After almost 5 years away from Sweden, I can’t stand it anymore! I want to find a job in Sweden. I’m ready to fika, take my shoes off at work, pay high taxes, and get 5 weeks paid vacation. Not only that, I’d love to go back to school and get my master’s. If I live and work in Sweden, then going back to school won’t cost what it does here.
So time to dust off my CV and start looking for who could utilize my skills in Sweden. Besides having a good CV that reflects your work, and the ability to write cover letters that stand out, one thing that helps when looking for a job is to applying to them.
I’m the type to apply to more than less and aim to get an interview to find out more about the position, the company, and what life would look like working there. Which comes down to the important stuff. Where exactly does one look to find a job in Sweden?
Arbetsförmedlingen
The Arbetsförmedlingen is the Swedish Employment Service. While you can’t sign up to get the all the awesome Swedish services that are available without a Swedish ID and other information to verify you are who you are, you can look for jobs.
Not only that, they also offer tons of information for English speakers who are looking for a job in Sweden. They also are soon offering a webinar in English on how to write a cover letter and CV (resume for Americans) on April 18th. Sign up here.
Indeed
I’ve had great success with Indeed as an employer looking to hire, so I was surprised that there was a Swedish Indeed. I love it that you can set an email update for key words, so you don’t have to keep coming back to the site to see what is a good fit. So far I’ve gotten some very good leads from the email updates, one which has already lead to a Skype interview (fingers crossed for me y’all! – oh dear, I’ve written “y’all”. I’ve been in the southwest too long).
Important to note that the site is se.indeed.com. The .se site of “indeed” is something else, so don’t get confused!
LinkedIn is a social network that is specifically for business. It is by far one of the best places to find a job online (and most people interviewing you will look to see if you are on LinkedIn anyways. It is like your online CV or resume). I recommend everyone outside of high school who wants to get hired somewhere to go on LinkedIn (in the United States anyways).
LinkedIn has job postings, usually from larger employers or recruiting companies simply because there is a cost to post on LinkedIn. Therefore you most likely will need a higher education in order to get a job on LinkedIn. I have one and have yet to get an interview there there (lame!)
Use the location section to look for jobs in Sweden, or in a specific city in Sweden. You can even set up alerts, and LinkedIn usually offers 3 months of there premium service so you can stalk employers, see who looks at your profile, and follow up properly.
Ok, truthfully I haven’t used Twitter to look for a job yet (I’ve been busy looking elsewhere!), however even the Arbetsformedlingen recommends searching on twitter for jobs. I also have gotten in the newspaper a couple of times in Sweden just from being active on Twitter, so I know Sweden is a) on Twitter and b) uses it for networking.
Even now simply searching on Twitter I found some interesting jobs (not all from the same place but it may at first look like it if an account tweets a bunch at once).
If you are like me and you are ready to get to Sweden, getting a work visa is the next best thing to falling in love with a Swede. Dust off your CV, and start using these sites to search for jobs. You may get a lot of no’s, but remember, you can’t get a job if you don’t apply for it!
Any other sites that I’m missing folks? Otherwise let us know how your job hunt in Sweden is going!