The funny thing about job interviews in Denmark (at least the ones conducted in English) is how quickly 4-letter-words make their appearance. When I went to my first interview, I was shocked to hear the F word and S word pretty much within the first 15 minutes. I’m not sure the Danes realize how frowned upon this would be in the UK or US – there’s very little tolerance for that in business meetings, let alone job interviews (unless you represent the side that’s about to buy a product or service for a lot of money, in which case you can get away with anything).
But the informality of job interviews in Denmark is the last thing that bothers me about the Danish job market. In fact I quite like it. Let me tell you what does bother me about the job market here – that it’s not really a market. You see, a market (in my book) is a place where you have buyers and sellers, supply and demand, with near-perfect information flowing between both sides and plenty of opportunities (public marketplaces) with equal access to all, allowing the buyers and sellers to transact freely and efficiently, using relevant considerations for achieving the best deals. Yes, I realize this is not the Macro-economics textbook definition, but I’m pretty sure it’s not that far off.
The problem in Denmark, in my opinion, is that there’s no good information flow, no efficient marketplaces with equal access, and no relevant considerations for achieving the best deals. And I’m not just talking about the job market – I’m also talking about the real estate market (at least the one I know – for rentals). In both these markets I find that you can’t just go to an online marketplace (job-site or property-site), or an agent (recruiter or real-estate agent). They exist, but are not effective. No, in this country you need to know someone who knows someone who knows about an available job/flat.
What I expected to find in Copenhagen was what I had in New York and London: a job market that’s open to all, irrespective of how your name sounds, where you come from, or who you know, where the only thing that matters is whether you have the skills to do the job well. And that’s not because of any law in England or America about equal opportunity for newcomers – it’s because of a widespread mentality that getting the best skills is good for business.
Of course Denmark is not alone in being a ‘network economy’ – who you know counts for a lot in all countries when it comes to business and employment opportunities, and it’s well known that smaller countries tend to be more network-orientated than market-orientated. But Denmark sometimes feels to me like it’s bordering on nepotism. Of course I don’t mean it in the third-world corruption kind of way: those who are hired are generally skilled for the job. But it’s not the best skilled people that get the jobs – it’s the closest skilled people.
Let me explain: I’ve met quite a lot of Danes over the last few months here, and I’ve yet to come across one who got their current job through a recruiter or a job site. Without exception they all seem to have gotten their jobs by hearing about openings ‘through the grapevine’. It’s common wisdom that less than half of the jobs in Denmark get advertised, whereas the majority of jobs get filled internally or through personal referrals. While I don’t have the statistics to back it up, my anecdotal experience in NY and London would suggest that an overwhelming proportion of available jobs get either advertised or given to recruiters in order to find the best person for the job. Certainly that was the only way I used to hire people when I ran a firm in London.
This necessity to have a strong network in Denmark in order to get to the right opportunities (I call it the dark side of the much celebrated ‘social capital’ – people trust one another alright, just as long as they know them and feel they’re sufficiently similar to them!) is probably the reason why the vast majority of my classmates at the Danish language school (most of them with academic background and work experience) are either jobless or over-qualified for the jobs they’re in. They simply haven’t had the time to build the Danish network they need in order to identify and secure the most relevant opportunities. But it doesn’t only affect foreigners – it also affects Danes who have been away from Denmark for many years, and who find – upon their return – that their diverse international experience is overshadowed by their lack of a local network.
Of course there are some good things about the “who you know” culture: once you build a critical mass of people you know, you start hearing of opportunities and the system starts working in your favour. But at the end of the day, an environment without an effective marketplace is not a real dynamic market-driven environment. It’s a place where who you knows determines what you get. It’s bad for business and bad for society. And it makes Denmark less dynamic, less efficient, and even – dare I say it – less equal…
