cleaning job as a green card

Hi,
I m in IT profession nd planning to get GC. hw is job market thr ? is it almost impossible ? wt r challenges to get IT job thr ?

same question !!

Hi,

I don't think the market is too bad for IT, since it is still in the positive list (http://www.nyidanmark.dk/en-us/coming_t … erview.htm)

But independent of what the market requirements are there are common challenges to get a job outside of your own country and one should consider them before attempting any job application, these are mainly :

1) Education
2) Relevant experience (Salary you are asking must be somehow applied to job market)
3) Ability to adapt or accept a completely new culture
4) Patience (Most important part, you will need to wait, and it could take months)
5) Networking (Don't underestimate this one it can be extremely helpful, build your network as you get in a new country)

And don't know about taking other kind of job, but assuming you are a qualified I.T professional, in my opinion going for anything else than your domain might compromise any future job opportunities, if you settle for easy.

I will give one example of a friend that waited for nearly 8 month before getting a job, but now he is working in a really great company and very happy about it.

These are personal opinions and suggestion that I would use, if I were in a green card scheme.

Hope it makes some sense and helps in some way.

JF

I wish I could even find a cleaning job here (this comes from an American attorney who relocated here under the Greencard scheme).  Of course, I've only been here a week.  But from all appearances there are many cleaning jobs which require Danish fluency.  Very disheartening.  Yes, I'm studying the language,  but really, why is the ability to speak Danish a job requirement for a toilet-cleaning job???

By the way, in response to the question posed by Zilhaka1.  Yes, you can take any job, even a cleaning job, if you are here with a greencard.  Under the *current* rules, any employment will count towards the renewal requirements. 

However, the Copenhagen Post reported on April 19 in the article entitled 'Government proposes international recruitment reforms' that:

"It is proposed that the green card scheme become more stringent to ensure that incoming labour increasingly compliments job market demands.

"“Many of the people who are in Denmark via a green card today work in industries that are considered unskilled and the government will focus the initiative so that the incoming labour increasingly compliments the companies' need for qualified labour,” according to the proposals.

"The permit’s longevity would be shortened, the language competency requirements tightened and more stringent criteria applied for being granted an extension."

My advice to you (in light of the reporting in the Copenhagen Post) is to take any job you possibly can get and then focus on learning Danish, and as soon as you can communicate at a basic level in Danish, keep applying for every IT job for which you are even remotely qualified.  I am thrilled that, in the time between my post above and this post, I appear to have obtained a cleaning position.  Before I came here I learned to read and write a little bit of Danish, and every day I've been here I've worked on learning at least a couple new words.  As soon as I get my working hours squared away, I'll be enrolling in the Danish language courses.

I was an attorney in the US, but my earlier undergraduate level education also qualified me to work as a social worker or as a teacher.  As soon as I can communicate in Danish those are the positions I'll be applying for. 

Keep in mind both the current state of affairs, and the proposed changes.  Keep working on the Danish language, We foreigners all need to encourage one another.

Best regards,

Andrea

Hi Andrea,

Welcome to Denmark. I can understand your feeling towards the lack of jobs for green card scheme. But I still think that there is quite a lot of jobs for foreigners not speaking danish. I have now been here for 1 year and have made many acquaintances and friends with mostly foreigners here in Denmark. Some have been here for many years and of course they can communicate in Danish, but in their work environment they mostly speak English. There are so many international companies in Denmark and even though I am not in you field of expertise, I find it difficult to understand that you would go for a different job field instead of focusing in finding the "right job" for you. This might  take time but you must have investigated about the job market before coming to a new country.

I strongly believe that the job market is not to strict if you have the proper experience and attitude.

And if you read my previous post networking among expats like you can potentially lead to opportunities.

JF

Hi JF,

My husband and I came here knowing that at least I would need to take any job I can until I learn enough Danish to work as a teacher or social worker.  He's got a PhD in geography from the University of Wisconsin with a lot of university-level teaching experience so there are lots of jobs that he is qualified for (and is applying for right now).  But with my fields of expertise, I need to learn Danish in order to obtain a professional job in the area that I want.  So for now, it's cleaning work or restaurant work.  Yes, I did investigate the job market before I came and I was aware that I wouldn't be starting off at a professional level, but in the past few days there haven't been many cleaning jobs posted for which knowing Danish isn't a prerequisite.  At least I do have an interview for cleaning hotel rooms tomorrow, which is good.

My husband and I didn't come here because we needed jobs (we had good jobs back home).  We came here because Denmark is civilized, safe, values children, values education, etc.  Denmark's per capita homicide rate is about a fifth of the US's per capita homicide rate.  Denmark's forcible sexual assault rate is somewhere between a fourth to a fifth of the US's per capita forcible sexual assault rate.  Denmark, unlike the US, has no national debt.  Denmark, unlike the US, doesn't require university students to take out huge student loans just for tuition.  We're here for the sake of our two children.

My plan is to take a cleaning job, take advantage of the free Danish language courses, and as soon as I am reasonably fluent, apply for any social worker or teaching position.for which I am remotely qualified.  And then after that I'll eventually do my Danish LLM which will only take me a year because a number of my credits from my American juris doctor will transfer over here.  I practiced law for too many years in the US for me to just give it up completely.

It'll be a long slog for me, I know, but in the long run it will be worth it.  Today I had the opportunity to practice speaking some basic Danish with some very nice ladies who volunteer at one of the kirkens genbrug stores and they were very helpful.  I'm looking forward to getting my employment situation resolved so that I know what my work hours will be, and then I can sign up for the formal Danish lessons.

Best regards,

Andrea

Hi Jean,

You mentioned in one of your posts to network with other expats - would you be able to point me in the direction of networking with other engineers?

Thank you in advance!

Rebecca