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Imagining the post-coronavirus world: six Stockholm traits that offer rays of hope

Change in the 21st century has been unrelenting. But now that the world has unexpectedly been forced to slow down, it seems clear that some changes haven’t come fast enough.

Published: 4 May 2020 15:46 CEST
Imagining the post-coronavirus world: six Stockholm traits that offer rays of hope
Photo: Funda Sezgi, Norrsken Foundation

The world is facing the gravest economic and social challenges in living memory. No single city – or even country – will have all the solutions.

But with its pioneering spirit and proven ingenuity, Stockholm punches well above its weight. We spoke with Funda Sezgi, of Norrsken Foundation, the Stockholm-based impact hub, about the city’s characteristics – and rays of hope for creating new systems better suited to the demands of our time.

1. Innovative

With only Silicon Valley having more unicorn companies per capita, Stockholm has gained global recognition as a centre of innovation.

Responding to shortages of protective gear for healthcare workers, Erik Cederberg, of Stockholm-based 3D Verkstan, found an original solution.

He designed a simple forehead band to hold standard plastic sheets, forming a face shield. Thousands of shields have been 3D-printed based on the design, including for doctors and nurses in New York.

Sezgi, Norrsken’s chief operating officer, says the city is benefiting from a forward-looking school system, including early provision of computers. “Thinking in new ways and tinkering with solutions is part of this society’s genes,” she said. 

Find out more about ‘the unicorn factory’ from Invest Stockholm

“Sweden’s early adoption of computers and the internet has creative implications. I also believe the education system helped put critical thinking in the DNA. That’s very useful for entrepreneurship, innovation and technology.”

2. Early adopters

Countries are being challenged like never before in peacetime to show how quickly they can adopt new norms. Stockholmers have already proven themselves to be early adopters in many areas of life. 

From Sweden’s status as the world’s most cashless society to a clutch of health apps offering video consultations with doctors, Stockholm moves fast. This ease with moving to newer ways of doing things when they prove more efficient could be hugely beneficial amid such far-ranging disruption.

Sezgi says Norrsken Foundation always has a “bias for action”. This enabled them to set up Action Against Corona, in collaboration with the newspaper Dagens industri and the private equity firm Nordic Capital, at lightning speed.

The platform provides funding and access to networks for start-up projects aimed at tackling coronavirus-related problems, whether in health or wider society.

Photo: Henrik Trygg/Stockholm Media Bank

“We woke up to a Monday meeting where we said we should do something to support the initiatives,” she explains. “Within literally 30 hours, we had the first platform out with over 80 partners. We like doing without overthinking; we do then we fix.”

3. Sustainable

The world has entered what trend forecaster Li Edelkoort calls a “quarantine of consumption”. Could we learn from this to make ourselves better prepared for climate change?

Sezgi says our model of consumption made reaching “the planet’s boundaries” inevitable. “Now that has hit us a bit harder and quicker than anyone anticipated,” she adds. “Systems have been built divisively, revolving around I rather than we or us. But Stockholm is a pioneer for any conversation about sustainability and innovation.”

Food waste is a prime example of our unsustainable lifestyles; around a third of all food produced globally is lost or thrown away. Karma, founded in Stockholm in 2016, allows you to buy surplus food from retailers at low prices. 

Consumers select what they want in the app and collect the food themselves. During the coronavirus outbreak, Karma has switched to offer deliveries instead in both Sweden and the UK.

hoto: Henrik Trygg/Stockholm Media Bank

Stockholm-based Pool.Farm merges small purchases of foods or supplies into bigger collaborative orders from local suppliers. The free service promises to save time, money and carbon emissions.

Interested in establishing, expanding or relocating your business to Stockholm? Find out more

“I want to enable people to act as citizens in the supply chain to ensure a diversity of products and suppliers,” says the company’s French founder, Corentin de Trégomain. “If we don’t act as a community, we will always give the advantage to the big players but they’re not always the ones I want to support.”

4. Transparent

The pandemic has highlighted a defining characteristic of our age: information overload. That can lead to confusion and even risk panic. Transparency about the information and data that can have most impact is crucial.

This is an article of faith among Stockholm’s start-up community; 3D Verkstan quickly had an impact with face shields because its open source files are accessible to all.

Sezgi believes such transparency comes from being humble. “Norrsken and Stockholm are a drop in the ocean,” she says. “We’re now dealing with global problems, so unless we’ve shifted our mindset to include each other in the solutions, the impact will only be a little splash. The only way to do this right is by collaborating.”

Read also: Imagining the post-coronavirus world: can we transform our habits for the better?

5. Trusting in people

Each day brings stories of people supporting each other in new ways amid the disruption to our usual relationships.

In Stockholm, the notions of equality, flexibility and shared responsibility run deep. This is apparent in progressive attitudes to work-life balance and flattish hierarchies that aim to give everyone a voice.

Photo: Helén Pe/Stockholm Media Bank

Sezgi sees the trust that helps give Stockholm its character as two-fold. “It means: ‘I trust you won’t harm me’ but also ‘I trust you’ll do a great job if you take this responsibility’,” she says. “Here, you have that deeper trust in people’s competence.”

The pandemic has shown we have the technology to enable many people to work more flexibly. Post-pandemic, will the world have the trust in people?

6. Visionary

Stockholm may not have the scale of London, New York or Shanghai. But the city of the Nobel Prize has vision and was the first to declare itself ‘A Woman’s Place’.

Norrsken Foundation ended 2019 by launching a €100 million social impact fund for early stage start-ups. Many issues it was designed for now seem even more urgent: poverty, food waste and mental health, for example.

Learn more about one of the most creative tech scenes in the world 

Norrsken and Action Against Corona ask big questions. “How do we use the superpowers of tech, innovation and entrepreneurship to find solutions to the problems that matter?” asks Sezgi.

This vision is further illuminated by an in-house motto: to seek to make themselves redundant. “That’s a value we live by in everything we do so that we can keep progressing,” she says. “We’re an ecosystem builder, connecting a network of actors on the same issue.”

A world in which problem-solvers gradually make themselves surplus to requirements? Now, there’s an ambitious vision.

This article was produced by The Local Creative Studio in partnership with Invest Stockholm

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READER INSIGHTS

How to find a job in Sweden: Five tips from those who’ve been there, done that

The Swedish job market poses unique challenges for newcomers. The Local's readers share their best tips for cracking the career code.

Published: 10 April 2024 11:32 CEST
Updated: 13 April 2024 15:50 CEST
How to find a job in Sweden: Five tips from those who've been there, done that

Network, network, network!

A statistic that often gets tossed around is that seven out of ten jobs in Sweden are obtained through personal connections, and there’s no doubt that a good network is crucial to your job hunt, making the labour market extra challenging for newcomers to the country.

In fact, networking was the main tip mentioned by The Local’s readers.

“The job market is quite hot in Sweden, and talent is in short supply. People hiring do not have a lot of time to find the right talent, and tips from friends, colleagues and former colleagues are the way to first, find out organisations are hiring, and secondly, get your CV on the short list,” said Kyle, a Canadian reader who works in innovation management in Gothenburg.

“If you are going for a major employer like Volvo, network gets you in the door, as HR does not have much to do with hiring… the hiring managers do all of it and have no time, due to the insane number of consensus meetings. If you are looking for smaller organisations, they have even less time to find people, and networking is their primary way to find talent,” he added.

NETWORKING IN SWEDEN:

Some of the networking tips readers mentioned were going to job fairs, getting an internship to help you establish connections in your preferred field, joining clubs (this could be anything from your local gardening association to meetups for coders, but focus on clubs that may be popular among people working in your chosen field), and drawing on your organic network of friends, neighbours and others.

Don’t neglect the groundwork

The saying “dress for the job you want, not the job you have” is getting worn out (and people may look at you funny if you turn up to interviews in a Batman suit), but there’s truth to the notion of making sure you know what you want – and preparing for it.

In other words, don’t wait for a job ad to appear before you start to customise your CV and figure out what skill set you need. Create your CV now so that you’re ready to tweak it to your dream job – you could even have a general look at job ads in your field to see what requirements are needed. And don’t forget to spruce up your LinkedIn profile so that it fits with your career goals.

“I believe that several factors contribute to successfully landing a desirable job in Sweden. It’s essential to prepare to meet the requirements beyond just having a university degree. Many individuals realise these requirements only after completing their studies when they start searching for a job, which can be too late,” said Adnan Aslam from Pakistan, who works as a food inspector.

“I recommend identifying the job advertisements for positions you aspire to hold in the future and then preparing for those requirements during your studies. For me, acquiring a basic level of proficiency in the Swedish language and obtaining a Swedish driving licence were crucial. I pursued these goals during my studies and was able to secure a desirable job before graduating,” he added.

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Felipe Cabral even has a GPT assistant trained on his own CVs and old cover letters, and said the set-up only takes ten minutes if you already have your documents. “With that in place, you can give instructions like: Read this job description and create a tailored version of my CV and letter for it. (…) Remember to always review and ask it not to create data aside from your documents.”

Be flexible and ready to adapt

Moving to a new place inevitably means having to learn not just the practicalities such as how to write a CV or which websites to use to look for job openings, but also learning how to navigate a new culture with all its unspoken expectations.

Swedish workplaces are generally less hierarchical than many other countries, but that doesn’t mean you can say whatever you want whenever you want without anyone raising an eyebrow. Swedes are usually direct, but be careful of being too abrasive or boastful: raising your voice, even during a spirited argument, or banging your own drum to show off your skills may not go down well.

“Talk, deliberate, complain like a Swede and you’ll come across like you know what the job entails, so your trustworthiness increases,” said an Indian data analyst who preferred to remain anonymous.

“Office politics are just as strong in Sweden as anywhere else. The flat hierarchy is deceiving as social hierarchy is enforced quite a bit in that lack of formal hierarchy. Take your time in learning these dynamics wherever you work before revealing your talent and capabilities. Expect those internal politics to happen, and they won’t hurt so much when they do,” said Kyle, the Canadian reader in Gothenburg.

This article about Swedish office politics may be useful.

Stay true to yourself

Adapting to your surroundings is one thing. Completely changing who you are is another.

For one thing, your happiness is as important as your career progression, and for another, your foreignness need not be an impediment: it’s also a skill that sets you apart from the rest. It means you have unique experience, and also, in the right setting, provides an opportunity to sometimes violate those social rules we mentioned above, because people assume you will, anyway.

“Trust is key. Build trust in your network, work with integrity. It’s OK to violate jantelagen if you are maintaining integrity. Sometimes your outsider and more honest/open opinion will burn bridges, especially those that may feel threatened by talent. But it will build trust with other colleagues who see it as brave and more trustworthy to work with,” said Kyle from Canada.

Hunker down for the long haul

We don’t want to scare you, because there are plenty of examples of people who quickly find their dream job in Sweden and settle into their new workplace, enjoying perks such as long summer holidays, generous parental leave and the famous work-life balance.

But if you do find it tougher than you expected: know that you’re not alone.

Several readers who responded to the survey said they were still trying to find a job in Sweden.

“I found jobs all over Europe but not here. They say they have a lack of experienced senior engineers but the don’t seem to be doing much to solve this,” said a Brazilian in Gothenburg.

A reader from Bangladesh said she was “at a loss” as to how to make a career change from her current AI role in Stockholm, despite many years of experience as an IT project manager.

“Over the past 18 months, I’ve submitted over 600 applications to various organisations. Unfortunately, despite being overqualified for some positions, I’ve faced rejections at every turn, from both large and small companies. The job market here, especially for foreign-born women, feels overwhelmingly challenging,” she said, adding that the struggle had impacted her mental health.

The Local has on several occasions reported on foreign residents’ struggle to get a foot on the Swedish job ladder, with many facing hurdles such as employers’ unfamiliarity with international degrees, discrimination, or a lack of network that can provide paths into a company.

So during the job hunt, don’t forget to care for yourself. Share your concerns with fellow job-seekers, ask for help and join networking groups – this is good not just for creating new contacts, but also in terms of your social well-being and meeting people who are in a similar situation.

And finally, as one British reader in Stockholm advised, keep looking: “Be open-minded with the opportunities that present themselves. It isn’t an easy market to enter and doesn’t feel inclusive.” But he added, “don’t give up”.

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