Willy Nilly Moving?

jamie_designer · Post by **jamie_designer** » Sat Oct 21, 2006 7:50 pm

/* Information that might help
1. I am a Canadian Citizen, born to Canadian parents, no family line that I can track back to Finland.

2. I have a Canadian passport which allows me to stay in finland for up to 3 consecutive months within a 6 month period. By that rule it is forbidden for me to enter finland until february 2007

3.I have not ever been issued a resident or work permit in finland */

Hello,
I went through and read the first 6 or 7 pages in this section trying to find an answer to my question and it seems to me that there is a lot of people who say they are moving to Finland at a certain time, but have no real solid plan or knowledge on how much it takes to get there.

So my first question is:Has anyone just made up there mind to move, went to Finland kind of willy nilly ( with no real solid plan) as a visitor stayed with their partner or friends and looked for work and had success that way?

I am under the impression that the first work permit you obtain must be applied for out of the country. In my mind this is a joke. You need a job to be issued a permit. You need a permit to be considered for a job.With that logic how does any foreigner ever get a job.

Unless you break the rules but Finns traditionally are not rule breakers and they are kind of tough on people who don't fall in line. I do not want to do anything to damage my chances of becoming a citizen in the future. And I don't want to be banned from entering the country.

My second question would be what is your opinion on this, if I could not find a job in the 3 month time period, would it be best to stay and keep looking being in the country at that point illegally? Or is it easier to do things by the book and get the correct papers and such before going?

Cheers
Jamie

**Sponsor:**

JustInTime · Post by **JustInTime** » Sun Oct 22, 2006 7:24 am

You are quite right, the Finnish immigration system is somehow problematic and sometimes illogical.

Probably the easiest way is to come here first as a student. Have you ever consider to study here or at least get the admission for some Uni. or Polytechnic (Uni. of Applied Sci.)? After you graduate you'll be able to get a work permit bit easier.

Well...another efficient way is to get married with a Finn, it's up to you anyway.

Hopefully this is helpful. Do not stay here illegally, that's really a bad idea. You might get banned for the whole EU for that reason.

jamie_designer · Post by **jamie_designer** » Sun Oct 22, 2006 8:47 am

Thanks for the reply JIT.

Yeah I am starting to feel the frustration, I will not stay their illegally I do not want to get banned from EU or finland my girlfriend would kill me.

I have thought about school, but I always come back to "I have done the school thing already and it didn't suit me." What I mean is school was okay but I have been working for the past 4 years, and learned much more out in the industry. Experience is worth much more then a degree (IMO)

Also Education in Canada is very expensive and I still have loans I am paying here from my diploma. I can not easily give up making a living to be a poor student agian. I have looked into the finnish education system and they expect foriegners to have around $10,000 euros per semester of school.

I have actually spent a lot of my savings visiting Finland the past couple years so, everytime I go over there it gets harder to leave and harder to get back.

I have had to give up a lot, my steady job, savings, security to be able to maintain a relationship with my girlfriend. Am I complaining not at all. Do I regret anything, No with 100% certainty. I have a great women there she is my best friend and so much more and I will do anything for her. Even go to school again if that will help.

If anyone has anymore thoughts on this let me know, and if I am missing some information about the education opportunities please let me know.
Thanks again for your reply I will also do a little search around the forum.

cheers
Jamie

jdpenk · Post by **jdpenk** » Sun Oct 22, 2006 10:08 am

I am an Australian that moved to Finland in 1998 without a real plan, I just had an ex-girlfriend there.

I looked around for a job, and got one with Nokia. Then I went and applied for a work permit with the right paperwork from Nokia. I bought a car, got and apartment, and the rest was easy.

Later on I met a Finnish/American there, got married, had a kid and left for California in 2002.

The trick in Finland is to get a job with a company who is willing to help you get the work permit; which might require some specialisaion. I am an engineer, so it wasn't much trouble.

Finland is a great country, with great people. I miss it a lot.

Desundial · Post by **Desundial** » Sun Oct 22, 2006 1:28 pm

Jamie - it shouldn't be as high as 10 000 euros a semester, more like a year. But you will need at least that much to live on, so if you have to pay off those loans, it's better to make a plan, take the pain of moving here a little more slowly, and having nice work when you get here. It will make your relationship better too. (Plus give you more time to learn finnish.

).

If you are travelling back and forth a lot you could look for work while on vacation, but then get the job offer and apply for paperwork once you return home. Or, like jdpenk says, if you are an engineer, try approaching nokia on a vacation, or from canada. Their web site shows a lot of job listings worldwide. One thing you should get from all those posts is that it is hard to find a job here, a lot harder than canada, and so extra luck, planning, and advance effort is important.

jamie_designer · Post by **jamie_designer** » Sun Oct 22, 2006 7:33 pm

Desundial- I checked my stats again and you are correct, it is $10,000 euro a year not semester. I think that is a reasonable estimate when you account for accomdation, utilities, grocery and other daily expenses.

The only reason I want to come to Finland is to continue my life with my girlfriend. I am not really ready to rush into marrige for the sake of living there, so I should probably not rush into moving there.

I am just waiting till february so I can legally travel back to Finland, I will stay for 2 or 3 months and then try to find work at that time.

I will look in to the bigger advertising agencies in helsinki that seems to be the best options. I am a graphic / web designer

jdpenk-how long were you in Finland before you got your interview with Nokia and were you applying for your first Finnish work permit in Finland?

Did you have any troubles?

jdpenk · Post by **jdpenk** » Sun Oct 22, 2006 9:04 pm

I was in Finland for about 1 month before I got an interview with Nokia. I stayed with my ex-girlfriends sister, applied for a job with Nokia, Sony-Ericsson and Sonera (at the time), and within 6 weeks I had attended 3 interviews for each, plus the psycholigical tests they made me do (aptitude and emotional intelligence), and was luckly enough to get 3 job offers. I took the Nokia offer because they use English as the official company language (documentation , etc).

That was the first time I applied for a work permit in Finland. No troubles at all.

Maybe I was just lucky with all this, it was back in 1998 before the dot-com bubble burst.

daryl · Post by **daryl** » Mon Oct 23, 2006 12:28 am

jdpenk wrote:I was in Finland for about 1 month before I got an interview with Nokia. I stayed with my ex-girlfriends sister, applied for a job with Nokia, Sony-Ericsson and Sonera (at the time), and within 6 weeks I had attended 3 interviews for each, plus the psycholigical tests they made me do (aptitude and emotional intelligence), and was luckly enough to get 3 job offers. I took the Nokia offer because they use English as the official company language (documentation , etc).

That was the first time I applied for a work permit in Finland. No troubles at all.

Maybe I was just lucky with all this, it was back in 1998 before the dot-com bubble burst.

I am a bit confused now, as you variously describe yourself as a UK citizen and an Australian. However, it is my guess that with your UK citizen hat on, you were treated as an EU/EEA internal migrant worker in 1998. This explains the "ease" of securing a "work permit" in Finland, because you did not actually need one.

If you got the permit as an Ozzie, then it would be good to hear further details.

daryl

jamie_designer · Post by **jamie_designer** » Mon Oct 23, 2006 2:37 am

Yeah did you get the perment as an Aussie?

God it would be soooooo dumb if I got offered a job between feb - april when I am there next and I have to come home to apply for a work permit.
I think that would ruin all chances for me to keep that employer interested.

It would have been nice if the colition party won the presidential elections last january, I heard one of their policies was to relax the immigration laws.

I think its great that Finland wants to keep its culture strong and I believe immigrents should respect the Finnish culture. but here is a country that gives its own people tax funded education at no cost to the students and then they turn around an leave.

Finland needs immigrents that want to come there and work hard

*ends rant*

jdpenk · Post by **jdpenk** » Mon Oct 23, 2006 6:04 am

Sorry for the confusion over my status. I am a UK citizen (I was born there), but grew up in Australia (Australian citizen), so I have 2 passports.

When I arrived in Finland I did so as an Aussie. After I got the job(s) I went down to the office to get my work permit with a letter from Nokia. I told them that I had a UK/EU passport as well as an Australian and they told me it was 'quicker' for me to use my British passport to get the work permit (it is approved immediately) or else I would need to wait (no time given) to apply as an Australian. So I handed over my British passport, and got the paper permit right away, and the card came in the mail 10 days later.

They didn't say anything about not being able to get a work permit as an Australian citizen, they just told me I would have to wait longer. I know other guys at Nokia who didn't have EU status, and Nokia sponsored them to get permits.

In most countries I've been to, if the employer sponsors you and justifies that they can't hire someone locally with your skills then you can get a work permit. At Nokia in Finland, some people got jobs cleaning up documents written in poor english, and Nokia sponsored them to get work permits - they weren't particularly skilled, they could just speak English. Maybe this is a rare event.

kcl · Post by **kcl** » Mon Oct 23, 2006 8:25 am

jamie_designer wrote:Desundial- I checked my stats again and you are correct, it is $10,000 euro a year not semester. I think that is a reasonable estimate when you account for accomdation, utilities, grocery and other daily expenses.

Hmmm...,I've never paid a dime for my advanced degree education here, there must be some free degree programmes...why not learn finnish?

Hank W. · Post by **Hank W.** » Mon Oct 23, 2006 9:52 am

You need the money in the bank to prove you can support yourself, so you got to show a balance of that amount when applying and renewing the student residence permit. Its nothing to do with anything about studying itself.

daryl · Post by **daryl** » Mon Oct 23, 2006 9:56 am

jdpenk wrote:They didn't say anything about not being able to get a work permit as an Australian citizen, they just told me I would have to wait longer. I know other guys at Nokia who didn't have EU status, and Nokia sponsored them to get permits.

In most countries I've been to, if the employer sponsors you and justifies that they can't hire someone locally with your skills then you can get a work permit. At Nokia in Finland, some people got jobs cleaning up documents written in poor english, and Nokia sponsored them to get work permits - they weren't particularly skilled, they could just speak English. Maybe this is a rare event.

Anecdotal evidence like this does more harm than good if the object is to suggest that Willy or Nilly can secure permission to live and work in Finland after simply arriving and finding a job.

The point here is that neither Willy nor Nilly has any concrete connection to Finland before stepping off the boat, and neither has even been in touch with a prospective employer in advance.

In an age of visa-exemption arrangements designed to promote tourism and other forms of short-term travel, we tend to forget that you need permission to live in any country of which you are not a citizen. Visa-exemption treaties extend this permission automatically to citizens of certain countries only for certain specific purposes, such as tourism and business travel. They specifically do not grant a general licence to immigrate, or even a limited licence to immigrate for certain purposes such as employment. Even the arangements between the Member States of the EU/EEA do not grant a general licence to immigrate, though they do allow citizens of these countries to immigrate for various specific purposes such as employment and education. For a purely general licence to immigrate, we should examine the exceptional arrangements between the Nordic countries.

This means that anyone who looks for work or takes up employment after exercising the right granted under a visa-exemption treaty is exceeding the terms of that right, and can even be expelled from the country for so doing.

In cases where it appears that Willy or Nilly secured permission to stay only after arriving in Finland, we have to study the specific details of the case. Unless the authority has made a gross error, these facts should normally reveal that Willy or Nilly did in fact have some other connection to Finland prior to arriving in Finland, and was therefore only masquerading as Willy or Nilly.

daryl

daryl · Post by **daryl** » Mon Oct 23, 2006 10:06 am

jamie_designer wrote:It would have been nice if the Coalition party had won the Presidential elections last January, I heard one of their policies was to relax the immigration laws.

Just in passing, the President does not make the law in Finland. That is the job of Parliament. The President exerts a large measure of political influence, of course, but this is a long way from changing the statute book.

As for the Coalition Party, would this by any chance be the same Coalition Party that insisted on requiring financial guarantees from third-country migrant workers seeking to bring their families with them to Finland?

daryl

jdpenk · Post by **jdpenk** » Mon Oct 23, 2006 10:09 am

Right. I have no idea of the true background of those individuals who claimed to have obtained a work permit purely through a Finnish employers sponsorship after arriving in Finland as a non-EU tourist.

I wouldn't risk it.

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