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Swedish words to avoid when seeking a job

Are you looking for a job in Sweden but having trouble with your CV? Here are the Swedish words you should avoid, courtesy of LinkedIn's annual list of "overrated" buzzwords.

Published: 24 March 2014 08:34 CET
Swedish words to avoid when seeking a job
A recruiter's worst nightmare? File photo: Ryan Hyde/Flickr

The professional networking site LinkedIn annually publishes its tally of terms that pop up (too) frequently in its user profiles.

"Creative" grabbed the top spot for the past two years in a row, but a new word had sailed up to first place in 2014.

For any readers who ever spent time watching the low-budget, high-laughs television series Red Dwarf, you may want to recall that episode where Lister complains about what qualities women look for in men… "Reliable, sensible, dependable, and lots of other words that end in "ible". But it seems to be the reverse when it comes to what recruiters want from jobseekers…

Yes, ladies and gents, LinkedIn crowned one of the so-called "ible" words king last year.

RESPONSIBLE

There were other over-rated buzzwords on the LinkedIn list… Let's go through them in Swedish, shall we:

Responsible – Writing Jag hade ansvar or jag tog ansvar, or even using the adjective to describe yourself as ansvarsfull. Taking responsibility may be more active than simply having it, but neither of these sentences nor the description means much. Use examples, the LinkedIn experts counselled.

Strategic – This one is easy: Strategisk… but what does it mean? Strategy when playing the board game Risk means putting your plastic armies all over China, but at work? Does it mean drawing up a game plan? Writing lists? Ticking boxes? As a recruiter, you'd be fully in your right to scratch your head at this one.

Effective – also easy: Effektiv. Well, you'd hope so if you think you're competent enough to apply for a job here.

Patient – Tålmodig. Is this a covert way for the job seeker to say he or she isn't a psycho when bored at work? Or that they will bide their time and wait until the boss dies of old age before they move up a rung?

Expert – Also easy, expert or, so much worse, "innehar expertis", which makes it sound like the job seeker has swallowed a bit of expertise by mistake, or it's gestating inside them like a small alien. Also, it beggars the question, expert at what exactly apart from writing bland CVs?

Organized – organisatorisk or organiserad…. scouring CVs, the recruiter may also share this apparently much-touted trait… oh the joys of being organized. You as a recruiter might just be working your way through applicants' CVs either in the order they dropped into your mailbox, or you may have printed them out, and now you're going through the applications one by one, not randomly, not scattered on the floor, not upside down…

Driven – Målinriktad… again, that's great, but what does it mean? Was the applicant's goal to fika twice a day rather than the obligatory once? (And, as an interesting anthropological side note – did they succeed?) Or did it mean they set their sights on badgering poor Inga in accounts until she went for a date with said job seeker? Including that word in a CV has just driven the recruiter to toss it on the discard pile.

Innovative – Nyskapande…. ok, this at least feels a bit fresh. If I hire you then you'll come up with ideas… but what ideas? What will you do for me and my company? Or at least tell me what you did for your former/current employer.

Analytical – Analytisk. While LinkedIn concluded its list with this word, it may be less watered down than the rest. A recruiter would possibly imagine a furloughed brow and some tortoise-shell eyeglasses, maybe even a bow tie or corduroy trousers. A bit Sherlock…

Which brings us to the final point. The good people at LinkedIn illustrate the beauty of the above list. If you were to write the exact opposite of the words above, your non-employability would be clear to anyone, not just Sherlock Holmes.

Irresponsible – Oansvarig 
Unstrategic – Ostrategist 
Uncreative – Okreativ
Impatient – Otåligt 
Inexpert – Okunnig 
Disorganized – Desorganisatorisk (?) 
Unmotivated – Slö 
Uninnovative – Oinnovativ 
Unanalytical – Oanalytisk 

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WORKING IN SWEDEN

‘Reassess your cultural background’: Key tips for foreign job hunters in Sweden

Many foreigners living in Sweden want to stay in the country but struggle to find a job, despite having relevant qualifications. The Local spoke to three experts for their advice.

Published: 7 May 2024 09:00 CEST
'Reassess your cultural background': Key tips for foreign job hunters in Sweden

One international worker who found it hard to land her first job in Sweden is Amanda Herzog, who eventually founded Intertalents in Sweden with the aim of helping other immigrants find work in the country.

Herzog originally came to Sweden to study at Jönköping University and decided to stay after graduating.

“I thought it would take three months, maybe six months to find a job, I was prepared for that,” she told The Local during a live recording of our Sweden in Focus podcast held as part of Talent Talks, an afternoon of discussions at the Stockholm Business Region offices on how to attract and retain foreign workers in Sweden.

“What happened was it took over 13 months and 800 applications to actually get a job in my industry, within marketing.”

During this time, Herzog was getting multiple interviews a month, but was not getting any further in the process, despite showing her CV to Swedish recruiters for feedback.

“They were baffled as well,” she said. “By the time I landed my dream job, I had to go outside of the typical advice and experiment, and figure out how I actually can get hired. By the time I got hired, I realised what actually works isn’t really being taught.”

‘Reassess your cultural background’

Often, those who come to Herzog for help have sent out hundreds of CVs and are unsure what their next steps should be.

“My first piece of advice is to stop for a second,” she said. “Reassess your cultural background and how it fits into Sweden.”

Herzog, for example, discovered she was interviewing in “the American way”.

In the US, when asked to tell an interviewer about yourself, you’d be expected to discuss your career history – how many people have you managed? Did sales improve while you were working there? – while Swedes are more likely to want to know about you as a person and why you want to work in a specific role for their company in particular.

“A lot of people don’t know this, so imagine all of the other cultural things that they’re doing differently that they learned in their country is normal,” Herzog adds.

“Just start with learning, because it could be that you don’t need to change very much, you are qualified, you just need to connect with the Swedish way of doing things.”

 
 
 
 
 
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Networking is important

“Don’t hesitate to reach out for help and guidance,” said Laureline Vallée, an environmental engineer from France who recently found a job in Sweden after moving here nine months ago with her partner, who got a job as a postdoc at KTH Royal Institute of Technology.

“You tend to insulate yourself and consider yourself not capable, but you’re not less capable than you were in your home country, you just need to explain it to the employers.”

Another tip is to network as much as you can, Vallée said.

“Networking is really important here in Sweden, so just go for it, connect with people in the same field.”

This could be through networks like Stockholm Akademiska Forum’s Dual Career Network, which helps the accompanying partners or spouses of foreign workers find a job in Sweden, or through other connections, like neighbours, friends, or people you meet through hobbies, for example.

Make a clear profile for yourself

Another common issue is that applicants are not presenting themselves clearly to recruiters, Stockholm Akademiska Forum’s CEO, Maria Fogelström Kylberg, told The Local.

“If you’re sending 600 applications without an answer, something is wrong. We have seen many people looking for jobs working in a supermarket, and the next application is a managing director post,” she said. “You have to decide ‘who am I? What do I want to do?’, you have to profile yourself in a clear way.”

This could be editing down your CV so you’re not rejected for being overqualified, or just thinking more closely about how you present yourself to a prospective employer.

“Which of my skills are transferable? How can I be of use to this company? Not what they can do for me, but what problem can I solve with my competence?”

Job hunters should also not be afraid of applying for a job which lists Swedish as a requirement in the job description, Fogelström Kylberg said.

“Sometimes if I see an ad for a job and I have a perfect candidate in front of me, I call the company and say ‘I have a perfect candidate, but you need them to speak Swedish’, they then say ‘no, that’s not so important’. This is not so unusual at all so don’t be afraid of calling them to say ‘do I really need perfect Swedish?’”

Listen to the full interview with Maria Fogelström Kylberg, Amanda Herzog and Laureline Vallée in The Local’s Sweden in Focus Extra podcast for Membership+ subscribers.

Interview by Paul O’Mahony, article by Becky Waterton

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