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Lebanese entrepreneur wins fight to stay in Sweden

A Lebanese pharma entrepreneur who faced deportation for lowering his own salary has won the right to stay in Sweden, following a long court battle.

Published: 31 March 2019 11:52 CEST
Updated: 1 April 2019 12:02 CEST
Lebanese entrepreneur wins fight to stay in Sweden
Hussein Ismail on the premises of Birka Biostorage in Lund. Photo: Anna Gisselsson.
Hussein Ismail came to Sweden from Lebanon in 2014 to take up the post of chief executive at Birka Biostorage, which he co-founded remotely in 2011 with his brother Ali Ismail. 
 
But at the start of 2018 the 33-year-old father-of-two was given four weeks to leave the country after Sweden's Migration Agency refused to renew his work permit.
 
The agency said it had rejected the renewal because Ismail had in 2015 paid him himself below the accepted union rate for two months, and below the minimum allowed for a work permit holder for one.  
 
“This is the best thing that we hoped for,” Ismail told The Local on Sunday. “Before the end of this one-year renewal, we will apply for permanent residency, and hopefully we will get that successfully and stay here for a longer time.” 
 
Ismail learnt on Tuesday that the Administration Court in Stockholm had ordered that he be given a one-year work permit, overturning the decisions of both the Migration Agency and the Migration Court of Appeal. 
 
His lawyer had argued that while he had had underpaid himself for three months in 2015, over the year as a whole his average monthly salary had remained above the accepted union rate. 
 
The Local reported on Ismail's situation soon after the permit was rejected in 2018.
 
Ismail said he believed that Swedish courts and government agencies were not easily influenced by reports in the media, as they generally followed procedure and regulations. But he said he believed media campaigns such as the current one against the expulsion of skilled workers and entrepreneurs could nevertheless “indirectly affect decision-makers”. 
 
He said the appeals process had been stressful, and had left him unable to travel abroad for fear of not being able to return to Sweden. 
 
“It was really hard for us personally to have to wait for this long,” he said. “My father-in-law was diagnosed with cancer, and a few months later he passed away. We never got the chance to meet him to say goodbye, and he couldn't see his grandchildren.” 
 
Ismail said Birka Biostorage was about to expand five-fold, and would shortly apply for its new facilities at Science Village in Lund to be inspected by Sweden's Medical Products Agency.
 
“Of course there will be more recruitment in terms of creating new jobs and hopefully we will be recognized globally within our industry.” 

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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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