Putting together your Danish Resumé: How to Work in Denmark Audiobook Chapter 3

Chapter 3, Putting Together Your Danish CV. I've applied for jobs in Denmark, and I've been hired. I've also been the person doing the hiring and sorting through applications. Here's the truth. It's really no fun on either side. On the applicant side, you can feel like a beggar, desperate for someone to recognize and reward your talent. It wears on your confidence, in particular in a long hiring process, which is common in Denmark, even for Danes. On the hiring side, you're facing a huge stack of applications, mostly from people who know nothing about the company, nothing about the job, and are sending you a standardized letter or CV that doesn't reveal anything about why they're a good fit. For example, when I was hiring for a copyediting position at a financial company in Copenhagen, I got a letter from a woman who was a display artist at IKEA. She put together the sofas and the pillows to give the imitation living rooms a chic and homey atmosphere. It's noble work, but it had absolutely nothing to do with the job we'd advertised, and she'd given no indication of how her skills would transfer. So that application got trashed, and so will yours if you don't take the time to explain why you're the right person to work at this particular company in that particular job. It's not really the employer's role to look through your CV, or resume as North Americans say, and imagine how you might fit with the position on offer. It's your role to show why you're right for the position and how you can start adding value right away. That's why I recommend having a Danish CV that highlights the projects you've worked on and how your contributions to those projects relate to the job you want. For example, an acquaintance of mine who was applying for an administrator job had a degree in Elizabethan literature, but she'd also spent several years as a volunteer event planner at her son's school. Even though it was unpaid, the second role had more relevance to the job she wanted, since it involved scheduling, budgets, dealing with suppliers, and juggling a wide variety of stakeholders and egos. I encouraged her to go into detail about this organizational experience on her CV. Unless you have a long and complex career, your Danish CV shouldn't be more than 1 or 2 pages. And the most exciting information should be on the first page, where an already overwhelmed hiring manager can easily find it. Personally, I rarely read past the first page, in particular when office job applicants used the later pages to go into detail about restaurant and babysitting jobs they'd held decades ago. Keeping things short means you have to decide which aspects of your experience to emphasize. It can be a bitter pill to swallow that the things you are most proud of may not be the things Danish employers care about. Titles and grades and exam results— unless they're required for the job, as they are for accountants, architects, engineers— these are not a golden ticket to employment in Denmark, even if you've attended an excellent school. That's why it's so important to explain exactly what you did at each of your jobs. And how you can do that and more for a new employer. Most Danish employers are looking for someone who is plug-and-play, someone who can do the job on their first day at work and be a good social fit on the team. Social fit is another thing that Danish employers worry about when hiring internationals. As much as they need international skills, in particular in the technical industries, And as much as they want to see themselves as culturally relaxed and open, most Danes grew up in a monoculture where there is a certain Danish way of doing things, and they worry that you may not know what that is. Make no mistake, if asked to choose between a technically excellent employee who won't fit into the team and a less gifted employee who will, Danish hiring managers will choose the second employee every time. Teamwork and group work are extraordinarily important in Danish society. I mean, if you're not Danish, you don't have to pretend that you are, but showing your openness to Danish culture and the Danish way of doing things will be a point in your favor. For example, indicate how far you've come in your Danish language classes, or at the very least that you're studying Danish online with a program like Duolingo. If you've been living in Denmark for a while and have been involved with a sports club such as a running club or a football club, Or community activities, like a parent board at your child's kindergarten. Make sure to add that to your CV too. If you're entirely new to Denmark, read up on it and be ready to talk about why you might want to work in Denmark, as opposed to anyplace else on the globe. A little humor here is okay. The Danes know that they have terrible weather, and that you will probably be taking a step down in the sunny days per year department. If you come from any place but Britain. A Danish CV generally includes a photo, although one is not required. I've noticed that people from cultures in which work is a serious business tend to choose photos in which they are grim, unsmiling, and wearing their most formal work clothing, a bit like a passport photo. This is the wrong approach for Denmark. Your Danish CV photo which can also be your LinkedIn photo, should show you smiling slightly, as if you don't take yourself too seriously, an admired trait in Denmark. You should look as if you'd be a pleasant person to share a coffee break with. Invest in a good photo. In an era where nearly everyone has a smartphone, there is no excuse for a badly lit or blurry photo, or one in which you're wearing wedding attire. Hire a pro if you can, or do a quick modeling session on a sunny day with a friend as a photographer. Alternatively, you can choose a photo that shows you on the job, like a surveyor on a construction site wearing a hard hat, or a nurse in a hospital setting. About your name. Your name is something to be proud of. It reflects your identity and your culture. There's also a good chance that Danes won't know how to pronounce it. I'm called Kate very often, although my name is Kay. Well, now a wonderful feature on LinkedIn allows you to make a short recording that demonstrates the correct pronunciation of your name. Alternatively, consider using your initials or coming up with a nickname that the Danes can handle. Having something short and pronounceable is especially useful when calling on the telephone. For example, my advice to a Lithuanian job applicant named Ovidijus— hope I got that right, Lithuanians— was that on the telephone he should be Ove. Ove has the extra advantage of being an actual Danish name, although an old-fashioned one. Some Chinese speakers coming to Denmark choose a Danish nickname for their time here, much as Westerners choose Chinese names when doing business in China. You don't have to do this, although it's certainly an attention-getter to see a Danish name like Mette Or Maunas, in the middle of a given name and surname that is clearly African or Pakistani. At any rate, if you've provided some assistance to the Danes in pronouncing your name, you've removed one small hurdle to your advancement in the Danish job market. It goes without saying that your CV should be in flawless English. You want the employer to focus on your excellent skill set, Not that you failed to capitalize the name of your university, or that you've typed 3 mysterious commas in a row. Comma, comma, comma. I've seen both of these mistakes, and many, many more, on the resumes of disappointed job seekers. Get a pro to check your CV before sending it out. Online services like Fiverr.com and Upwork.com have plenty of people ready to do this for a relatively small investment.