Finnish love their Nokias or how to get in touch with Finns

[faronel]

Hey,

Decided to make a short thread about the ways of how to get in touch with Finns/people Finland in general. Should be quite clear that the thread is a mere reflection of my own experience and your notes, comments, corrections are welcomed.

1) E-mail. Where I come from it is considered a common practice to reply to every e-mail you receive. In Finland, I discovered that it is the other way around. Has anyone who was looking for a job or some information tried sending a lot of e-mails but getting zero replies? Well, as far as I am concerned, there are two factors affecting the lack of response. First, Finns are used to comfortable working conditions. Answering to every e-mail means making an additional effort. It is tempting to just delete some e-mail that doesn't really concern you. Second, many employees are actually given a wild card to ignore the incoming messages. A friend of mine told me that on a message wall board in one of his (very big) employer's offices, there is a sign that says (quote): "you are not obligated to reply to random e-mails". In a sense, the Finnish e-communication culture can be defined here as "you do not need to deal with an inquiry, unless it becomes your official business". However, it becomes an official business only when there is some legal ground (i.e. a national agency is compelled by law to respond to an inquiry). Maybe this way of reasoning is due to the fact that Finns try to keep it as clean as possible in a formal written exhange. Who knows what can be said that later can be referred to in a legal dispute, right? So, the sense of comfort and an opportunity to ignore, leads me to conclude that in the Finnish e-communication culture, for the given reasons, not replying to an e-mail is not considered impolite and is a common practice for Finns. However, to be fair, when it comes to making money, Finns are ready to reply even on Sunday evenings.

2) Mobile phones. Nokia. The word should say everything. Finnish society was affected by the cell phone revolution so much that it would be hard to imagine how the society would cope without those little technological wonders. If my memory serves me right, there was a research a few years back showing that if you divided the amount of cell phones sold to Finnish residents by the population size, you would get roughly 3 phones per capita. In many developing countries, a landline is still considered the main way to make calls. However, in Finland, a small-time enterpreneur is way better off using a cheap cell phone and a prepaid card than struggling with getting and setting up a proper landline. The reasons are quite obvious and I am not going to list them here. The only issue is that a communication over the phone requires at least some Finnish fluency, if the person you are calling is reluctant to use English. However, if you want to get in touch with a Finn, you have much more luck calling him than e-mailing. Finns love their Nokias. Unless, of course, a job posting or some other source of contact information states otherwise.

3) Sending a mail. As a possible way to communicate - though, it is time and money consuming and I have little experience with it, apart for the official letter exchange with national institutions. An interesting hypothetical question arises: in the context of replying to a job posting, would sending your application mail increase the chances of getting a reply in comparison to sending the same documents via e-mail? Or it would be an even greater waste of personal resources?

4) Showing up. As far as my experience goes, with a presentable look and a friendly, result-oriented communication manner, you can get really far. Especially if you are applying for a job where talking to other people is essential - it already shows your willingness to initiate a conversation. However, timing is everything. You cannot expect walking into a random office at a random time and demanding people talking to you just because you feel like you are entitled to whatever you aiming at there. Quite often, calling ahead and agreeing upon a visit could help you to be actually expected for a discussion.

[Oombongo]

Hey,
Finns love their Nokias. Unless, of course, a job posting or some other source of contact information states otherwise.

No, Finns love their iphones and samsungs..