(Male, signal processing)

Some interviewees aiming at an academic career expressed similar feelings of exclusion from opportunities in academia:

For instance, when they try to recruit people, and if you are more or less at the same level as other, Finnish applicants, who do you think they would recruit? Of course, a native Finn. If your Finnish is not good enough so that you can use it fluently to teach, then of course they would consider Finns, because most of their students are still Finnish students. Of course, the native people will have more advantage. [ ... ] Unless you have something extra to bring than the Finns, right? Unless you are really good at doing research. Otherwise why would they hire you and set up English-taught courses (instead of Finnish-taught courses) due to the fact that you are hired here.

(Female, mathematics)

Since it only recently changed from a country of emigration to immigration, preference and trust for hiring from the native population is quite common. Finnish and EU legislation also clearly stipulate that the member states' employers should first consider hiring local people, then EU citizens, and finally non-EU citizens if they are not able to find people of satisfactory qualification in the local job market [68]. It is also due to linguistic and cultural concern, because although people can speak English, communication would still be easier and more efficient in Finnish. Thus, unless the work environment strongly demands internationalization, many jobs will prioritize the hire of Finnish people. For instance, one interviewee said:

I submitted a lot of applications, but I rarely got any interviews, only one in a year. I went to the university careers service and they said my resumé was impeccable. I think, to be honest, even for technical jobs, they would still prefer to hire natives to work in Finnish. Because if they speak the same language, the work efficiency will be much higher. That is why even if your resumé is so outstanding, your project experience is richer, and your grades are good, they would still not hire you, and finding a job depends purely on luck. If their team are not all Finnish, if they have one foreigner and they begin to work in English, then they wouldn't mind hiring another one.

(Male, computer science)
