Denmark: Siltanews – News Desk
Even if the job description doesn’t say you need to speak Danish, some employers are reluctant to employ people who don’t speak a word of the language. But not all! Here are the jobs you can get in Denmark without knowing any more than ‘tak’ and ‘goddag’.
As a general rule, you can get by with only English both at the top of the jobs hierarchy and at the bottom.
If you have a very senior role or work for one of the biggest Danish multinationals, Danish is unlikely to be a requirement. Similarly if you are looking for a blue-collar role, particularly one which isn’t customer facing, you can get by on English alone.
Where Danish is likely to be essential is in the lower and middle levels of mid-sized Danish companies, where even if Danish isn’t specified in the job ad, recruiters will often worry that non-Danish speakers won’t ‘fit in’ with their team.
For Deborah Dunsire, the South African CEO of the Danish pharmaceutical company Lundbeck, or for the British banker Kasim Kutay, CEO of Novo Holdings, Danish is a nice-to-have rather than any sort of requirement.
Although a surprising number of top Danish companies are still led by Danish executives, these are global businesses and their boards are open to appointing a leader from another country, even if they don’t speak a word of the language.
As a general rule, the higher the level of the role, the less essential it is to speak Danish.
Companies like Lego, Carlsberg, Novo Nordisk, and Maersk, operate entirely in English and the proportion of international employees is sufficiently high that recruiters are not too concerned that employees who don’t speak Danish will struggle to bond with teammates.
Lego, for example, employs talented staff from all over the world, judging by comments made from the company’s own former staff members on the popular Copenhagen Expats page on Facebook, where only around one in three Lego hires are estimated to be from Denmark.
That is not only felt in Copenhagen. It’s not difficult to hear international voices on the street in smaller towns like Vejle in Jutland, which is located close to Lego’s Billund HQ.
A lot more options and fields without Danish can be managed if you really think about it, you can be there.