UX experimentation- an immigrant’s roadmap to the first job in Sweden
This project is part of my HyperIsland UX upskill journey, where I received the task to work on various experimentation steps to find out the UX design way for a problem to be solved. I planned my project process by creating a double diamond chart and getting going along the flow.
Reason behind the project : The Why
I started collecting data for 2020 from the “Migrationsverket” website. Understanding different kinds of visa types they provide to people and collecting data which is relevant to my work. As of my target group below data was relevant and gave me insight into numbers migrating to Sweden. Although last year was an exception because of the pandemic, people’s movement was restricted hence I believe more people moved in the past years than below numbers.
My Why
When I first moved to Sweden, I was confident that with my years of experience and a great portfolio of works in Interior design, I would land a job pretty soon. But it was a struggle and hard work of many months before I started receiving positive responses. I learned many things on and off about the new way of doing things which I was not familiar with before I came here. Moving to a new country is arduous in itself and learning new things on top of that makes it even more challenging. I want to understand if the struggle was absolutely essential or if there is more efficient way to achieve success.
Defining the true meaning
The Opportunity
How might we train the new arriving immigrants for jobs helping them get integrated in the Swedish job market?
What I focused to explore:
The area is too vast to explore and there are so many factors to consider. Due to lack of time and resources, I could only focus on one group. I chose to focus on the “family reunification” category for my experiments to check considering they were the people who moved due to marriage/relationship and got a dependent visa. These people in most general scenarios didn’t choose their country of work. They moved and then started their job-hunt. These comprise around 20% of immigrant population every year.
Let’s begin Testing………
Desk Research
If you are dependent what kind of benefits you get as per law
- Medical is free for everyone
- Education is free
- One Barn bidrag(child benefit)
- According to the data in Numbeo, the living costs in Stockholm for a single person is 9,338.21 SEK without rent.
Source; https://www.forsakringskassan.se/privatpers/foralder/barnbidrag
Rules as per Migrationsverket when applying for dependent visa:
Period you are applying for a residence permit. The maintenance requirement for the whole time you are in Sweden is SEK 3,570 per month for adults and SEK 2,142 per month for each child.
An informative article I read
When I was living alone, I can go as low as 8.000 SEK (~$960) per month without rent. In 2021, now that my husband is living with me, our cost of living in Stockholm per month is around 20.500 SEK (~$2,477) including our mortgage. Source; https://www.karenroldan.net/cost-of-living-in-stockholm/
Outcome: Stockholm is one of the most expensive cities in Europe. Certainly it is helpful when medical and education is free but there is no denial that one person’s income is not sufficient to support the whole family. Also, for this hypothesis I hardly found any data that supported the assumption around this.
Desk Research
The Swedish Council for Higher Education (UHR) evaluates foreign qualifications in order to provide support for people looking for work in Sweden, people who wish to continue studying, or for employers who wish to employ someone with foreign qualifications. Even if you don’t have any personal number still you can apply for document validation.
Processing times
The average waiting period to get a recognition statement is approximately 2–5 months.
Processing Fees
This is totally free and funded by government.
Do we need certificate validation for all time?
Some professions are regulated in Sweden. This means that a special
licence or authorisation is required to work in them. Contact the
authority responsible for the regulated profession — for example, the
Swedish National Agency for Education for teacher certification and
the Swedish National Board of Health and Welfare for a licence to
practice as a doctor or nurse.
Scenario
To understand the process closer, let’s consider a specialized profession scenario: How to be a doctor in Sweden with foreign degree?
If your medical degree is from a non-EU country, you need to submit your diploma for validation by the Socialstyrelsen. This will be the equivalent of finishing medical school in Sweden. You then need to pass the Kunskasprovet exam just like Swedish medical student would, followed by attending a course on Swedish laws and regulations for foreigners. Regardless of if you have clinical practice experience, you are also required to do a 6-month supervised internship to prove you are comfortable with Swedish medical practice environment.
If your medical degree is from a EU country, your diploma would normally be recognized automatically, but it still needs to be submitted for validation for you to become a doctor in Sweden. Your application for recognition is sent to the Socialstyrelsen (National Board of Health and Welfare) and you also need to submit proof of living in Sweden, of Swedish language proficiency, your Swedish national identity number or your passport, and also proof that you haven’t been banned from the medical profession.
On average it could take 2 to 3 years to get proper validation as a doctor to practise in Sweden.
This validation process is important to maintain the quality of services one gets in this kind of profession.
On contrary there is lack of doctors in Sweden as statics
https://lakartidningen.se/aktuellt/nyheter/2021/02/brist-pa-specialistlakare-men-inte-pa-underlakare/
Outcome: You can apply for jobs without having received a recognition statement in non regulated professions, but the evaluation should be regarded as an aid for employers when comparing your foreign qualification with a Swedish one. However there is not a long waiting time to get validation of your documents except for certain professions. If you are looking for a normal job like Frontend developer or salesman this hypothesis is not valid and hardly creates any hindrance on finding a job.
Desk Research
A research conduct in 2013 by Lund university where they found out that that job applicants with Swedish sounding names are 50 percent more likely to be called back for an interview than people with Arabic names, based on a randomly generated experiment with CV and cover letters.
http://lnu.diva-portal.org/smash/record.jsf pid=diva2%3A463541&dswid=6941
Reply statement on the research 2013: Annika Höög, a case officer at Sweden’s Equality Ombudsman (Diskrimineringsombudsmannen, DO), says that she has never heard similar complaints either.
“But it’s very hard to prove in most cases. In Sweden, the reputation of employers towards foreigners can really vary. From my own experience, I can say that it seems to be more difficult for non-Swedes to find a job here than if they were in the UK or Canada for example.”
https://www.thelocal.se/20130205/46022/
Field Test
As this research and story was 8 years old, I considered trying this scenario in today’s time to check if things are the same or changed. I made two different types of CVs for a “Interior designer” (as that was my past experience) on 8 of the documents I used my real name “Ranu Singh” , and on the other 8 used a random but very common Swedish name “Ulla Svensson”, also changed the layout so it wasn’t noticeable at a glance that the CVs contained exactly the same information. Subsequently, I sent them out to 10 different companies across Sweden with interior design job opportunities and mostly to job recruitment companies.
I am still uncertain if the same information gives a very different conclusion. The jobs ranged from really basic work to jobs within the interior design sector. It doesn’t make sense.
Review a real case
In the next line of experiments I met with my long SFX classmate who went through the same situation to understand her view on the subject. I interviewed her and drew a cognitive mapping of her Journey.
Background: She moved in 2015 from China to Stockholm with her boyfriend. She has anatomical master degree from China and worked there several years before moving to Sweden. She changed her name and used a local Swedish surname for many years before moving back to her original name after landing her first job recently in 2020.
Reflection:
- She mentioned that when she moved here she heard rumors that if she had a Swedish name there was a better chance to get a job.
- She changed her Swedish name and focused on her Swedish, although changing name hardly gave her any benefit of doubt.
- After realizing the hard way and struggling through different phases of life, she is certain that name has hardly any impact of Job search.
- Her suggestion is to know the right channel and information which will land your “Dream Job.”
Outcome: It is difficult to prove that a non Swedish name impacts the chance to get a job in Swedish but all these experiments taught that getting to know the language and the right channel is important. I think I will get more after conducting experiments in that direction to find if there is any problem that exists and needs our attention.
Desk research
I was looking at numbers on how much the government and agencies like Arbetsförmedlingen get from the government budget to integrate new people in job markets so these people start earning and pay the taxes. The taxes which the government assigns to these agencies and the circle goes on.
Field experiment — Discussion group
I walked towards a språk cafe which recently started again. I met a random 8 people group over a coffee discussion. I asked them to participate in my experimentation and explained about my project.
Here are my findings :
Participants 8
Life cycle of a new immigrant: With the same discussion group I draw this mind map to understand what immigrants get and opportunities to work on.
Quantitative survey
I started this experiment with public opinion on my target group with a Quantitative survey on google form. I created a specific questionnaire and shared it on my social media groups to get public opinion.
Participants: 68 Target Group: Non swedish aged 30–45
Questions:
Findings:
- Immigrants live : 5–15 years longer in Sweden
- They don’t know about: SLC role
- When they move to Sweden: 82% don’t have job
- It took between: 1–4 years for people to land on first job
- Swedish language: 36% SVA, 30% SFI, 34% they manage
- Update their skill : 100% Yes
- Nationality: 45% Asian, 5% Australia, 36% South America, 14% Africa
Outcome: These experiments definitely point towards one particular problem which is visible in most of the places; Networking and getting Swedish reference.
Qualitative survey
Qualitative survey has more personal and emotional level of information. For understanding the pain and gain points I interviewed 10 immigrants (5 long term residents-5 short term residents) working in Sweden to find out their job finding journey.
What I did:
Created a questionnaire with questions that were considered important to obtain the right basis for the study.
I set up some IRL and digital meetings with my interviewees.
Then a compilation of the interviews was done where I read through the material separately and wrote comments on the key phrases.
The comments and key phrases were used as a basis when I were to take out themes and sub-themes.
Findings:
Goal : To get an emotional clarity journey map with the help of qualitative data.
Outcome: Qualitative survey and after a roller coaster of emotional job journey here I found most about my research that networking is essential. Also, it is difficult to prove that most jobs are not posted on the internet as there is no supporting evidence for that hypothesis. There are in this case maybe or may not be true or need more evidence to prove.
Validation of experimentation
Problem Statement:
Solution Ideas:
Next step of Experimentation roadmap
My experiments journey
My journey was quite bumpy the whole time and not always as I planned. The further I moved in each level, I was haunted by the project by “ Ifs & Buts” or “Do I need a prototype?” or “What kind of test gives me the right findings?” However I am happy with my progress and enjoyed the process.
Here is how it went on a weekly basis:
Key Takeaways
- You don’t have to wait and get all your tools at once, you just start and sharpen your tool with each encounter, more like iterate and test.
- Experimentation taught me that there is no right or wrong, it is more about learning and empathise
- It is amazing that when you start from a small branch you will explore new horizons which you never thought existed.
- Start and don’t be frightened to fail, you will be amazed that in that also you learned a lot.
What would I do differently next time?
- Making a balance between solution space and problem space.
- Make a shift plan with timing related to the experimentation part.
- Work on non-bias topic because if I have less idea or not related to more excited towards results.
- Guerrilla testing is a cheap and low key user testing method, next time I would choose a better one.
- I needed more time to test other hypotheses which I am sure will work but time didn’t permit it entirely.
