Living in Finland as a foreigner

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Piet
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Re: Living in Finland as a foreigner

Post by Piet » Sun Aug 30, 2015 8:28 pm

Upphew wrote:
Piet wrote:
Upphew wrote: What discrimination? One candidate is "known goods" as someone you know knows him. Same with education. How the one hiring could know every university? Should they know that 10% bachelor studies are labeled "Developing Biblical Faith and Lifestyle"? If Finns knew everything that wouldn't be a problem...
I guess you miss the point here: The point is the hidden discrimination on the Job market and the "suhteet" phenomenon, preventing a fair chance for foreigner workers and most important: the Finnish denying that it exists..
You just admitted too, that it exists, you even advocate the reason why... you don't need to, we all know the reasons why...Finnish employers should just be honest about it. Don't blame the foreigner worker for it, he tries his best to get the job.. no self respecting soul would want to be jobless...and they have the right to complain about the unfairness of the system just because it is a fact...(it might even help in some occasions to complain about it). Most immigrants also try to really learn the (some say) second hardest language in the world, the grammar is like mathematics which would be ok if there were not so much exceptions :x and for that matter, ever tried to get a Finn explain when and how to use the "translatiivi" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Translative_case most won't know.
I'm not saying it doesn't exist. I'm saying that it is normal, universal thing. And not limited to Finland any way. Ever heard about linkedin? Effing business centered around the "suhteet" thing.
Exactly my point, you think it is normal.. (You must be either a very well "assimilated" immigrant or a Fin) the "suhteet" thing is all but Linkedin, Linkedin is (suppost to be) about a professional network more like the references on your CV, nothing like a "suhteet" (f.e. the brother of the boyfriend of the sister of your future boss.... or something similar, edit: more like Facebook :wink: ). It is NOT normal.. this way you do not choose the right (best) person for the job because you limit your choice to 1 candidate hence the rest are discarded by default. "Et sic factum est"

Oh I found another gem about Finnish culture in the Finnish newspaper: http://www.hs.fi/blogi/narrienlaiva/a1305944213082 You got to read it as you pronounce Finnish....F.e: Män först tink öpaut = man first think about... hilarious and soo true..(is my experience :wink: )


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Re: Living in Finland as a foreigner

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Upphew
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Re: Living in Finland as a foreigner

Post by Upphew » Sun Aug 30, 2015 9:21 pm

Piet wrote:Exactly my point, you think it is normal.. (You must be either a very well "assimilated" immigrant or a Fin) the "suhteet" thing is all but Linkedin, Linkedin is (suppost to be) about a professional network more like the references on your CV, nothing like a "suhteet" (f.e. the brother of the boyfriend of the sister of your future boss.... or something similar, edit: more like Facebook :wink: ). It is NOT normal.. this way you do not choose the right (best) person for the job because you limit your choice to 1 candidate hence the rest are discarded by default. "Et sic factum est"
Of course knowing someone from their birth or since 3rd grade is something else than Linkedin. It is way better!
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FinnGuyHelsinki
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Re: Living in Finland as a foreigner

Post by FinnGuyHelsinki » Mon Aug 31, 2015 7:32 am

Piet wrote:I guess you just made my point here:
I was talking about professional qualifications and how an employer sees potential candidates. Considering the job market as a whole, family ties etc. rarely play a part. If you have someone vouching for you (i.e. your professional capabilities) as a candidate for a job, e.g. an existing employee in the same company or someone that the hiring manager knows professionally, clearly that is one more assurance for the employer that hiring you would be a good thing. Can you name one country in which that wouldn't be considered a plus?

You're making broad assumptions and generalizations based on your personal experience. You're pretty much implying that hiring managers in Finland generally are incompetent and unprofessional. When you're running a business, you will want to have the best people working for you - including the ones that are hiring people, anything else just wouldn't make sense.

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Piet
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Re: Living in Finland as a foreigner

Post by Piet » Mon Aug 31, 2015 1:48 pm

FinnGuyHelsinki wrote:
Piet wrote:I guess you just made my point here:
I was talking about professional qualifications and how an employer sees potential candidates. Considering the job market as a whole, family ties etc. rarely play a part. If you have someone vouching for you (i.e. your professional capabilities) as a candidate for a job, e.g. an existing employee in the same company or someone that the hiring manager knows professionally, clearly that is one more assurance for the employer that hiring you would be a good thing. Can you name one country in which that wouldn't be considered a plus?

You're making broad assumptions and generalizations based on your personal experience. You're pretty much implying that hiring managers in Finland generally are incompetent and unprofessional. When you're running a business, you will want to have the best people working for you - including the ones that are hiring people, anything else just wouldn't make sense.
Woehahaa, indeed.. and did you know that my assumptions are not just assumptions... did you follow the news (on Yle or HS f.e.) lately in and about Finland.... did you notice that compared to f.e. Germany and Netherlands or Canada for that matter, Finland is not doing so well....
Did you notice what happened to Nokia... STX, .. Talvivaara...(just to name a few well known companies) I would like to suggest that the incompetency of Managers in general is not limited to Hiring managers.. :lol:
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Oho
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Re: Living in Finland as a foreigner

Post by Oho » Mon Aug 31, 2015 2:03 pm

Piet wrote: Did you notice what happened to Nokia... STX, .. Talvivaara...(just to name a few well known companies) I would like to suggest that the incompetency of Managers in general is not limited to Hiring managers.. :lol:
Funny that, Nokia was doing just dandy as long as it was more or less a pure engineering company ran by Finns, but its fortunes plummeted pretty much as soon it recruited foreign career executives in place of the Finns who either left or were squeezed out....

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Piet
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Re: Living in Finland as a foreigner

Post by Piet » Mon Aug 31, 2015 10:35 pm

Oho wrote:
Piet wrote: Did you notice what happened to Nokia... STX, .. Talvivaara...(just to name a few well known companies) I would like to suggest that the incompetency of Managers in general is not limited to Hiring managers.. :lol:


Funny that, Nokia was doing just dandy as long as it was more or less a pure engineering company ran by Finns, but its fortunes plummeted pretty much as soon it recruited foreign career executives in place of the Finns who either left or were squeezed out....
Ok little off topic again but:

Exactly who hired these first foreigner career executives? right...Finns, I rest my case (ps and the damage was already long done before they hired Elop so...nice try but "fail").
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Upphew
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Re: Living in Finland as a foreigner

Post by Upphew » Mon Aug 31, 2015 11:23 pm

Next you tell us that Blackberry tanked also because of Finns. And Kone makes money because they have hired foreigners to lead the company.
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FinnGuyHelsinki
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Re: Living in Finland as a foreigner

Post by FinnGuyHelsinki » Tue Sep 01, 2015 6:57 am

Piet wrote:Ok little off topic again but:

Exactly who hired these first foreigner career executives? right...Finns, I rest my case (ps and the damage was already long done before they hired Elop so...nice try but "fail").
So, in short you're just pissed because you yourself have had problems getting hired, and now are trying to "prove" that it has all to do with everything else except you. I personally know a lot of people, Finns and non-Finns alike, that are doing great in their jobs, were originally hired and have retained their jobs throughout lay-offs - or found new ones almost instantly - because they are good at what they do.

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Re: Living in Finland as a foreigner

Post by Oho » Tue Sep 01, 2015 8:45 am

Piet wrote: Exactly who hired these first foreigner career executives? right...Finns, I rest my case..
Elop was not the first one and not even primarily responsible, they were effectively hired by the major stock holders which at the time were American insurance companies and such, Less than a third of Nokia stock was held by Finns and even less actual say as the stock was and is to scattered too be effectively used.

Quite frankly I think your understanding of Finland and Finns, and actually pretty much everything else, is shallow as hell, you are just too bloody pretentious to see it.

Your problem, it seems, is not that you are a foreigner, but rather that you seem like a total knob.

For what its worth I am not overly fond of Finland, truth be told I'd get my ass in gear and left the country in a New York minute providing I had any worth while education, spoke any languages other than Finnish and could claim to have any marketable worth while skills, but alas I do not thus my options in reality are pretty much limited to Finland above or beneath the turf.

Marsh04
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Re: Living in Finland as a foreigner

Post by Marsh04 » Tue Sep 01, 2015 11:30 am

It's not as black and white as everybody is trying to make it . It's a fact that Finland is a country where in most of the cases a Finn with a 40% ability would be hired over a foreigner with a 60% ability in even those cases where language is not going to be very important . In this way a lot of talent is lost. I personally know some example where a highly qualified person at last needed to take a job in another European country after staying unemployed for 2/3 years here . And that unemployed was not merely because of bad job market but also because they were foreigners. Suhteet as called previously in this thread are also another issue where improvement is needed. Yes there are a lot of jobs where it's more valuable to know a person and also his language abilities but there are also a lot of jobs where skills or other qualities are more important. So yes, Finland lags behind many other euroEuropean countries in fully utilising the potentials of foreigners living here. Many people are hired as well but mostly at a level which is below their abilities. It's not enough to see people hired but it is important to see if their potentials are fully utilised. And that is where the main problem lies.

rupun
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Re: Living in Finland as a foreigner

Post by rupun » Tue Sep 01, 2015 12:58 pm

Some posts have been very vocal about Muslims, their treatment of women, etc. in some of the former posts. Before somebody assumes things, let me clarify: I am an Orthodox Christian, and EU national. Now, Biblically, fornication, drunkenness, adultery, idolatry, selfishness, greed, and even divorce etc. to name a few are sins, and so we believe.

However, if one were to take the large “notion” of the western society, which typically is understood and characterised as being “Christian”, that would give the impression to those in other cultures of Christianity being representative and accepting of fornication, drunkenness, adultery, idolatry, divorce and the list is endless.

That, in my opinion, and to me sounds plain silly.

Having lived globally, and also having interacted with Muslim families, even in the UAE, my opinion is just the opposite: They are loving, caring and protective of their families, including wives and daughters. In some families, even as late of 2010 when I visited, my friend, in his early 50s bows down to his mother, and hugs her as young child would, protective and loving of his wife, and a one-woman man. Having got to know them, they were betrothed at a young age. The wife happens to be a good friend to my wife, and she seems and is really happy.

Couple of other, solely, personal observations and opinions:
Most "racism" in Finland is non-violent and silent.
That is equally disgusting!
foreigners (mostly arabs, turks, etc) are responsible for a lot of rapes
I don’t believe that. Media has a role to play here. I hope the use of “lots” does NOT imply majority. As sick as the crime is, if an assumed exaggerated 20% rapes were committed by foreigners, who commits the other 80%? Or is that allowed and/or not to be counted?

Mentioning a specific group, Somalis etc. That is real sad. Do you mean that a person if he/she moves to another country has control over what the bowel produces? Are you really that unaware of the body or the metabolism?

To the OP: Finland is like any other country, has good sides and bad sides to it. Skin color or your religion is your personal thing, it should not affect you personally, but you are very likely to face some challenges, as you would anywhere else in the world. In some senses, some people, and a lot of them are quite backward in their thinking, particularly with skin colour in Finland. And the topic these days is quite prevalent. If these are concerns to you, you'd be better off in Canada or Australia. At a large level, a lot of people are also quite shallow when if one dares to compare with your background (Muslim, I presume?) and also from a cultural background. Relationships are not worth gold, but like a dime! Emotions are kept in check, even if one is hurting, as that is often considered a sign of weakness.

And yes, once you complete your studies, it will still be a challenge for you to get a job, and skin colour has to do with it - knowingly or unknowingly. In terms of medical setup and education etc. my personal opinion and experience Finland scores well on the “availability” and “opportunity” part, although “quality” in conjunction with availability is harder, if not impossible to find.

And yes, Nokia, it took a foreigner to bring back into black ink. They are now making the right decisions in terms of partnerships.

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Holland
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Re: Living in Finland as a foreigner

Post by Holland » Tue Sep 01, 2015 1:46 pm

@ rupun

Quite a bit away from the current discussion.

anyhow, I'm sure you've interacted with friendly and kind Islamic families, so have I. And sure there are some things done better in Islamic culture. But the "I've experienced this or that" argument often derives from the bigger picture, often because the it limits our circle of interaction from the full scheme of things. I found Muslims in Helsinki to be nicer, and more ethically Finnish, than Muslims in Holland, generally speaking. I'm assuming that the integration is better here than in Holland, but also the immigration flow is lower. It will likely have more reasons than those though.
"foreigners (mostly arabs, turks, etc) are responsible for a lot of rapes"
I don’t believe that. Media has a role to play here. I hope the use of “lots” does NOT imply majority. As sick as the crime is, if an assumed exaggerated 20% rapes were committed by foreigners, who commits the other 80%? Or is that allowed and/or not to be counted?
whether you believe it or not, they're facts. surely statistics change depending on the way research is done, but denying that young foreign males are much more often guilty of rape crimes than native young man is just ignorance. In Sweden alone 77% of rapes are committed by registered Muslim males, which is not strange at all when one looks into the ethical differences (motives, morals, values). This of course doesn't imply that Muslim males are rapist, just that they're more often involved in those crimes. Governed media actually tries really hard to hide things like these. Remembers instances like the brutal abuse and rape by 4 Somali man in Sweden? O, right, the newspapers stated "2 Swedes, 1 Fin, and 1 Somali", or the one in Finland where they photo shopped the photo of the committer to be pale skinned and than blurred the image, making it look like the committer was of Caucasian race. I must add that "races" or "nationality's" are not points which you can define someone "chance to commit crimes" rate with. Ethnics however, is a perfectly viable indicator as morals and values, as consciousness about what is good or bad, highly differ between ethnicity's throughout Europe. A race or nationality can make a pretty good guess at one's ethnicy is, though ofcourse, they're just hints, which can be wrong.

All I'm trying to say is that research has proven over and over again that young men from Muslim ethnicity's pose a much higher risk of being involved in serious crimes than native men throughout Northern Europe. Rather then to keep arguing whether it's accurate or not (which we already know) I would rather see that effort invested into the actual solving of the problem. Limiting the immigration flows to Europe, improving the integration process (This one is the most important, but does rely on other points), and making changes to the justice and conviction systems (a recent immigrant who keeps committing crimes should just be send back, exceptions are ofcourse present).

But yeah that's my 2ct. Probably not everyone will agree, and I appreciate if they share their founded views.
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Marsh04
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Re: Living in Finland as a foreigner

Post by Marsh04 » Tue Sep 01, 2015 2:58 pm

I would like to add one more point. A drunk girl picked from a street for a rape (sex ) is a lot more likely to claim (report) a crime if the offender is a person of darker skin. Statistics while valuable are not always the true picture and tell the whole story.

One of my friends used to drive taxi and he told there are uncountable occasions when a guy who is not very drunk is in complete senses takes a very drunk girl with sole purpose of having sex while taking advantage of her drunkeness, now that's a rape only thing is if the girl reports it or not. (I'm not talking about the instances when they have spent whole evening together . It's more about when the girl is picked from the street)

Oho
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Re: Living in Finland as a foreigner

Post by Oho » Tue Sep 01, 2015 3:44 pm

Marsh04 wrote:I would like to add one more point. A drunk girl picked from a street for a rape (sex ) is a lot more likely to claim (report) a crime if the offender is a person of darker skin.
Really care to back that up with anything.

Marsh04
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Re: Living in Finland as a foreigner

Post by Marsh04 » Tue Sep 01, 2015 3:46 pm

Common sense and observation in everyday life in other matters

If you are only interested in statistics I can prove statistically that more than 60-70 % females in Finland have been raped at least once in their lives and 60/70 % Finnish men have raped at least one female in their lives. Don't be stuck in numbers only , use your common sense as well .


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