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Started: 2/4/2010 8:18 AM
Jia
Finding a job in Denmark
hej! I am currently a Flight Attendant. Prior to that, I was working in Greenland for more than a year. During my stint, I learnt bits of Danish at beginner's level. I speak fluent english and chinese. My fiance is a Canadian but his heritage is Danish-even has a danish name. He is a chef and armed with 10 years cooking experience. However we both are not carrying a Danish passport or are EU citizen. We have been talking about it so much about moving to Denmark and this is the place we wanna live and build a family. I been to denmark 6 times and I love everything about it. I am hoping to be able to secure a job in the aviation otherwise I don't mind in restaurants. Been to so many websites online and my ideas are running dry. Anyone can help us?
Posted: 2/13/2010 10:41 PM
FitLawton



From: Jia
Posted: Thursday, February 04, 2010 8:18 AM
Subject: Finding a job in Denmark

hej! I am currently a Flight Attendant. Prior to that, I was working in Greenland for more than a year. During my stint, I learnt bits of Danish at beginner's level. I speak fluent english and chinese. My fiance is a Canadian but his heritage is Danish-even has a danish name. He is a chef and armed with 10 years cooking experience. However we both are not carrying a Danish passport or are EU citizen. We have been talking about it so much about moving to Denmark and this is the place we wanna live and build a family. I been to denmark 6 times and I love everything about it. I am hoping to be able to secure a job in the aviation otherwise I don't mind in restaurants. Been to so many websites online and my ideas are running dry. Anyone can help us?
My advice is don't. As neither one of you are EU citizens, it will be difficult to enter DK. If you gain entry, you will find many cultural/professional barriers preventing you entering the workforce. Either your professional qualifications or education will not be recognised, or potential employers will say you have no Danish experience. I am not saying there aren't success stories out there, and with a great network, it is possible to establish yourself here. There is however a general anti-foreigner sentiment, which has only intensified these past few years. I am an EU citizen who came here 15 yrs ago, and I struggle with it everyday. Trust me, you will be better off in Canada. It is a young country, built on immigration. They make foreigners welcome. Denmark doesn't. I am sorry to be so discouraging, but if I had known what I know now, I would never have come here. I too, came here on visits and liked it. It is different when you live here.
Posted: 3/16/2010 10:38 AM
cholte
Hej Jia, I agree 100% with fitlawton, DON'T DO IT, DON'T COME TO DENMARK! I have been living here for the last 2 years because I'am merried with a dane, and I can say that this country is really hell for foreigners even well educated. It is plenty of barriers to entry the labor market and the most usual reason is lack of experience in Denmark or not very fluent in danish what it means actally not being native...Canada is different it is a emigrants society where eveybody has same rights and opportunities.
From: Jia
Posted: Thursday, February 04, 2010 8:18 AM
Subject: Finding a job in Denmark

hej! I am currently a Flight Attendant. Prior to that, I was working in Greenland for more than a year. During my stint, I learnt bits of Danish at beginner's level. I speak fluent english and chinese. My fiance is a Canadian but his heritage is Danish-even has a danish name. He is a chef and armed with 10 years cooking experience. However we both are not carrying a Danish passport or are EU citizen. We have been talking about it so much about moving to Denmark and this is the place we wanna live and build a family. I been to denmark 6 times and I love everything about it. I am hoping to be able to secure a job in the aviation otherwise I don't mind in restaurants. Been to so many websites online and my ideas are running dry. Anyone can help us?
Posted: 4/24/2010 10:16 AM
DestroyedinDK



From: FitLawton
Posted: Saturday, February 13, 2010 10:41 PM
Subject: Finding a job in Denmark




From: Jia
Posted: Thursday, February 04, 2010 8:18 AM
Subject: Finding a job in Denmark

hej! I am currently a Flight Attendant. Prior to that, I was working in Greenland for more than a year. During my stint, I learnt bits of Danish at beginner's level. I speak fluent english and chinese. My fiance is a Canadian but his heritage is Danish-even has a danish name. He is a chef and armed with 10 years cooking experience. However we both are not carrying a Danish passport or are EU citizen. We have been talking about it so much about moving to Denmark and this is the place we wanna live and build a family. I been to denmark 6 times and I love everything about it. I am hoping to be able to secure a job in the aviation otherwise I don't mind in restaurants. Been to so many websites online and my ideas are running dry. Anyone can help us?
My advice is don't. As neither one of you are EU citizens, it will be difficult to enter DK. If you gain entry, you will find many cultural/professional barriers preventing you entering the workforce. Either your professional qualifications or education will not be recognised, or potential employers will say you have no Danish experience. I am not saying there aren't success stories out there, and with a great network, it is possible to establish yourself here. There is however a general anti-foreigner sentiment, which has only intensified these past few years. I am an EU citizen who came here 15 yrs ago, and I struggle with it everyday. Trust me, you will be better off in Canada. It is a young country, built on immigration. They make foreigners welcome. Denmark doesn't. I am sorry to be so discouraging, but if I had known what I know now, I would never have come here. I too, came here on visits and liked it. It is different when you live here.
I agree 110 percent with FitLawton. Don't. If you do take the risk and move here, my advice would be to immediately hardwire myself into the Chinese community here. Denmark is certainly a nice, absurdly expensive place to visit but…buying into the whole fantasy can be fatal to one’s employment prospects. There are exceptions, of course, but I would never advise any of my friends or colleagues to make the mistake I made and relocate here. I have more than 20 years of business experience on three continents, the majority of which I have spent working outside my home country. Before moving here, I was successful at every stage of my career. Including Denmark, I have lived and worked in five nations outside my native land. I have travelled in something like 35 nations. In my life, the only place I have ever felt less welcome and less at home was East Berlin, during a few day trips during the Cold War. Again, there are exceptions, of course, but, in my experience, many if not most Danes generally do not accept into their workplaces the immigrants living among them -- even large multinationals that have an English-only policy in their workplaces. In my experience, there are huge, impenetrable, latent cultural barriers to admittance in the business community and the workforce. I've seen a very sad pattern repeated more times than I care to remember. First, in this nation where almost everyone speaks at least some English, you will be advised to learn Danish fluently. After you spend two or three years learning Danish, you will then be told that your degrees, certificates, education, etc. are not "Danish" and therefore not recognized. Or you're not a member of a union or the "right" union. Or some other excuse will be offered. You will then come to realize two things: 1) that your CV, experience and credentials are absolutely irrelevant and worthless here, and 2) that fluency in Danish has absolutely nothing to do with the discrimination. In my view, it runs much deeper than that. You will then be off on a 10+-year odyssey to "integrate" into the culture and find some way to make a living and feed your family. In the process, the skills you brought with you will atrophy and you will become unemployable. People who are unemployed for long periods of time become unemployable. In my experience, the business culture, to an astonishing degree, and many, many minds, are simply closed to non-Danish (or non-Scandinavian) thinking. I have expat friends who are completely fluent in Danish, who have advanced graduate degrees from UK/US/etc. universities, and who have at least 10 years experience in their profession, outstanding references from large multinationals, etc. -- and who are working at kiosks, cleaning companies cleaning toilets, if they are lucky. Some are just flat chronically unemployed. An exception to all the above seems to be immigrants/refugees from Eastern Europe. They seem to be the first ones hired at the cleaning companies, etc. Another exception, to be fair: most of my experience comes outside Copenhagen, in the other cities in Denmark. CPH is certainly an international, cosmopolitan city and I would hope things to be a bit different there. I too never would have moved here had I known how xenophobic, homogenous, and closed-minded this culture is. I count it among the greatest mistakes of my life. If you do take the risk and move here, I certainly hope your experience is different.