LostInTheWoods

I have been working from home now for the last two and a half years, and it terms of mixing with Swedes and integrating with the society in which I have chosen to live, that was the worst thing I could do. But when people offer you work, it is hard to turn down.

So anyway, in the meantime, I have been doing things like posting my CV on Swedish job agency websites on a regular basis, and applying online for jobs, Over the past year, I guess I have applied for about fifty. A reasonable effort I would say, but I have not had a single interview. Until a couple of weeks ago....

I was putting some shopping in the car, and my mobile rings. Sounds ordinary doesn't it, but my mobile NEVER rings. It always gives me the willies when it does ring, good news never comes from an infrequently ringing phone. Anyway I had to get my brain in gear as it was a woman from an agency who had stumbled across my CV and she was asking me lots of tricky questions in Swedish. She was saying that she had a job for me that I may be interested in, “..er OK” I said trying to close the close the boot of the car with my chin.

She asked me down to meet with her in Gothenburg, which I duly did, which involved mainly padding out my CV and discussing “what kind of person am I”. It seems she was keen to get me to an interview at the company. So we agreed a date/time over the phone, apart from the oddness that Job Agency Lady (let's call her ”Jal”) was going to go to the interview with me, I really didn't think any more about it.

First thing, on Monday, I drove down to Gothunberg, it takes about an hour and a quarter, for a stress filled day in a real city. Got to the general location of the job agency, no parking places. Tried to phone Jal on her office and mobile, nothing. Great start. Drove to some multi story parking and the mobile rings. Jal tells me to meet her outside and I will follow her in her car. Originally I was going to ride with her in her car, which would have been a lot less stressful than following an ordinary looking Swedish car (a Saab) through a city full of Saabs.

We arrived at the my potential employers' premises without Jal losing her self-imposed tail (me). I shook lots of hands and we sat in a reception area, which turned out to be the precise location of the interview. Jal knew the level of my Swedish, and suggested that we did the interview, half in Swedish, and half in English. The boss suggested we start in Swedish... which tends to mean in my experience that that was the language of choice, and I'll be lucky to hear any English at all. And so it was. But, people nodded at my poorly constructed answers, they didn't laugh at my awful grammar, they seemed to understand what I was saying, even though I could hear mistakes after I said them.

The interview seemed to be over, and the boss showed me around the company, and soon Jal had to go and pick up her young child from day care, so I was left alone, just the boss and me. We discussed what the business did, a little more of my experience, and I think I was offered the job. The offer was lost a little in translation, I though I was being asked what I felt about the company, but what I was really being asked was how would I feel about working there. Well, I kept nodding and smiling, so I got the job.

I don't start for another month, but I am really excited. I have done what none of my peers have done, work for a non-UK company, outside of the UK full time, and I did the interview in a second language. On the way home I was way proud of myself.

I am doubly proud of myself, as often the first job an immigrant secures, is often a low skilled position, even if they have skills and a good education, getting an interview without having fluency is really difficult.

I start in a month, so I have time to learn what I said I knew on my CV.

Joke.

That is all.

LostInTheWoods