About
Built by international students who got it wrong so you don't have to.
The founder
I got it wrong and made every mistake possible so you don't have to.
I'm Thomas, a British student currently undertaking my MSc in Chemical Engineering at Aarhus University. I've applied to over 40 student assistant positions in Denmark, sat through intense interviews, made embarrassing mistakes, and eventually figured out what actually works here.
In my first month living in Denmark, I was watching a football game in a pub with my friends and ordered a beer. At the same time I spontaneously asked the barman if they were hiring. He said no, but told me to message him my CV. A week later he rang me up and hired me.
A month later I started applying properly to student assistant roles, as I wanted to boost my CV, gain experience and learn new tools and softwares. Five months and countless rejections later, I still had nothing. But I knew that it was a numbers game, so I kept going. Eventually, I landed a summer internship at British Airways, one of seven people chosen from over 16,000 applicants. Whilst studying I also took the initiative to take A2B Danish lessons twice a week (up to Module 4), which honestly changed everything for my applications.
Everything on this site comes from our own experiences, plus what we've learned from speaking to dozens of other internationals in Aarhus and at company events in Copenhagen who have faced the same issues and bottlenecks.
Co-founder
From Buenos Aires to Aarhus, with two months of rent in the bank.
I'm Manuel, a 29-year-old student from Buenos Aires, Argentina, currently in my second year of a Master's in Economics at Aarhus University. Before moving 13,000 km to study here, my biggest worry wasn't the culture shock. It was rent. I landed with just enough money to survive two months, and I'd read enough horror stories about students applying for months without luck to know I couldn't waste time.
Two days after landing at Aarhus H, knowing absolutely nobody, I took the 2A from my residence at VKK and started walking into every store in the city center asking if they were hiring. A lot of no's, until one turned into a yes.
That yes was a burger place in Aarhus C, which fell through fast when the owner wanted me working weekend nights off the books. No good as an EU citizen who needed SU. Next came a pasta place nearby, properly registered, where I learned to make a decent carbonara. A few weeks later I landed a student data analyst role at a marketing startup, where I'm still working one year on.
Everything on this site comes from that process: application after application, plus what Thomas and I have both learned from other internationals in Aarhus facing the same bottlenecks. No generic career advice: just what actually works to land a job here.
Why this site exists
Every international student hits the same wall, for the same reasons. Hygge & Hired is meant to be the resource internationals wish they had on day one: practical, specific, written like one student honestly helping another.
What you can expect
- Free guides on CVs, cover letters, interviews, and finding jobs.
- Real talk about Danish workplace culture, the flat hierarchy, first names, fredagsbar, all of it.
- Personal stories from internationals who've made it work.
This site grows with the questions readers ask. If something's missing, tell us.
If something on this site helps a reader land a role, that's the only metric that matters. Let us know if this is the case, and provide feedback. If something's missing, tell us. The guides grow with the questions readers ask.
Have a question, a story to share, or a guide you'd love to see? Get in touch.
Personal stories
From internationals who've made it work.
"I failed many times over when initially applying to student positions. This is demoralising, but you must keep it up. My strategy was straightforward: apply consistently to every role where my profile matched the requirements. I used one strong CV template which I would tailor when a company specified a particular format. For cover letters, I wrote them myself and used AI to polish the final version."
"The honest truth is that it took three months of persistent applications before I landed something. Every interview taught me something for the next one, and I think that cumulative learning was as important as anything on my CV. What ultimately got me the job was showing genuine eagerness to learn, not trying to appear more experienced than I was."