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PRESENTED BY INVEST STOCKHOLM

International living: how to find local knowledge and support

Whether you’ve already moved internationally, you’re busy planning a move, or you’re simply imagining a whole new life, one thing remains the same: the need to tap into local knowledge.

Published: 4 April 2021 12:00 CEST
International living: how to find local knowledge and support
Photo: Getty Images

You probably have some clear ideas about any country or city you’re willing to make your new home. But how do they compare with day-to-day reality once you’re there for good?

As readers of The Local know, getting insider knowledge from people who really know the location can make a huge difference to your quality of life. Here, we look at how you can take crucial steps towards integration in three areas: lifestyle, family, and the challenges of bureaucracy.

Learn to live like a local 

After arriving in your new home country, it takes time to shake off the sense of being a tourist rather than a true resident. But how can you start to feel at home quicker?

Beginning to adopt local lifestyle habits may help. But is eating dinner later in Spain or making punctuality a top priority at all times in Germany really enough? It can also help to get inside knowledge of a city’s best-kept secrets – the places where savvy locals spend their time and the ‘life hacks’ that save them time and trouble.

The pandemic has made it more challenging than ever to make friends with locals who might help you out in this regard. But it’s worth checking the online resources your city offers to help you find your feet.

People settling in Stockholm, for example, can benefit from a huge range of insights from local residents, now hosted on one website. Tips include top picks for food and drink, outdoor workout routes (much-loved by the locals), and places in the city where you can de-stress with mindfulness.

Insider knowledge: get top tips about living and working in Stockholm from the locals who know the city best 

Feel you’re missing out on the cultural highlights of your new location? If you’re in a major city, you’ll probably find many exhibitions are now available online. Big names such as Paris’s Pompidou Centre and the Tate galleries in London offer an array of options for digital consumption.

Learning the local language can help you and your partner adjust quicker in any country. Have a look for state-sponsored language classes near you, like Sweden’s free, national Swedish for Immigrants (SFI) course.

Key steps to family fulfillment 

People who make an international move to be with a spouse or partner who has a job offer face unique challenges to settling in. A new country and lots of free time may offer opportunities for exploring new interests or reviving old ones. It can also lead, however, to feelings of being unfulfilled and may damage the individual’s self-esteem.

But today many business organisations, cities and even private companies offer spousal support programmes. Some offer tours of businesses and cultural attractions to help relocated workers and their partners integrate more quickly and develop local networks.

The International Dual Career Network (IDCN) is an association of international organisations and corporations that supports the partners of people who move for work. It focuses on providing guidance and professional networking opportunities, including via events and webinars. IDCN has networks in 14 global locations, including nine in Europe.

Photo: Getty Images

Many countries and cities have similar services: these include Switzerland’s Spouse Career Centre and Dual Career Network Berlin.

In Sweden, the non-profit Stockholm Dual Career Network supports the partners and spouses of international talent who are looking for work. Members have praised SDCN for helping them to find a social life, as well as a “social expectation” in Stockholm that everyone should enjoy quality, family time. 

As an international talent and tech hub, Stockholm is always seeking to attract skilled and creative people from around the world – from robotics engineers to fashion designers. Perks of living in Stockholm that many international people appreciate include a strong focus on work/life balance, generous parental leave, and large expanses of unspoilt nature to explore.

Find out more about Stockholm’s family-friendly credentials

Bureaucracy: go digital (if you can!)

Finding fun ways to adjust to a new lifestyle and helping loved ones to thrive are a big part of making a successful move. But ensuring your international relocation runs smoothly also means facing up to the inevitable bureaucratic side of things. 

Should this fill you with dread? Well, perhaps a little less than in the past (depending on where you’re headed!). Amid an international battle for talent, many cities are harnessing digitalisation to speed up administrative processes. According to the European Commission, the quality and usage of digital public services was increasing even pre-pandemic. In the EU, Estonia ranks top in this regard followed by Spain, while the likes of Italy and Germany languish below the EU average.

Sweden is one of the leading EU nations for digital performance as a whole, ranking second only to Finland. The Mayor of Stockholm recently told The Local that the capital city is now planning a “one-stop shop” International House that she hopes will make it possible to get a digital work permit in 15 minutes. As international people everywhere know, when it comes to making yourself feel at home, some things can’t come fast enough.

Want to know more about Stockholm? Click here to read more about the city’s appeal to global talent. 

 
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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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