Looking for work, in Web design

mike_kati · Post by **mike_kati** » Sun May 20, 2007 12:52 am

I am Irish, and looking for web work in Finland. I have designed web sites all over ireland. I'm moving to Finland with my Finnish girlfriend.

thanks

**Sponsor:**

p19 · Post by **p19** » Sun May 20, 2007 9:26 am

mike_kati wrote:I am Irish, and looking for web work in Finland. I have designed web sites all over ireland. I'm moving to Finland with my Finnish girlfriend.

thanks

Me to, but it's realy hard to get the job in this section.

Hank W. · Post by **Hank W.** » Sun May 20, 2007 11:36 am

What do you mean its "hard" - its not any harder than finding any job in Finland... MOL website lists amazingly whole three jobs. That only makes you number 1001 applying for that job...
WEB DEVELOPER (HTML&FLASH), Marvelana Oy / Limbo 41414, Helsinki, kokopäivätyö, Kesto: yli 12 kuukautta
Web-suunnittelija, City-Mainos Oy, Hämeenlinna, Haku päättyy: 25.05.2007, muu osa-aikatyö, Kesto: 11 pv - 1 kk
Web-suunnittelija, Oy IW-Net Ltd, Kuopio, Haku päättyy: 15.06.2007, kokopäivätyö, Kesto: yli 12 kuukautta
And two of them were full-time and one of those beyond the outer rim of known civilization too!

aspiala · Post by **aspiala** » Tue Jun 26, 2007 6:03 pm

What's your skillset? Can you code as well as design? Any examples of stuff you've done?

(both of you

)

mike_kati · Post by **mike_kati** » Tue Jun 26, 2007 8:17 pm

aspiala wrote:What's your skillset? Can you code as well as design? Any examples of stuff you've done?

(both of you )

here is a list of my work

http://www.celticweb.eu/portfolio.html

thanks

mCowboy · Post by **mCowboy** » Tue Jun 26, 2007 8:28 pm

No offense man, but if you're promoting yourself as a web designer and offer services in exchange for money, please at least spell check the text...

http://www.celticweb.eu/packages.html

and anti-aliasing the fonts do make them look a lot better...

karel · Post by **karel** » Tue Jun 26, 2007 10:40 pm

mCowboy wrote: and anti-aliasing the fonts do make them look a lot better...

There are a lot of rough edges that need work on...

Phtotos by Micheal Cullen prints email me at

What you also want to be sure of, is that you follow web standards.
Right now you only have 41 HTML errors in the coding of the portfolio page. 30-40 errors in the other pages. That doesn't really make you look good.

And then you write in BIG font in the header "Sports photography", but there's not one single sports photograph to be found?

Owwell...

[hijack]

What kind of coder/designer are you looking for, aspiala?
I'm also one of those seekers. In that field...

[/hijack]

Hank W. · Post by **Hank W.** » Tue Jun 26, 2007 11:49 pm

karel wrote:What you also want to be sure of, is that you follow web standards.
Right now you only have 41 HTML errors in the coding of the portfolio page.

Apparently the soft touch writing in a WYSIWYG makes a load of difference when the space ends up effin up the code. Most of the errors are something to do with unicode and a naughty ampersand... And then some missing "alt" stuff...

mgcarley · Post by **mgcarley** » Thu Jun 28, 2007 1:21 am

Please excuse me if I sound overly critical... I only play a professional software developer on TV

I don't mean to come off as harsh, arrogant or whatever, its just that sometimes things need to be said. I am often looking for help in my work, and I hate when people tell me that they design websites who... can't.

My first suggestion would be to get familiar with some open source AND commercial CMS systems (most likely the high-end ones, in most cases) - if I can find the names of any I will post them. Learn PHP and good CSS (can you debug? can you fix a style-sheet that works in Firefox for IE6 and IE7?) at the least, Ruby, Perl or Python and something else if you want it (ASP.Net, CFM or Java, or whatever language is required by one of the big CMSes)

Any web work in this country that I've done or gone for has involved familiarity with these big content management systems. HTML can be learned in a weekend, but it doesn't mean you can create more than a simple website, and it certainly doesn't make one a professional.

Unfortunately (or fortunately), MOST small companies looking for a web presence will use the likes of a directory service - you know, like ravintolaopas.net or whatever. It's hard to convince your local pub or B&B here that they need a website (unlike in Ireland and many other English speaking countries, where websites are still considered by some to be new-fangled marketing tools).

I've met a few people here who call themselves web and/or graphic designers with portfolios that are sadly lacking in skill and/or professionalism. The only one that (to me) looks somewhat modern is irishphoto.org, whereas the majority of the other ones appear to have emerged from a time machine that just came back from 1997.

The main problems I have with your portfolio is:
*Some links not working yet (Online 3 June 2007, but no link to the site active yet - where is the marketing effort?)
*Large JPG header that really should be GIF (or PNG - its 3 colours)
*Spacer GIFs
*The images behind the words in the menu (hover over photography, for example) hurt my eyes. Would be better if they were CSS rollovers.
*Images of the menu titles (Home Web Design etc) are jpgs when they should be GIFs or PNGs or if they have to be JPG, it should be saved without dithering.

I must also ask, why are all sites in a subdirectory under their domain names? (dvdphoto.org/dvd/ and whatisthemeaning.eu/whatis/ for example)

The lack of anti-aliasing on the fonts for the posters hurts them, but if I wanted to buy them, how would I do that (hypothetically?)

Prices: If you are going to state that you have prices on your site, they should be there. I checked out the packages, there were no prices: I am told what they include, but not how much they cost (except that a .ie domain is 35 EUR extra... why not just include that in the quote?). Could be seen to be a little misleading.

Ads: I hate "under construction" pages or "coming soon" pages. I'm not alone in this (I know this for a fact). Don't say that you have examples of ads if you don't have examples of ads: when you have examples, put them there, and make it known (for example on the front page). In addition, the search engines will like your site for being updated once in a while.

Grammar: use of I.E. where E.G. is correct (such as great for any occasion i.e 21st Birthday). Proper use: e.g. stands for the Latin "exempli gratia," (that's "for example" to you and me). i.e. stands for the Latin "id est," which means "that is."

Last but not least, by having a bunch of mailto: email addresses on all the sites, you are opening up your clients to the scourge of spam. Obfuscate them! Or better yet, I quite like the method most Finnish companies use they say "etunimi.sukunimi@blah.fi" and then list the appropriate contacts (without mailto: links) so that people know that Marja Järvinen (just someone I made up) is marja.jarvinen@blah.fi...

sweb · Post by **sweb** » Sun Mar 09, 2008 3:45 pm

hail.

o'm web designer (PHP MySQL Programmer) ... and can work with Javascript Frame work and more...

i want know how much is the average of incoming web developer in finland?

is a good country for web designers to find a good job with high price incoming...

thank.

mgcarley · Post by **mgcarley** » Sun Mar 09, 2008 5:26 pm

To put it simply, no. Unless you work for a larger firm/advertising agency. Even then, web developers incomes vary largely based on skills and age. If the recruiters I've spoken to are any indication, don't expect more than 2000€ to start off with.

IT quite a competitive market in Finland - every man and his dog can develop a website (ok, so I exaggerate), but certain parts of IT (mobile programming, Java programming, web development and graphics design) are probably the most competitive.

Typically, a Finn or someone who graduated from a Finnish University will be favoured over a foreigner during hiring, so make sure you have some skills to make you stick out. When I was starting out as a freelancer, many of my clients came from outside of Finland, but I got lucky.

Another thing is that UVI likely won't give you a residence permit if you plan to come in here and freelance (depending on your nationality) - unless, of course you start your own company. Even if you go down that route, they might also try and catch-22 you by telling you you can't get the residence permit until you get the company number, and you can't get the company number until you get the residence permit... and still more annoying is if you don't have a business degree or previous experience, they're going to question why the hell you're starting a company.

But if you are the entrepreneurial type, there are lots of groups around (especially in Helsinki) where you can mingle with fellow entrepreneurs and perhaps gain some clients. But the country is pretty tight knit, so you have to be tough and not let it break you. Ensure you have savings from home too.

There is a bit of a market for (native) English-speaking copywriters... though again, if you can find the work, but I know that it is there.

All in all, good luck, stay positive, and if I can help people avoid some of the blunders I made, I'd be happy to help - but seriously speaking, this country isn't the easiest place to be starting with very little or nothing - do whatever you can to find work before coming here.

shrecher · Post by **shrecher** » Mon Mar 10, 2008 1:19 am

mgcarley wrote: IT quite a competitive market in Finland - every man and his dog can develop a website (ok, so I exaggerate), but certain parts of IT (mobile programming, Java programming, web development and graphics design) are probably the most competitive.

I would not say that Java programming and mobile programming are competitive. There are quite of few opened positions in Seutu region and few suitable applicants. Of course, on a open positions comes 100+ resume, however, they mostly fresh grads or random people in IT. To find the suitable person it takes more the two months at least.

mgcarley · Post by **mgcarley** » Mon Mar 10, 2008 1:37 am

Of course, on a open positions comes 100+ resume

How is that not competitive?

You're right - it might take them quite some time to find the right candidate, but that doesn't mean there are a bunch in line for the position. I'm relatively sure that if *I* advertised a Web Design position (and I may very well in the not-too-distant), my phone wouldn't stop ringing. Hopefully I will have a secretary already by then.

rauginta_kojine · Post by **rauginta_kojine** » Mon Mar 10, 2008 11:09 am

This is not to the topic anyhow...but hey, does someone from you know, how to get some experience if every employer wants a person already with some experience? How to get a job in this way? Its not only a problem in Finland, its everywhere...

shrecher · Post by **shrecher** » Mon Mar 10, 2008 12:06 pm

mgcarley wrote:
Of course, on a open positions comes 100+ resume
How is that not competitive?

Of course, not, if most of applications are just "spam" for a prospective employer. Such as retrained by Työvomatoimisto former bus drivers and similar persons. The right candidate won't be lost in crowd.

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