Work as a Web Designer or Interactive Art Director

[Rodaraya]

Hi / Moi everyone!
I´m thinking to move to Finland next year (been there before, really like it) and I need info about everything related to Web design and Online advertising.
Oportunities, Salary and more.

I will appreciate any help

Greetings from Chile
Kiitos!

[Adrian42]

I don't know much about this specific field, but some remarks:

Finnish IT job market still hasn't recovered from the suicide of Nokia 2 years ago, and additionally the economic situation is not that good at the moment. If you are very good you might still find a job, but that will really depend on your education and portfolio.

When Finnish is the company language or when many of the customers are in Finland it is often a requirement to speak Finnish fluently. That is already true for the majority of software development jobs, and I'd guess it is even more common in your field.

[rinso]

Finnish IT job market still hasn't recovered from the suicide of Nokia 2 years ago, and additionally the economic situation is not that good at the moment. If you are very good you might still find a job, but that will really depend on your education and portfolio.

Web design is a difficult field. At the low end much work is done by amateurs/free lancers. Difficult to make a decent income if web design is your only trick.
And for serious work people go to a trusted company. And they hire graduates from vocational institutes. (plenty to choose from)
You need at least a bachelors and decent Finnish to have a chance.

[David Junior]

Hi / Moi everyone!
I´m thinking to move to Finland next year (been there before, really like it) and I need info about everything related to Web design and Online advertising.
Oportunities, Salary and more.

I will appreciate any help

Greetings from Chile
Kiitos!

Hi there !

WEB DESIGN - ONLINE ADVERTISER

About the opportunities : they are indeed out there, don't be put off by negative comments.

Salaries vary depending on the region and previous experiences, here are some examples of average pay-range for web-designers :

National scale 2 000 € - 5 000 € - ( average) 2 903 €

Per cities :

Helsinki 3 300 €
Tampere 3 510 €
Hyvinkää 2 500 €

English as a working language in the IT sector is pretty common, if not universal, much depends on your skills and experience
it is not an insurmountable issue for what I have seen, even though it is better to keep in mind to plan to learn the Finnish language
as soon and earnestly.

As a foreigner I would say, expect at least at the beginning to stay on the entry-lower side of the pay-scale,
as some sort of payroll "discount" (for being an outsider) is acceptable and understandable of course.

If anything Nokia's crisis of 2 years ago has somehow increased a certain job mobility among competing companies.

Keep a low profile... speak softly .. and carry with you some salmiakki candies in your pocket at all times
as an offer of peace and friendship to anyone.

B.R

David


PS: As a matter of fact, if you are planning to move next year, you have time to take a fast track finnish course
at your place before even moving. If you do it rightly you will arrive with enough finnish skills so not to be a total "tourist".
In my opinion anyway .. for the IT sector .. job related skills are appraised way more than language.

[Adrian42]

English as a working language in the IT sector is pretty common, if not universal, much depends on your skills and experience

Your "if not universal" is plain wrong.

Have you ever searched for a job in IT in Finland?
If you haven't, I can tell you that the majority of jobs in IT in Finland do require speaking Finnish fluently (plus English fluently, but that is anyway clear - everyone working in IT in Finland speaks English fluently).

That still leaves a lot of jobs in IT where speaking English is enough, but it is a minority of the jobs and not universal.

If anything Nokia's crisis of 2 years ago has somehow increased a certain job mobility among competing companies.

Nonsense.

I know several companies that are in trouble today and that would be in a pretty good shape had Nokia taken a different strategic direction in 2011.

And I know software developers who have been laid off in 2013 (sic) due to that.

Your "increased a certain job mobility among competing companies" is just a cruel euphemism. in reality, when people apply for a software developer position in Finland there are cases where companies have literally answered "We were so overwhelmed with job applications that we decided to only look at applications who had either been referrals from our employees or who had an extremely impressing portfolio of hobby projects." Excluding people with a Masters degree in Computer Science and 10 years of relevant job experience from even being considered for the position.


When you are really good in your area it is definitely possible to find a job in IT in Finland even when you speak only English. But claiming it would be easy, or that what happened at Nokia 2 years ago would not have a huge impact on the Finnish IT job market today, is as wrong as can be.

[Rodaraya]

Thank u all!!
This info really helps to what may come.

I`m definetly going to learn how to speak Finnish, thats for sure.