Commodities Trader Fallen For a Fin!

DuncanLiam · Post by **DuncanLiam** » Tue May 17, 2011 5:43 pm

Hi everyone, I have fallen in love with a Finnish girl and am looking to move over to Finland, ideally Tampere..but would live in Helsinki if needed. I am a commodites trader specialising in soft commodities rice,nuts,coffee etc and I am looking for work. I cannot speak Finnish although I have begun to learn I speak ok German and I am a native English speaker. I am from the UK so I can live and work there without a problem, it just seems so difficult to get a job. I have 11GCSE's, A Levels, A degree in Economics from a leading university and 2 years of trading experiece. I am trawling through website after website to no avail..it doesnt seem that they have a large finanancial sector (understandable for a small country) ! I am going to get her to transcribe my CV into Finnish and work out the equivalent of my qualifications in Finland, its just finding the jobs that seems to be the problem. Where to start? Direct to companies (none of which I can find), go to recruitment firms? Any advice will be warmly accepted as I want to spend the rest of my life with this girl and "times'a wastin"!

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Karhunkoski · Post by **Karhunkoski** » Tue May 17, 2011 6:37 pm

DuncanLiam wrote: Any advice will be warmly accepted as I want to spend the rest of my life with this girl

If she loves you as much as you love her, then persuade her to live with you in England. Or is she the one doing the hedging?

tjawatts · Post by **tjawatts** » Tue May 17, 2011 9:48 pm

What exactly do you do? Do you trade commodites for a bank/broker? For companies that use them?

There are opportunities but certainly not as many as in London

T

Pursuivant · Post by **Pursuivant** » Wed May 18, 2011 9:33 am

I am a commodites trader specialising in soft commodities rice,nuts,coffee etc and I am looking for work. I cannot speak Finnish although I have begun to learn I speak ok German and I am a native English speaker. I am from the UK so I can live and work there without a problem, it just seems so difficult to get a job. I have 11GCSE's, A Levels, A degree in Economics from a leading university and 2 years of trading experiece.

Your aspirations for a job in Tampere is as a cleaning lady at Lidl, after you learn the language that is.

DuncanLiam · Post by **DuncanLiam** » Wed May 18, 2011 4:30 pm

What exactly do you do? Do you trade commodites for a bank/broker? For companies that use them?

There are opportunities but certainly not as many as in London

T

I trade for a trading company, I am not worried about moving to Helsinki as its only a couple of hours away from her and I am sure she would move, I presume that would be the best place to be looking! Pursuivant- Cheers for letting me know about the chances of me working in Tampere..gotta love the sarcasm! It so happens I currently live in Bath Somerset very close to you....beer??? Would like to ask you a few things if your free ..on me for sure! Just I dont really get why even after I learn the language which I am determiend to do, why it would be so hard? I would love for her to move to England but her mother is not well after suffering a stroke so I cant expect her to move here for some time...any opportunities anyone would know of would be most welcome, my degree and work experience has given me ...I hate to use the term... "transferrable skills" ..so if it invloves numbers and making/managing money I can do it and do it well!

Thanks for the feed back so far people...even if I end up being a cleaner it would be worth it, she is my one and I cant not be with her!

Mölkky-Fan · Post by **Mölkky-Fan** » Wed May 18, 2011 4:49 pm

DuncanLiam wrote:What exactly do you do? Do you trade commodites for a bank/broker? For companies that use them?

There are opportunities but certainly not as many as in London

T

I trade for a trading company, I am not worried about moving to Helsinki as its only a couple of hours away from her and I am sure she would move, I presume that would be the best place to be looking! Pursuivant- Cheers for letting me know about the chances of me working in Tampere..gotta love the sarcasm! It so happens I currently live in Bath Somerset very close to you....beer??? Would like to ask you a few things if your free ..on me for sure! Just I dont really get why even after I learn the language which I am determiend to do, why it would be so hard? I would love for her to move to England but her mother is not well after suffering a stroke so I cant expect her to move here for some time...any opportunities anyone would know of would be most welcome, my degree and work experience has given me ...I hate to use the term... "transferrable skills" ..so if it invloves numbers and making/managing money I can do it and do it well!

Thanks for the feed back so far people...even if I end up being a cleaner it would be worth it, she is my one and I cant not be with her!

I understand he lives in St Ives in Cambridgeshire... not in the cider counties

sinikala · Post by **sinikala** » Thu May 19, 2011 1:57 pm

DuncanLiam wrote:Hi everyone, I have fallen in love with a Finnish girl and am looking to move over to Finland, ideally Tampere..but would live in Helsinki if needed. I am a commodites trader specialising in soft commodities rice,nuts,coffee etc and I am looking for work. I cannot speak Finnish although I have begun to learn I speak ok German and I am a native English speaker. I am from the UK so I can live and work there without a problem, it just seems so difficult to get a job. I have 11GCSE's, A Levels, A degree in Economics from a leading university and 2 years of trading experiece. I am trawling through website after website to no avail..it doesnt seem that they have a large finanancial sector (understandable for a small country) ! I am going to get her to transcribe my CV into Finnish and work out the equivalent of my qualifications in Finland, its just finding the jobs that seems to be the problem. Where to start? Direct to companies (none of which I can find)

I have never seen anything about trading of commodities in Finland. At least in my industry, for metals, we talk about the LME, I have the impression that such trading is centralised in a few of the major world cities, London, Frankfurt etc.

As a starting point to see which companies are active in trading (mostly stocks / shares) see here...
http://www.nasdaqomxnordic.com/nordic/Nordic.aspx

In general terms - you are wasting your time talking about GCSE's & A-Levels, nobody cares what you did when you were 16, 18.
A bachelors degree from a UK university will be sneered at by Finnish employers, that's what's awarded by the lower grade Finnish HE institutions (AMK); the standard degree here is the masters. Talk to your girlfriend about the difference in Finland between Bachelors (AMK) and Masters (University) degrees.

If you have taken the typical UK career path, school --> uni --> job, you should then be just 23 or 24 years old. If you are 23/24, it might count in your favour. At that age Finns are perhaps in their 3rd or 4th year of studies. You will not find many 23 year old graduates with 2 years experience. That effect is noticed before you are 30, after 30 the effect starts to wear off.

DuncanLiam wrote:Just I dont really get why even after I learn the language which I am determiend to do, why it would be so hard?

You're unlikely to learn the language very quickly, at least not to the level of fluency required to work in the front office - you'll be restricted to limited back office roles. If you are able to land a role which uses your qualifications / experience, you will still face challenges - you aren't a good long-term bet - chances are in a few years you'll get frustrated at the slow pace of career development, up sticks and move back to London, so why invest bother investing time and money in you inthe first place?
You'll also lack the contacts / study friends that locals have. Networking will have to start from scratch, whereas those people who land the jobs will have done internships, summer jobs, know people from Uni.
Nothing here is impossible, just some things are highly improbable.

DuncanLiam wrote:my degree and work experience has given me ...I hate to use the term... "transferrable skills" ..so if it involves numbers and making/managing money I can do it and do it well!

One route might be to look at the Finnish branches of the financial multinationals like PwC, KPMG.

BTW transferrable skills is bs for something that anyone can do and can be applied to any job. What you need, and what will get you a job here are specialist / niche skills that few others have, from what you've told so far, you don't appear to have (m)any.

Soz.

mmac · Post by **mmac** » Thu May 19, 2011 2:26 pm

Best advice I can give is don't even think about moving over to Finland without a Job. If as a commodities trader in London you've not heard of any similar exchange in Finland then the chances are there isn't one or its so small you haven't got a cat in hell's chance of getting work there without "networking contacts".

I know this sounds negative but it's the plain truth. You want a job in Finland ? learn to Program, it's one of the very few reasonably paid jobs in demand here that you will not be discriminated against for not speaking Finnish.

You'd be better off spending those London earned bonus monies on the phone and travelling often to see her, spending time/effort showing her you are serious in your commitment to her. She will find it much easier to find work in London than you will in Finland.

Whatever you decide though good luck !

DuncanLiam · Post by **DuncanLiam** » Thu May 19, 2011 3:23 pm

Sinikala- Thanks so much for all of the info and taking the time to write to me, it is rather annoying that it is so difficult, but I suppose nothing worth doing is easy. A shame my degree would be sneered at, what can you do though. I think rather than going down the traditional route I will see if I am able to do my job here remotely from Finland? That maybe my only option.

Thanks everyone for advice and help...

Any more suggestions/tips/hints are more than welcome...

sinikala · Post by **sinikala** » Thu May 19, 2011 4:03 pm

mmac wrote:She will find it much easier to find work in London than you will in Finland.

You can even put a number on that

5.5 million Finns & 12000 of them live in the UK (1 in 450)
60 million Britons, 3500 of them live in Finland (1 in 17100)

38 times easier.

Upphew · Post by **Upphew** » Thu May 19, 2011 4:14 pm

DuncanLiam wrote:Sinikala- Thanks so much for all of the info and taking the time to write to me, it is rather annoying that it is so difficult, but I suppose nothing worth doing is easy. A shame my degree would be sneered at, what can you do though. I think rather than going down the traditional route I will see if I am able to do my job here remotely from Finland? That maybe my only option.

Thanks everyone for advice and help...

Any more suggestions/tips/hints are more than welcome...

Sneered might be too harsh word. Taken at its face value.. unknown degree, from unknown institution, with unknown courses and demands... you'll start to see the problem?

Upphew · Post by **Upphew** » Thu May 19, 2011 4:16 pm

sinikala wrote:
mmac wrote:She will find it much easier to find work in London than you will in Finland.
You can even put a number on that

5.5 million Finns & 12000 of them live in the UK (1 in 450)
60 million Britons, 3500 of them live in Finland (1 in 17100)

38 times easier.

But Finns go through grey stone, Brits have just stiff upper lip. That should even the numbers a bit.

sinikala · Post by **sinikala** » Thu May 19, 2011 10:19 pm

Upphew wrote:
DuncanLiam wrote:Sinikala- Thanks so much for all of the info and taking the time to write to me, it is rather annoying that it is so difficult, but I suppose nothing worth doing is easy. A shame my degree would be sneered at, what can you do though. I think rather than going down the traditional route I will see if I am able to do my job here remotely from Finland? That maybe my only option.

Thanks everyone for advice and help...

Any more suggestions/tips/hints are more than welcome...
Sneered might be too harsh word. Taken at its face value.. unknown degree, from unknown institution, with unknown courses and demands... you'll start to see the problem?

There shouldn't be any problem due to the degree being from another country, Finland ratified the Lisbon convention.

http://conventions.coe.int/Treaty/en/Su ... ml/165.htm
http://conventions.coe.int/Treaty/Commu ... L=ENG&VL=1

What I am referring to is the difference between insinööri & diplomi-insinööri in Finland. The latter, undeniably look down on the former.

In the case of the OP, he is going to be screened by people with Master's degrees who will see his Bachelor's degree & consider it a lower standard of qualification (in reality, it probably isn't).

Upphew · Post by **Upphew** » Fri May 20, 2011 10:02 am

sinikala wrote:There shouldn't be any problem due to the degree being from another country, Finland ratified the Lisbon convention.

There aren't too many universities in Finland, so if the interviewer/screener has gone through one, he knows what that degree means, and probably has some experience and knowledge about other universities. Same with AMK degree, but there are probably more schools that the interviewer don't know about, but still has a grasp what is needed for that paper. Also the reputation of schools is common knowledge. Whether that reputation is based on anything...

sinikala wrote:What I am referring to is the difference between insinööri & diplomi-insinööri in Finland. The latter, undeniably look down on the former.

Sure. 300 study points vs 240. And 30 of those 240 are practical training. And there are (were?) some points awarded for sports and whatnot.

sinikala wrote:In the case of the OP, he is going to be screened by people with Master's degrees who will see his Bachelor's degree & consider it a lower standard of qualification (in reality, it probably isn't).

180 study points aren't lower standard than 300?

We can debate whether there is need for masters for all the jobs or if it would do good to get some practical knowledge between B.sc and M.sc.

sinikala · Post by **sinikala** » Fri May 20, 2011 12:06 pm

Upphew wrote:
sinikala wrote:There shouldn't be any problem due to the degree being from another country, Finland ratified the Lisbon convention.
There aren't too many universities in Finland, so if the interviewer/screener has gone through one, he knows what that degree means, and probably has some experience and knowledge about other universities. Same with AMK degree, but there are probably more schools that the interviewer don't know about, but still has a grasp what is needed for that paper. Also the reputation of schools is common knowledge. Whether that reputation is based on anything....

Sorry, I have no idea what you are trying to say.

Upphew wrote:
sinikala wrote:What I am referring to is the difference between insinööri & diplomi-insinööri in Finland. The latter, undeniably look down on the former.
Sure. 300 study points vs 240. And 30 of those 240 are practical training. And there are (were?) some points awarded for sports and whatnot.

We are going way off track here.

It has little to do with the number of credits. Credits are just an extension of the old opintoviikko system, more credits is due to studying for more weeks.
The reason for the snobbery is due to the difference in quality of students and quality of teaching at Bachelors awarding AMK and Masters awarding Universities.
In Finland students who go for bachelors at an AMK are invariably lower ability than those who go for Masters at a real University.

Upphew wrote:
sinikala wrote:In the case of the OP, he is going to be screened by people with Master's degrees who will see his Bachelor's degree & consider it a lower standard of qualification (in reality, it probably isn't).
180 study points aren't lower standard than 300?
We can debate whether there is need for masters for all the jobs or if it would do good to get some practical knowledge between B.sc and M.sc.

Some students find that 180 credits in an AMK are easier to get than 60 in a real university.
Anyway don't get stuck on the Finnish credits system. A UK honors degree is 360 CATS points, but without frame of reference that is meaningless to you.

Having been exposed to and taught in both UK and Finland, I can tell you that UK degrees tend to pack in more courses per year than the Finnish equivalent and have exams at fixed times, Finnish students can go a much lower pace. There are a couple of paragraphs here http://www.europe.org.uk/index/-/id/405/ which put it quite nicely.

Code: Select all

There were so many surprises after I arrived that I could write a book about them. Turned out that in the UK I would be considered a "mature student", which to me (or any other Finn probably) sounded weird, after all I only had two gap years and back home many of us graduate in our thirties. Indeed, I can't think of anyone who had graduated from university by the age of 21! So I was a bit unsure how my university life would go, being older than most others.

Three years later, I can warmly recommend the experience, and studying in London has taught me time- management skills unheard of back home, where many of my friends are just starting to think about doing the undergraduate project after four- five years of study. Sometimes my friends wonder how we push through with such tight deadlines and inflexible academic calendar but I have found it really good, and doing a degree in a set time brings a kind of certainty and direction to this otherwise confusing stage in a person's life.

The Lisbon accord means that the UK bachelors degree is recognised in Finland, even though it is recognised in Finland, a bachelors degree from a good UK university is not the same thing as a bachelors from a Finnish AMK. It's quite clear that you, like many others here are unable to grasp that concept. I'm pretty confident that 99% of B.Sc. graduates from a decent UK uni would fly through a Finnish M.Sc.. The reverse is not true.

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