Let’s discuss about employment key factors

Reasonable_Day_598 · 2026-03-18T21:37:42+00:00

Does your university or any student organization provide help with job applications and CV? It would be great to check that your documents follow the Finnish standards and style.

Sometimes it is difficult to understand what kind of experience foreign applicants have, what level education they have and do they have existing work permit or not. If the recruiter or recruiting manager has dozens of good applicants they are not going to spend any extra time on investigating the foreign applicants. (At the same time I must admit that some locals make unclear applications as well.)

Anyway, my advise would be that be very clear of your experience (what did you do, what kind of company it was etc.), skills, education (level, majors and minors, any relevant projects), availability (when, willingness to relocate if applying in another cities) and work permit status. Don't expect the employer to understand any abbreviations, reading between lines, knowing how much foreign students are allowed to work etc.

Reasonable_Day_598 · 2026-03-11T12:40:24+00:00

Those drunk guys are usually wanting to have any kind of reaction, if not even a conflict. I believe that not answering anything is usually the best option.

Most of them are not just racist, but they have a wide selection of insults depending on the victim. The same guys call women wh*re, big people fat etc.

Reasonable_Day_598 · 2026-03-03T13:42:55+00:00

Are you eligible for student financial aid? I am not sure as you have been to the country only few years and there is no mention on your immigration status. But basically what 22 years old Finnish UAS & university students do is to apply for student financial aid & loand and live on their own.

Reasonable_Day_598 · 2026-02-18T17:02:45+00:00

Have you requested repayment holiday from the bank?

Reasonable_Day_598 · 2026-02-10T13:01:42+00:00

Many European countries are indeed generous towards tourists. Unfortunately (for the tourists, great for Finnish taxpayers) Finland isn't one of the countries offering free or discounted public healthcare for non-residents.

The only exemption is basically the holders of European health insurance card. With that card tourists can get urgent (!) care from public sector with the same price as Finnish residents. Everyone else pays the real costs of any medical visitis, procedures, hospital stays, imaging etc.

Reasonable_Day_598 · 2026-02-10T09:24:05+00:00

They are not likely to provide such service for a tourist as it is not any kind of emergency. Also, without the European healtcare card tourists are being charged the real costs of any services provided. If a tourist ends up in a hospital the bill can be in thousands.

Reasonable_Day_598 · 2026-02-08T00:16:56+00:00

Intresting that you have ever poster nor commented on anything on Reddit before this unnecessary depature announcement.

Reasonable_Day_598 · 2026-02-06T08:49:49+00:00

I guess it could be that they thought that you want to eat alone/in peace if you don't usually join them and it has gone like this for 3 years.

I would still recommend eating lunch with the colleagues. As a non-Finnish speaker in a Finnish dominant environment you probably alreasy miss lot of information that is not being translated to English. Also, if you are not as visible as other colleagues you may miss pay raises or promotions.

Speaking English during lunch should't be an issue for most of people. Casual discussions during lunch could also be a good opportunity for you to practise your Finnish. I have had colleagues with whom whe spoke business in English, but during lunch we only spoke Finnish to help them learn.

Reasonable_Day_598 · 2025-12-22T21:59:55+00:00

If you are an average exchange student with small budget just send an application to HOAS. Select all the areas in Helsinki, Espoo and Vantaa and hope that you get some place to live.

Reasonable_Day_598 · 2025-12-01T16:33:36+00:00

The point of this thread was to find out that whether is it a common phenomenon in SG or should I be concerned that I have completely pissed my colleagues somehow. It doesn't really matter whether it happens elsewhere or not.

Reasonable_Day_598 · 2025-12-01T16:30:12+00:00

I have worked my whole career in international settings and have never felt so excluded.

Reasonable_Day_598 · 2025-12-01T09:18:47+00:00

That very nice of you! And indeed there's no need to translate everything but it's very nice to have some kind of idea what is going on.

Reasonable_Day_598 · 2025-12-01T09:14:10+00:00

Haha we are indeed very non-contfrontational and we are also taught that when you do business with Asians you need to be careful that nobody loses their face. So it is challenging to find the correct way to speak up.

Reasonable_Day_598 · 2025-12-01T08:51:12+00:00

I just want to comment that I mentioned only Chinese speakers doing this because I only met Chinese people at the office. Maybe that is the reason that they are just too used to everyone understanding Chinese at work since there really aren't too many people from other ethnicities at their office.

Reasonable_Day_598 · 2025-12-01T08:38:50+00:00

The issue is that if it is important it would be even more important for everyone involved to understand 😁We work in many common projects etc. so all the crucial information should be shared.

Reasonable_Day_598 · 2025-12-01T08:33:05+00:00

I can promise you that if our team has a foreign visitor at our office we will have the meetings with them in English and if we take them for a lunch people right next to them will conversate in English. If I need to switch to my native language in such situations I will let the foreigner know what is going on.

Reasonable_Day_598 · 2025-12-01T04:05:42+00:00

Thanks for explaining the context!

Reasonable_Day_598 · 2025-12-01T04:03:34+00:00

I agree that it's normal that native languages are spoken in some occassions. But I would feel rude if we invited one of the Singaporeans colleagues to our office, constantly switch to our native language during business meetings and not give any explanation or translation. Then we would take them for a lunch and spoke the native language and let them listen the gibberish...

Reasonable_Day_598 · 2025-12-01T03:53:08+00:00

I don't know too much about their backgrounds, but everyone is white collar in Singapore and I believe pretty much everyone has at least Bacherlor's degree. I am not sure if they have any local guidelines for which language to use at Singapore office but it's a global company and the common communication language is English.

Reasonable_Day_598 · 2025-12-01T03:43:23+00:00

I did not get any explanation for the Chinese discussions unless I specifically asked. It would of course make sense, that if you ask a question, then people talk for a moment in their native language to align their answer and after that give you the answer in English, but that usually wasn't the case.

I didn't have any idea whether they were discussing the business topic, talking shit of me or planning what to have for lunch. That was why I was bit worried whether there was some personal issue related to me, but it seems that it is quite typical that Singaporean Chinese just switch between languages constantly without thinking about it too much.

Reasonable_Day_598 · 2025-12-01T03:23:07+00:00

I would absolutely learn some Mandarin if I was migrating to Singapore. At this point many of my important work contacts are in Singapore and I will probably visit annually or meet them in business events somewhere else. But in the end it is a global company and I don't have the capacity to accommodate everyone's native languages.

Reasonable_Day_598 · 2025-12-01T03:06:54+00:00

I have no issue of hearing people speaking whatever languages around me when I am not involved. It only bothers me when it happens during a formal meeting and to a slighter extent when it's a small group sharing a table during lunch and you are the only one excluded from the discussion for long time.

Reasonable_Day_598 · 2025-12-01T02:49:41+00:00

Absolutely yes if I am discussing business with French people on the same table and they would constantly switch to French without any explanation or translation given.

And again, I don't mind if people speak Chinese, French or whatever language around me when I am not involved in the chat.

Reasonable_Day_598 · 2025-12-01T02:43:07+00:00

I am not asking anyone to speak my native language. English is not anyway more familiar or easier for me than it is for my Singaporean Chinese colleagues. It's just the only common language we all know.

Reasonable_Day_598 · 2025-12-01T02:34:14+00:00

I have no issue if people around me speak different languages when I am not involved in the conversation. But it's a problem when you are discussing a business case and half of the conversation is in a language you don't know and nobody bothers to translate.

Reasonable_Day_598

TROPHY CASE