Job search in different countries

When you are on the job-hunt, there are rules you need to follow which are dictated by the culture you are in. If you are in a foreign country, talk to the locals. That was how I discovered that you have to wear a suit for a job-interview in the UK. My housemate at the time even advised me to tuck the shirt in my trousers, which would not have occurred to me at all. In Denmark I have attended interviews in jeans and gotten the job.

Another tricky part is the CV. In Germany it should be in chronological order and must include a picture - preferably a professional looking portrait and not a snap of you drunk taken with a phone cam.
In the UK it often starts with a little summary; then follows 'key skills and abilities', 'career history', 'education', and 'other information'. The summary is very important because if it isn't relevant and interesting, it will be the only thing the HR person ever reads before they hit the reject button. Your key argument as to what makes you right for the job must be in there.

In Denmark the preferred layout seems to very much depend on who is reading it. The main thing is to make sure the most relevant skills stand out by putting them early in the document. In recent years I have been told employers like to read which personality type a possible employee is. There are loads of online tests to establish this, however look at the type of job you are going for bef0re you include this. It is more relevant in HR, marketing, consultancy and communication than in medical research and other natural science or maths based areas.

References is also an area where there are differences between Denmark and the UK. In Denmark you ask your employer for a letter of recommendation (anbefaling) and they will write something about how you work, sign it and give it to you. You can then give it to future employers who may contact your previous boss for more information - they will usually only do so if it is a high level position.

In the UK you usually give contact details of you previous employer and the focus seems to be more on checking if you did actually work there and how many sick days you had. They are not allowed to give you a bad reference but you usually won't know what they say or if they even make the call.

These are all my experiences and some things change constantly - I wouldn't say one way is better than the other. The reasons for the differences are culturally rooted guided by the facts that both English, Danish and German employers wants to find the best candidate and have to abide by the rules of the country they operate in.

Please, thank you and the peculiar use of the word 'sorry'

When I was learning English in a Danish school, I was taught to say 'yes please' and 'no thanks' rather than simply 'yes' and 'no'. It is important to be polite in English and especially the word 'please' poses a challenge, as it does not exist in the Danish language.

Visiting London with my parents, I noticed people constantly saying 'sorry'. That seemed very strange to me. If you nearly walk into someone or gets in their way, the English would usually say 'sorry' - even if they are not!. If I accidentally stepped on someone's toes on the tube, they would say sorry to me. Danish people do not apologise unless there is a very bad thing we can be held personally accountable for. Saying 'undskyld' or 'beklager' ('sorry') makes a Dane appear weak and that is the last thing we want to.

My parents taught me always to give the answer 'fine' to the question 'how are you?'. That seemed very akward to me because I was used to only being asked that question by people who wanted to start a conversation. I felt it was rude to give such a short answer, but to my surprise the English speaking people didn't seem to mind my rudeness.

Despite the fact that the Danes may appear to be more direct and have fewer politeness rituals, we are not necessarily a rude people. We thank each other for any time spent together ('tak for sidst''); welcome each other to and say thanks for a meal ('Værsgo' and 'tak for mad'): and we say: "can I ask for?" ('Må jeg bede om') if we want to be polite. However, if you ever step on someone's toes in Copenhagen, you are more likely to be told of than to hear the word 'undskyld'.

Venstre, the Danish Liberal Party?

Trying to answer questions about the former Danish PM who is now to be General Secretary of NATO, I have some explaining to do. Say a native English speaker looks up his name 'Anders Fogh Rasmussen' in Wikipedia. They will find this sentence in the introduction: "He was the leader of the Liberal Party (Venstre), and headed a centre-right coalition of his Liberal Party". The confusion starts. How can he be 'centre-right' and 'liberal' at the same time? In English 'liberals' are to the left of the center. But in Danish a 'liberal' politician is someone who prefers an policy based on the free market and as little control by the state as possible. Not quite the same. 

The fact that the name of the party 'Venstre' means 'Left' only adds to the misperception, that they are in fact liberals. The name, however is from the time when Denmark only had two parties; one for the farmers (Venstre) and one for the upperclass (Højre). The latter became 'the Conservative People's' in 1915, but even as more parties came in from the left - including the Social Democrats in 1871 - the original farmers party kept their name 'Venstre'.

So the bottomline is that the new General Secretary of Nato is a lot more of a capitalist than the term 'liberal' indicate. 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/7968237.stm