Breathtaking landscapes, countless geysers and wide fjords attract tourists from all over the world to the land of elves and trolls. However, anyone who wants to do an internship there will have a hard time. We have summarized the most important things at a glance.
In which areas can I do an internship in Iceland??
Iceland is the most sparsely populated country in Europe. Only 340.110 inhabitants live on 103.000 km² area (for comparison: Germany has about 82.2 million inhabitants on 357.376 km²). Accordingly there is less choice on the job market. But since tourism is booming, there are always jobs available in hotels, inns, restaurants and farms. While the former usually involves service work, such as serving food or working at the front desk, farm work involves caring for animals or helping with household chores. Also pure horse farms offer these possibilities, but often only for longer stays. Volunteering may be a better alternative here.
In addition, national and international companies have also settled in Iceland. It is always worthwhile to check the respective company websites for job offers or even to ask directly – especially if it is more about professional experience than about experience abroad.
How to find an internship in Iceland?
Actually, it is not common in Iceland to do an internship. Nevertheless, you can find some jobs that come from private providers or companies. Often, however, the boundaries between vacation job and volunteer work are blurred. So it can happen that an intern is simply used as a vacation replacement. The advantage of this is that the intern often gets a room and some pocket money, sometimes also food.
It makes sense to also look for vacation jobs and volunteer work in your search for an internship in Iceland. This way you can first get an overview of possible fields of work and companies and contact them in a second step.
The following sites can help you:
🙂 The Icelandic embassy refers to relevant pages for the Icelandic job market. However, some of the pages are in Icelandic.
🙂 The Icelandic Yellow Pages will help you find companies that you can then contact.
🙂 The ZAV of the Federal Employment Agency informs about jobs, internships, studies and working conditions in other countries and refers to helpful websites.
🙂 The site Ninukot offers Europeans a range of job opportunities and internships in Iceland.
🙂 Auslandslust lists current internship positions – also for Iceland.
The application in Iceland
The application in Iceland is much shorter than the German one: It only contains a cover letter and a resume. If necessary, you can also attach your most recent reference, but no more than that. However, as in Norway, it is important to have a reference person who can provide your potential employer with information about you. This is not followed directly by the interview, but first by a questionnaire that the applicant fills out. If the potential employer is still interested, you will be invited for an interview.