Broadly, this is my experience. In spite of years of experience and three Finnish degrees studied in Finnish, companies have tacitly rejected me on the basis of my Finnish being far from perfect, even when being a perfect match for a role otherwise. Sipilä’s government altering job seeking terms to apply for a minimum of three jobs per month resulted in a lot of employers outsourcing recruitment to agencies to avoid the application spam, and agencies are notoriously lazy, rejecting any candidate whose background might be different. Being on a different tier in the job market alters everything about your life. Your diet. Your residence. Outlook, interactions or ability to do so. The visible invisible class of the less-employable, and we are doing nothing to address or fix it beyond “make them go away”. I use “we” deliberately, as a voter, taxpayer and as semi-Finn, as the use of “they” underlines that this issue exists and propagates it.
Yup. A big part of the systemic racism in Finland is the complete dismissal of academic degrees from foreign countries. It’s frankly absurd how we feel like our universities are so much better that we can just dismiss people entirely because they studied and were born elsewhere.
I’ve heard about the language requirements before as well. It was honestly hard to believe – surely Fluent in Finnish is enough? Nope – need to be on a Native level.
This is on us, we need to change. This is not sustainable in the least.
Yeah, it’s about right. I live in Finland for over a decade, mostly in a small town and the low key racism is soul draining. It’s never anything blatant (maybe cause I’m from Eastern Europe, so I kinda blend in the crowd), but pervasive and humiliating. Lucky for me, I own a company and land, so I didn’t feel it so hard as most immigrants in this country. On the positive side, just moved closer to a large city and people here are much nicer and open, no comparison. Moving was the best decision of my life, and my previous place of residence can suck it, and enjoy their even bigger unemployment rate.
3 comments
Broadly, this is my experience. In spite of years of experience and three Finnish degrees studied in Finnish, companies have tacitly rejected me on the basis of my Finnish being far from perfect, even when being a perfect match for a role otherwise. Sipilä’s government altering job seeking terms to apply for a minimum of three jobs per month resulted in a lot of employers outsourcing recruitment to agencies to avoid the application spam, and agencies are notoriously lazy, rejecting any candidate whose background might be different. Being on a different tier in the job market alters everything about your life. Your diet. Your residence. Outlook, interactions or ability to do so. The visible invisible class of the less-employable, and we are doing nothing to address or fix it beyond “make them go away”. I use “we” deliberately, as a voter, taxpayer and as semi-Finn, as the use of “they” underlines that this issue exists and propagates it.
Yup. A big part of the systemic racism in Finland is the complete dismissal of academic degrees from foreign countries. It’s frankly absurd how we feel like our universities are so much better that we can just dismiss people entirely because they studied and were born elsewhere.
I’ve heard about the language requirements before as well. It was honestly hard to believe – surely Fluent in Finnish is enough? Nope – need to be on a Native level.
This is on us, we need to change. This is not sustainable in the least.
Yeah, it’s about right. I live in Finland for over a decade, mostly in a small town and the low key racism is soul draining. It’s never anything blatant (maybe cause I’m from Eastern Europe, so I kinda blend in the crowd), but pervasive and humiliating. Lucky for me, I own a company and land, so I didn’t feel it so hard as most immigrants in this country. On the positive side, just moved closer to a large city and people here are much nicer and open, no comparison. Moving was the best decision of my life, and my previous place of residence can suck it, and enjoy their even bigger unemployment rate.