Apply to jobs in Finnish or English

[asanda]

Hi Guys,

I'm moving to Helsinki in December and am looking for work. I was just wondering if I should write in English or in Finnish when filling out job applications that are in Finnish. I have already been living in Finland for 4 months and have picked up some basic vocabulary and grammar, so I can manage the basics, but am not very good or feel too confident in speaking lots of Finnish. I am an EU citizen, and have the Right of Residence and the tax card, etc. My native language is English.

I have applied to lots of office jobs that are in English, and am waiting to hear back from them. My past experience is in office work and business managements studies, but I am open to do any type of work. I am hard-working, enthusiastic and I do everything 100%.

Please let me know if you have any ideas.

Thanks!

[asanda]

Job application in Finnish == they want a Finnish speaker. Most (not all, but most) HR teams & bosses know how to target an ad to get the right applicants. If they write the ad in Finnish then knowledge of Finnish is assumed and required. This is because knowing the local language is not special. Everyone has it so it's not even worth mentioning. If I were writing an ad in Australia in my previous job (employment consultant), and the boss needed a Mandarin speaker, there would be absolutely no mention of English in the ad.

It's important to know what you're up against and the other applicants will all have similar experience, comparable (or better!) English writing skills and also be fluent in Finnish. Yeah, to you and I, their English will sound awful, but it will sound perfect to the boss and they'll show off their 9s and 10s from high school English classes.

The answer to your question would be "apply in Finnish," but actually it's dumb advice to give you. While they are few & far between your energies will be better spent on replying to each and every job ad written in English, and possibly also for niche companies, for example, Finnish companies providing services to foreigners, or foreign companies filled with highly-skilled foreigners. Those are the ones where (1) the office language might be English; and (2) they either don't think they can find a Finn who speaks good enough English, or they value English so highly they are specifically targetting those who are native speakers. Play to your strengths! English is one of them. Show it off.

While you're at it, spend every waking hour either planning on how to complete a degree & masters, or planning to start a business of your own. Because, the likely scenario is that you'll need long studies in Finnish to get you to an even playing field as an employee. My daughter's housemate has been here for 5 months now, studying Finnish like a FIEND (from zero to B1, at least in the grammar) and she has four languages including near-perfect English, is applying for absolutely everything she can find, has a background in microbiology and still, employment is eluding her - not even temp jobs as receptionist or waitress-type work

Thanks for your reply! It is very detailed And yes, I have applied to every English speaking job in my field and am trying to get my English Teaching business going, which hopefully will work out for me. But otherwise, it's just so hard to wait for companies to get back to me, and I guess all the negativity I am reading about foreigners finding almost impossible to get a decent job is scaring me

[Oho]

BTW how will you write in Finnish if you don't speak/read/write/understand Finnish? Google Translator ?

You don't, implication of which of course is that you fail at the first hurdle. If the add is posted in Finnish the odds are good the employer is looking for a Finnish speaker. I would say in general one should always apply with the language the position was posted in.