(3) Career development glass ceiling

In addition to unequal opportunities to find jobs due to employers' strong preference for native people, many interviewees also mentioned that they were concerned about their career development in Finland, since they already see the career development glass ceiling if they plan to remain in Finland. For many PhDs who are conducting research in Finland, the scarce chance for obtaining a permanent position is a huge disadvantage for their future career development. For instance, one interviewee said:

There are limitations for career development in Finland, since it is a small country with limited job opportunities. Many positions, you cannot make it unless you are a Finn. [ ... ] As you see, university professors are almost all Finns. Rarely any foreigner makes it to professor, no matter how good you are. Or even if you are a professor, you cannot make it to department head, dean, or university rector. The local societal structure already determined that those positions are only for Finns. And if you look at many Chinese's professions, they are obviously just low-level technical migrant workers, right? Rarely do they make it to the managerial level in Finnish companies. This is an invisible glass ceiling. For people with ambition, this is a huge set-back.

(Male, computer vision)

Another interviewee also expressed similar opinion:

For instance, one of the professors at the university once said to me that finding a tenure track position (after completing a doctorate) is likely to be exclusively reserved for Finns. Alternatively, he suggested selecting a post-doc position because for this option there are some organizations that can support non-Finnish applicants.

(Female, mechanical engineering)

In addition to career development glass ceiling, several doctoral student interviewees mentioned that there is lack of opportunity for them to develop their career during their studies. Since teaching skills are often required for finding jobs, their current host institutions do not open enough English-taught courses for them to teach. One interviewee said:

I tried many times to ask my faculty whether I could teach some courses, but I never got any opportunity to teach any course in the faculty. But the other Finnish doctoral researchers seemed to have no problem finding courses to teach.

(Female, medicine)
