A Danish job advertisement (et jobopslag or en stillingsannonce) is a compact genre with its own grammar. It leans heavily on the -s passive to sound impersonal and official, strings together long compound nouns, and organises itself around a fixed three-part formula: vi søger (who we want), du har (what you bring), vi tilbyder (what we offer). Reading one well means decoding all three. Below is a realistic ad, a translation, and a commentary aimed at the structures that make Danish recruitment language tick.
The text
Erfaren projektkoordinator søges til international virksomhed
Til vores hovedkontor i København søger vi en engageret projektkoordinator. Stillingen er på fuld tid og ønskes besat snarest muligt.
Vi søger en kollega, der trives med ansvar og kan arbejde selvstændigt. Du har erfaring med projektledelse og taler og skriver dansk og engelsk flydende.
Vi tilbyder en spændende hverdag, dygtige kolleger og gode udviklingsmuligheder.
Send din ansøgning og dit CV via linket nedenfor senest den 1. august. Samtaler afholdes løbende, og stillingen besættes, når den rette kandidat er fundet.
Har du spørgsmål, er du velkommen til at kontakte HR-afdelingen.
Translation
Experienced project coordinator sought for international company
For our head office in Copenhagen we are looking for a committed project coordinator. The position is full-time and is to be filled as soon as possible.
We are looking for a colleague who thrives on responsibility and can work independently. You have experience with project management and speak and write Danish and English fluently.
We offer an exciting everyday work life, skilled colleagues and good development opportunities.
Send your application and your CV via the link below by 1 August at the latest. Interviews are held on a rolling basis, and the position will be filled once the right candidate has been found.
If you have questions, you are welcome to contact the HR department.
Sentence by sentence
...søges... — the headline -s passive
The headline Erfaren projektkoordinator søges uses the -s passive: søges = "is sought / is being looked for". You build it by adding -s to the infinitive (at søge → søges). Danish has two passives — the blive-passive (bliver søgt) and this -s passive — and the -s form is the favourite of formal, written, impersonal texts precisely because it hides the agent. The ad does not say who is looking; the position simply "is sought".
Erfaren projektkoordinator søges til international virksomhed.
Experienced project coordinator sought for international company.
Stillingen besættes, når den rette kandidat er fundet.
The position will be filled once the right candidate has been found.
...ønskes besat... and ...afholdes... — more -s passives
Ønskes besat combines the -s passive of ønske ("is wished") with the participle besat ("filled") — "is wished filled", i.e. is to be filled. Samtaler afholdes løbende = "interviews are held on a rolling basis", again agent-free. Løbende ("ongoing, rolling") is a typical bit of HR vocabulary.
Stillingen ønskes besat snarest muligt.
The position is to be filled as soon as possible.
Samtaler afholdes løbende.
Interviews are held on a rolling basis.
Vi søger / du har / vi tilbyder — the three-part formula
The body of nearly every Danish ad is this trio. Note that in the active voice it switches back from -s passive to plain verbs:
- Vi søger... — "We are looking for..." (the ideal candidate)
- Du har... — "You have..." (the requirements, addressed directly to you)
- Vi tilbyder... — "We offer..." (the perks)
Vi søger en kollega, der trives med ansvar.
We are looking for a colleague who thrives on responsibility.
Du har erfaring med projektledelse.
You have experience with project management.
Vi tilbyder en spændende hverdag og gode udviklingsmuligheder.
We offer an exciting everyday work life and good development opportunities.
The relative clause en kollega, der trives... uses der as the subject relative pronoun ("who"). And erfaring med fixes the preposition: experience is always med ("with") something in Danish, never af or i.
Send din ansøgning — the imperative instruction
When the ad tells you what to do, it switches to the imperative (the bare verb stem): Send..., Kontakt.... The imperative of at sende is simply send. This is direct but not rude in this genre — it is the standard call to action.
Send din ansøgning og dit CV via linket nedenfor.
Send your application and your CV via the link below.
Har du spørgsmål, er du velkommen til at kontakte HR-afdelingen.
If you have questions, you are welcome to contact the HR department.
That last example shows a conditional without hvis: Har du spørgsmål... fronts the verb to mean "If you have questions...". This verb-first conditional is more formal and is common in ads and official prose. The construction velkommen til at + infinitive ("welcome to...") politely invites the next step.
Compound job nouns
Danish builds long nouns by gluing words together with no space. The ad is full of them, and decoding the genre means splitting them at the seams:
| Compound | Parts | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| projektkoordinator | projekt + koordinator | project coordinator |
| projektledelse | projekt + ledelse | project management |
| hovedkontor | hoved + kontor | head office |
| udviklingsmuligheder | udvikling + s + muligheder | development opportunities |
| stillingsannonce | stilling + s + annonce | job advertisement |
| HR-afdelingen | HR + afdeling | the HR department |
Vi tilbyder gode udviklingsmuligheder for den rette kandidat.
We offer good development opportunities for the right candidate.
Formal register markers
The ad signals formality through word choice: engageret and dygtige (committed, skilled), snarest muligt (as soon as possible), senest den 1. august (by 1 August at the latest), den rette kandidat (the right candidate). Note senest + den 1. august for deadlines, and that ordinals in dates are written 1. with a period.
Ansøgningen skal være os i hænde senest den 1. august.
The application must reach us by 1 August at the latest.
Mis-transfer alert
The trap here is the -s passive. English speakers, seeing søges or besættes, often misread the final -s as a present-tense third-person ending ("he seeks") because English marks present tense with -s. It is the opposite: in Danish the -s makes the verb passive (and impersonal), and present tense is unmarked. So stillingen besættes is "the position is filled", not "the position fills (something)". Read every job-ad -s verb as a passive.
❌ 'Stillingen besættes' = 'the position fills (something).'
Incorrect reading — the -s is passive, not a 3rd-person -s.
✅ 'Stillingen besættes' = 'the position is filled.'
Correct — the -s makes the verb passive and agentless.
Structures recap
- -s passive: søges, besættes, afholdes, ønskes besat — agentless, formal, the signature voice of ads and notices.
- The formula: vi søger → du har → vi tilbyder.
- Imperative instructions: Send..., Kontakt... as the call to action.
- Verb-first conditional: Har du spørgsmål... = "If you have questions...".
- Fixed prepositions: erfaring med, velkommen til at
- infinitive.
- Compound nouns: head word last, often a linking -s-; split them to read them.
- Formal markers: snarest muligt, senest den 1. august, den rette kandidat.
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