Finding SAP Jobs in Finland

Jason · Post by **Jason** » Mon Oct 13, 2003 10:03 am

Morning all. I have been looking for a SAP position in Finland for sometime now. I seem to get the same response - "You need to know the language". This to me seems a little dated. Most of the large multinational companies here in Finland speak english as the company language.

Does anyone know of any company that is currently recruiting for SAP MM/SRM/WM or FI consultants and does not have Finnish language as a prereq?

I am currently a consultant who commutes to the UK each week and I am a little sick of this travel.

Thanks in advance for the help.

**Sponsor:**

PeterF · Post by **PeterF** » Mon Oct 13, 2003 10:15 am

Jason wrote:. I seem to get the same response - "You need to know the language". This to me seems a little dated. Most of the large multinational companies here in Finland speak english as the company language.

This is the most common "put off" in Finland and it has been debated many many times on this board and elsewhere.
The bottom line is, that it is of course not essential to speak Finnish to work for example with Nokia in SAP.
But when the vacancies are few and far between and the person offering the job is a Finn, and most, if not all, of the existing team are Finns..then the preference is to to hire a Finn, if he has the required qualifications.

For those who are wondering "what is SAP?"..add this to you knowledge base.
http://sap.ittoolbox.com/

Jason · Post by **Jason** » Mon Oct 13, 2003 11:16 am

Cheers Peter. I have now been going through this for almost 2 years. The other bit that is difficult is that because I work in the UK it is also difficult to get here for a meeting when they want interview.

Finns are very protective people of their country and do not like "outsiders" coming in to take jobs. This is more so in Finland than any country that I have worked in. I thought we were bad in New Zealand but Finland is something different. That is not to say this is a bad trait to have in ones country.

I just keep trying and oneday something will happen.

Cheers again Peter

PeterF · Post by **PeterF** » Mon Oct 13, 2003 11:31 am

I believe that a very large percentage of jobs won by Non Finns are through direct contact/networking/friends/clients/customers.

If you keep telling who ever you meet in Finland that you "realy want to move to Finland if only you could find permanent employment"..
Then one day someone might say.."I have a friend who is looking for someone in your field,..one minute I will call his mobile and see if he is free for a meeting while you are here!"
Good luck.
PS.
All Blacks V England for the final..If England dont screw up against Ausies.
I cant remember or spell all the words of the Hakka...but...kumati kumati !!

Jason · Post by **Jason** » Mon Oct 13, 2003 11:55 am

Peter,

Cheers again for the response. I already live here. I have purchased an apartment here. The only thing I do not do here is work. My wife is Finnish and we have a 1 year old son who is a Finnish Kiwi.

I am networking all the time hense this website. I only found this today after 2 years.

I believe it will be a UK NZ final and I do not want to call it but it had better be the All Blacks.

Cheers

Jason

brendan_uk · Post by **brendan_uk** » Mon Oct 13, 2003 4:02 pm

Hi Jason,

Since you wor in the uk I suppose you know about jobserve.

http://www.jobserve.com/it/jobserve/sea ... &x=13&y=10

SAP seems to be the only IT category that gets regular postings, although there are a high number of "phantom jobs" on jobserve these days

paulrenn · Post by **paulrenn** » Mon Oct 13, 2003 4:02 pm

Hi Jason

It is often BS that you *need* to speak Finnish. Go to http://www.jobserve.com and type Finland. Almost ALL jobs in Finland currently are for SAP. Give couple of agents a call, you should have an interview pretty quickly.

Oh, if you succeed, please recommend me too! I don't know SAP, don't want to know SAP, but want to have a well paid stable job in Finland!!!

Hope this helps.

Cheers

Paul

brendan_uk · Post by **brendan_uk** » Mon Oct 13, 2003 4:04 pm

I posted first! any well paid jobs shoulf be mine!

paulrenn · Post by **paulrenn** » Mon Oct 13, 2003 4:11 pm

Bugger off! We posted at the same time...hehehe.
Glut of SAP jobs apparently...

Paul

Hank W. · Post by **Hank W.** » Mon Oct 13, 2003 4:25 pm

Yeah, I'm wondering this as SAP seems to be the "magic word" in IT. Especially if you know how to tinker with ABAP.

jcooper · Post by **jcooper** » Tue Oct 14, 2003 9:29 am

Hey Jason, my girl friend is a SAP Consultant, anyways I know for a fact that most of the conultancy work is done with Finnish companies and that for a client non technical roll at least on the projetcs she worked on you must have some language knowledge. That said, if you're more technically orientated I know that they've hired non natives for that work as they could not find any locally.

Check out
Cap Gemini and the Novogroup

I'll ask her this evening for more specific information.

Hank as for ABAP and architectural merits of SAP, didnät we have this discussion before, like 6 months ago

Jason · Post by **Jason** » Tue Oct 14, 2003 9:54 am

To all that replied, thanks. Jobserve is "sometimes" a good place to start. However you may notice if you type in Finland you always get a advert from a guy called Jesal. He seems to have SAP jobs for all areas of SAP. In fact he has nothing. He is trying to get the catch before it is even in the area. He is hoping.

I have had a little success with this website. Had three interviews which have all come down to yes would love to employee you but the lack of language is a problem. I feel like saying why bother to interview me if I have already explained that I have very very limitied finnish language skills.

ABAP would be great to have but that is the technical side of SAP. I am a functional (Management) consultant in the areas if Finance, Logistics, Warehousing and e-Procurement so yes I do need to be able to speak to the people in the business. However most of the large companies have people who speak english and those that are tasked to help build a new computer system generally have English skills from the education days.

Thanks for all the suggestions and I will keep trying, it's not like I am out of a job as I have a very good job in England.

Cheers

Jason

SapEurope · Post by **SapEurope** » Fri Mar 12, 2010 11:28 pm

try to look on this web page:
http://www.sap-europe-nordic.com

I have seen there lots of possitions for Scandinavia

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