Posts tagged with "job"

Office Swedish part 1

Posted by Tibor No Comments
Oct 26 2010

Many of our readers live and work in Sweden, but if you are still at SFI course (Swedish for Immigrants) or speak English at work you might wonder about certain expressions and what they mean at work. I have collected here some useful information for you.

Lönespecifikation: It is a free template that comes via post /e-mail every month reporting about your salary for the actual month.
Semesterersättning: Holiday compensation. It is approx. 12 % of your monthly salary (extra money for no paid holidays) if you are paid by the hour.
Timanställning: Job paid by the hour.
Objektsanställd/Projektsanställd: Project worker.
Löneförhöjning/Lönesamtal: Rise in wages/ literally translated Employee Discussion usually once a year you have the right to discuss your salary. It is usually during the spring time before Easther.
Permission: Leave (for a shorter period of time).
Tjänsteledig: be on leave (more common) or to be free from duties.
Skyddsombud: Safety representative who is chosen by all employees by voting at your work.
Facklig representant: Union representative at your work.
A-kassa: Insurance system for unemployment in Sweden. Your employer must inform you about it on your first work day. (They usually miss it). You pay a monthly insurance fee for a so called A-kassa. Union and A-kassa are two different things. You have to apply separately for membership.
Fackförbund: Union. The organisation represents the emloyees interests.
Flextid: flexitime. At many work places you can freely schedule your work as long as you do your hours regulated in your contract.
Kollektivavtal: Make sure that your employer is covered by the “collective contract”. It is an agreement about the dos and don´ts, musts and mustn’ts regarding terms of employment between the union and the employer.
Förskjuten lön: If you get paid by the hour you might get your first salary the month after you started your work and your last salary the month after you become unemployed.
Arbetsgivarintyg: You need a certification of the hours or periods you have worked at different companies during the past year to be able to receive a-kassa. You should turn to the person who is in charge of administration and finances. The most important thing is that you register yourself at the Unemployment Office (Arbetsförmedlingen) the day after you get unemployed. (You are eligible to get paid from the day of registration. The papers can be sent in later. But the sooner they´re in the sooner you get your compensation.

*A good advice: You have the right to have a union representative with you as an ear-witness whenever discussing salary or any sensitive issue with your employer. This is strongly recommended in case you would face any problems, unfairness or your employer wouldn´t stick to what she/he promised.

Wanted: Job seeking stories

Posted by jennie No Comments
Feb 28 2010

Before we move into March (finally!) and add a new month to the blog roll, let’s tie up some loose ends. The last post on how to find an English speaking job in Sweden has triggered some questions. First of all, is it even possible to get an English speaking job in Sweden without speaking or understanding Swedish completely? One reader saw the following typical patterns in Sweden:

a) If you speak English (but no Swedish), it does not help you to get a job – any job! –  because every Swede speak English. And a native Swedish, too, so you are considered as handicapped, not desired.

b) Seeing the English language job ads in the newspapers/on the websites you have the illusion that for these jobs you only need English. The truth is that for the 99% of the jobs native or very good Swedish is required. Why is it not mentioned and why is the ad in English? Well, they just take it for granted and don’t even think that anybody else would apply. However they won’t mention this little fact: you just get a very polite letter/mail saying that “somebody else was chosen, because he/she had related experience, blablabla”.

c) Even if there is a job, where only English is needed (however this is a really rare case!!), you get a a lot of competitors: all the foreign job seekers who don’t talk Swedish. You all are fight to get this one job…plus there are some Swedes, too. So it doesn’t help you either and most probably a Swede will get the job…

d) Let’s imagine, that you get the job, any job…even if you have basic Swedish skills, you will use the English, as you are not able to speak at this level, at least not fluently (and it takes ages to say the easiest sentence, I know – been there, done that). So basically you don’t learn anything during the job PLUS you will cause extra problem as you miss a lot of Swedish info and need extra translations PLUS you will feel very frustrated because you don’t have any progress in the Swedish language as you only use English.

Another reader was more positive and gave some more advice to job seekers:

- Jobsinstockholm is a website dedicated to English speaking professionals who are looking for jobs in other countries. The best feature about this website is that you can sign up for email updates when new jobs matching your criteria come in.

- Also I was able to search and find an agency specifically tailored to my professional field, which would be ‘fashion’, Modeverket. Not only do they have job postings but you can contact them with any questions regarding the industry. They were also able to direct me to another fashion industry job site where I could look for jobs.

- Discovering the Google “translate web page” feature has made my life so much easier….it will translate any webpage into whatever language you desire!

-Sign up on websites like Academic Work and Manpower.

Another reader was convinced that an English speaking job is not a great idea  if you want to learn Swedish, which also touches on another important soon-to-come-post; Ways to practise, mantain and improve your Swedish.

The best way to learn a language is to let go of English. English is a crutch. You need to practice Swedish all day, every day. By deliberately choosing an English-speaking position, you’re missing out on the best opportunity to really accelerate your Swedish. If you take an English-speaking job, you’re not going to get to use your Swedish. If you take a Swedish-language job, you can still fall back on English if you don’t know exactly what word it is you’re looking for, but your primary language will still be Swedish. If you’re thinking of moving to Sweden, learning Swedish should start before you arrive, not after.

Is getting an English speaking job in Sweden more or less impossible? Did you get a job – any job, not an English speaking position - without knowing much Swedish? Or, is the answer quite simple; you need to know Swedish to get a job in Sweden? Please share your story (success, hopefully!) if you have one.

How to find an English speaking job in Sweden

Posted by jennie 22 Comments
Feb 26 2010

68 brilliant title suggestions later, let’s start with something practical and useful. Job search. The majority of you might not be planning a move to Sweden, but you never know. Perhaps you – while randomly clicking on the links beneath – all of a sudden stumble upon your dreamjob, think “why not?” and two month later you are on a flight to Arlanda. Or, perhaps you’ll meet the love of your life while island hopping in the Swedish archipelago this summer and simply just stay. I wouldn’t blame you!
Anyway, I’ve gathered a few useful links that contains vacant English speaking jobs in Sweden or ways to get one.

Arbetsförmedningen
Sweden’s Public Employment Centre offers some great valuable information on how and where to get a job in Sweden, this section is all in English. They also offers phone help lines, job coaches and this page contains hundreds of links to Swedish job seeking pages.

I stole this quite entertaining video about working and living in Sweden on their web page:

YouTube Preview Image

The Local
I’ve written about it before and I will mention it again and again. The Local is great source for English speaking people with a particular interest in Sweden. The job section contains job ads for vacant jobs (lediga jobb) in English and some valuable information on how to get that dream job – all in English.

Look for yourself!
In these internet times, the possibilities are endless. I strongly recommend anyone who’s looking for a job in Sweden to take a good look on the web and go further than the job seeking pages. Want to work at H&M? (Bad imagination, I know…) Look at H&M’s webpage! All big companies (företag) today advertise their vacant positions on their own homepage and if it as big company, the page can be translated into English. Contact the company, ask about vacancies, send them your CV and tell them why you would be a great resource to them. I know several people who got amazing jobs in exactly that way. Swedes might be a bit reserved and yes, we are the nation of Jantelagen, but when it comes to hiring staff, who wouldn’t want a person who is thinking outside the box (tänker utanför ramarna), willing to take a risk (ta en risk) and own initiatives (egna initiativ)?

Let’s finish off with some more job seeking vocab, some clichés and some useful:
Stress hardy = Stresstålig
Preform well under pressure = Jobbar bra under press
Systematic = Ordningsam
Team work = Lagarbete
Team player = Lagspelare
Salary = Lön
Salary negotiation = Löneförhandling
Business = Affär
Boss = Chef
Employee = Anställd
Staff = Personal

Please feel free to share your best advice on how to get an English speaking job in Sweden. Perhaps you have done it and know the magic trick?

Job Scam Targeting English-Speakers

Posted by Transparent Language 8 Comments
Sep 25 2008

I was going to tell you about “tvättstuga” today, but then realized that there are more pressing subjects in the world today. And no, I am not talking about the American banking crisis.
I am talking about this article in The Local:

“An experienced scam artist has been targeting English speaking jobseekers in Sweden, luring them with promises of non-existent jobs, police say.”

A few people outside of Sweden can even imagine how hard it can be for a foreigner without any Swedish skills to enter the job market here. So an ad like that, seeking applicants for an office job and not requiring fluent Swedish was indeed a dream come true to hundreds of people.
In reality, neither the company nor the job existed. It was all an elaborate scam. But what’s puzzling is the motivation of the scam artist. He didn’t bilk his victims out of thousands of kronor, and his personal material gains seem rather slim – just a bunch of laptops purchased on credit. So why did he do it? The article claims it was simply for the thrill of cheating unsuspecting people and destroying their lives. From what I’ve heard from the English-speaking community here in Sweden, one poor guy actually quit his job in the UK and moved here for this non-existing opportunity, only to find out he’s been scammed. Another one, like in the article, declined a different job offer and moved from another city to Gothenburg.

And the saddest part of it all? There is nothing that the police can do, because much of the damage caused is not legally criminal.

But why was it so easy for a smart, sensible person to fall for this scam? As the guy interviewed in the article said: “When you’ve been trying to get a job for a long time, you don’t question [things].”

And this statement sums up nicely something that many prospective immigrants to Sweden do not realize, or simply choose to ignore – that getting any job here will be hard, and getting a nice, cushy office job will be even harder, if you don’t speak Swedish.

So, the moral of this story? If something looks too good to be true, then it probably is, even in Sweden.

PS. And the truly scary part of this is that the website of this non-existent fraudulent company is still up! The firm hosting it, even though notified about the case, did nothing to pull it down. And the scammer is thought to have moved to Copenhagen and might be targeting expats there.

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