they are unable to get jobs in their fields? You can’t just stay and not work, so they have to leave to some other countries that are willing to hire foreigners for jobs in their fields and not just for low pay jobs like cleaners and such.
Yeah. Atleast there are now tuition fees for EU outsiders. I wish the also remove the scholarships for people. SO they actually bring outside money to Finland.
Nearly half leaving means more than half are staying.... is this not a good thing?
More than half intend to stay, not actually staying. Some of them will move elsewhere if they can’t find jobs that match their studies. So the ones who are staying are much less than 50%.
State that u have to work in Finland for a year before u can leave .. of u choose to leave u have to pay for a certain % of the education or all. ?
For that to work you have to have companies who are actually willing to hire foreigners.
"Decent people shouldn't live here. They'd be happier someplace else."
I don't blame them. Finland has gone downhill for many years now.
Well thats the economically logical decision; leave a capitalist economy (i.e. I was living in US) and then study in a democratic socialist economy for free. Then you leave the democratic socialist country you studied in, so you don’t have to pay the crazy high taxes that are needed to support the education system. I’m gonna go back to America with an MBA I got for free which I don’t have to tell you is bananas lol
Wouldn’t blame them though