I can’t be alone in finding that damn sign cringy as hell
Given this is Slush, there a lot of startups with not so many Finnish speakers.
Well maybe you should just bite the bullet and learn. I have plenty of immigrant colleagues that have. They tend to come from places like Poland and Bulgaria for some weird reason even though Finnish is not Slavic.
You gotta start your own company man. Finland gives great resources and funding for it. If you come as an expert with exceptional skills, work with international clients.
I’m a firm believer that you can’t expect others to change for you, you have to be the catalyst for change. We come to their country, so play by their rules.
But business allows you to build a company where you define the culture .customs and rules you play by.
You don’t need finnish to do business in finland,and you can create the environment you want to have.
Good luck man.
Thanks for your respect 🫡. Joke aside, I know it is hard(also with current bad economy) but it isn’t impossible, I know more than a handful of people who don’t speak Finnish and still have a decent paid work
Even for dishwashing they require good language skills… Meanwhile in Germany with no local or even english you have chance to find a job
Don’t be a jerk. Learn the language where ever you go.
It doesn’t matter where you live in this world, it’s up to you and only you to succeed. It’s only your mind holding you back, nobody is coming to save you.
It’s always fucked up to me for someone to go live somewhere without the intention of learning the language and having learned a bit of it beforehand.
Depends on the line of work but I had a hard time starting my career even though I am native and was born here. It’s just that I don’t look native and have a foreign (european) name. It’s easier to pick from a sea of Finns for jobs with many candidates applying. In Finland many times the candidates are also highly educated, so it’s not easy competition. Now with a long work history and specialized skillset it’s not that big of a concern, but it definitely used to be.
Why would you go to a small country of 5 million people and expect to find a well paying job without knowing the language? I wouldn’t expect that anywhere, it’s usually the bare minimum requirement. As a Finn I picked Ireland as I already know English and not willing to learn additional language. I wouldn’t expect to get along with English in other EU countries so well that I could find well paying employment, unless landing a sweet gig at some international company. Finland doesn’t have too many of those. The reality of working in Finland is that you’ll almost always need to learn the language unless you’re some very sought after specialist, in which case they probably brought you in to start with.
Lived in Finland all my life and can’t understand any finnish
I’m working on this objective right now!
I see this struggle mostly with freshly graduated students (both local and foreigners). Frankly, university degree by itself is quite worthless in the Finnish job market. Cost of hiring somebody with zero real world experience is too high for the employers. Employers will rather pay 3500€ to somebody with 2-5 years of experience than 2500€ for somebody without. Once you are able to somehow breach this inital gap, life gets much easier and nobody will ask about your degree or your language skills.
14 comments
I can’t be alone in finding that damn sign cringy as hell
Given this is Slush, there a lot of startups with not so many Finnish speakers.
Well maybe you should just bite the bullet and learn. I have plenty of immigrant colleagues that have. They tend to come from places like Poland and Bulgaria for some weird reason even though Finnish is not Slavic.
You gotta start your own company man. Finland gives great resources and funding for it. If you come as an expert with exceptional skills, work with international clients.
I’m a firm believer that you can’t expect others to change for you, you have to be the catalyst for change. We come to their country, so play by their rules.
But business allows you to build a company where you define the culture .customs and rules you play by.
You don’t need finnish to do business in finland,and you can create the environment you want to have.
Good luck man.
Thanks for your respect 🫡. Joke aside, I know it is hard(also with current bad economy) but it isn’t impossible, I know more than a handful of people who don’t speak Finnish and still have a decent paid work
Even for dishwashing they require good language skills… Meanwhile in Germany with no local or even english you have chance to find a job
Don’t be a jerk. Learn the language where ever you go.
It doesn’t matter where you live in this world, it’s up to you and only you to succeed. It’s only your mind holding you back, nobody is coming to save you.
It’s always fucked up to me for someone to go live somewhere without the intention of learning the language and having learned a bit of it beforehand.
Depends on the line of work but I had a hard time starting my career even though I am native and was born here. It’s just that I don’t look native and have a foreign (european) name. It’s easier to pick from a sea of Finns for jobs with many candidates applying. In Finland many times the candidates are also highly educated, so it’s not easy competition. Now with a long work history and specialized skillset it’s not that big of a concern, but it definitely used to be.
Why would you go to a small country of 5 million people and expect to find a well paying job without knowing the language? I wouldn’t expect that anywhere, it’s usually the bare minimum requirement. As a Finn I picked Ireland as I already know English and not willing to learn additional language. I wouldn’t expect to get along with English in other EU countries so well that I could find well paying employment, unless landing a sweet gig at some international company. Finland doesn’t have too many of those. The reality of working in Finland is that you’ll almost always need to learn the language unless you’re some very sought after specialist, in which case they probably brought you in to start with.
Lived in Finland all my life and can’t understand any finnish
I’m working on this objective right now!
I see this struggle mostly with freshly graduated students (both local and foreigners). Frankly, university degree by itself is quite worthless in the Finnish job market. Cost of hiring somebody with zero real world experience is too high for the employers. Employers will rather pay 3500€ to somebody with 2-5 years of experience than 2500€ for somebody without. Once you are able to somehow breach this inital gap, life gets much easier and nobody will ask about your degree or your language skills.