Job search in Finland in a nutshell!

 

Immigration is a big life change. In practice, you will experience and encounter the basic needs of everyday life again, update yourself and learn new ways of working in a foreign culture. This blog aims to bring out practical steps for planning your career and how to make the most of local working life services. The employment journey is a lengthy process and will require your inner effort to integrate in the Finnish culture. Be persistent because in Finland employment related services are provided by various agencies and often one needs to deal with several service providers conversations. Remember that career development is an eventful learning process, where you are not alone. In this article you can find three tips to start your journey into professional life.

To begin with be initiative-taking and curious in searching for suitable information right for your career life situation. Comprehensive and basic information about moving to and living in Finland has been gathered in infoFinland.fi website maintained by the city of Helsinki. You might be entitled to helpful services that support your integration and employment prospects. Right for these services require that you have a valid residence permit. Check on your right to reside in Finland from the Finnish Immigration Service (Migri). The public employment and business services offer information to job seekers and entrepreneurs interested in Finland. Welcome to Finland and Work in Finland guidebooks offer useful information in several languages.

Three tips how to start career planning

At first, it is good to find out if you have right to integration plan by TE services, which provide you with assistance for integration and employment. Services give opportunities to acquire sufficient language skills of Finnish or Swedish as well as knowledge needed in society and working life, for example study options. Learning Finnish language skills takes time, and you can get started by finding a suitable Finnish course from the Finnishcourses.fi service. Libraries offer you several online language courses. Especially, Finnish language skills together with professional competence are still the important factors in the employment of immigrants.

The first tip, go through the achievements and successes related to what you do. It is important to start by identifying your own skills, knowledge, and strengths by asking yourself: What am I good at? What work task or doings makes me excited and are very natural to me? By mapping out your previous studies, free time hobbies and work experience widely will serve you to recognize own career goal which matches your work skills, competence, and values. After this self-exploration, write on paper at least three skills you master and your five personal strengths. Plus complete your career story with using practical examples. This helps to clarify what professions and jobs appeals to you most. Here are Sitra's competence identification tools for structuring your own strengths. Thereafter prepare your documents for job-search. You can find tips for finding job at JobMarket.fi, sample documents and some examples of how to do it from this website made by engineers as job-searching and career workbook.

Be confident in yourself by setting your professional goals, what kind of job descriptions and work roles motivate you most. Get ready to talk to others about who you really are as person and what is your career story. At JobMarket.fi you can find information and e-services to contact TE services. A career guidance is available in Finland for transitioning to working life and developing a new career. In these guidance services, together with the TE office or the municipality's expert, the previous studies, and the skills you have acquired are discussed. In addition, in initial interview find out whether you can get a job in a field matching to your professional skills and education in Finland.

How to do networking?

As you can already guess, the second tip is the importance of proactive networking which supports you as job seeker. Find out if in your city there is an international skills center for immigrants and their contact information. These centers offer guidance services for work and study to international immigrants in the city regions, as an example International House Helsinki. Check your possibility for studying in Finland as a part of your integration process. Discover a meaningful study path in Finland at studyinfo.fi. Here are fields of vocational education as well the higher education and wide range of study programmes in English! They are easily found also from map view. If you are not sure what occupational options would suit for you, you can explore career fields from this introduction educational fields website. It takes time to explore but by using filters (ea. your professional interests, education type, field of study, language of instructions) you can narrow down the search results.

You can always contact the educational institution directly once you have decided which field you are interested in studying. You will get detailed information about the search requirements and suitable study options for you, the chances of accrediting your studies or credit transfer. The contact admission services, application counseling and study counselors at educational institutions will help those who are interested in the field in the application phase.

SIMHE (Supporting Immigrants in Higher Education in Finland) counselling is for you if you already living in Finland and have completed an upper secondary education, studied in higher education, or completed a higher education degree. SIMHE counselling offers you information on application for higher education and related study possibilities as well as helps you recognize your prior learning. You can find a school that will suit your competence needs and skills for to take contact at SIMHE services.

Strategies to find employment

The third tip is to build working life connections from the start. If you are student, you can sort out from your educational institution are their using e.g., the JobTeaser portal. In this way, you can boost your employment and internship by creating your JobTeaser profile. It is well known that hidden jobs can open doors to a new career. Hence contact employers directly, even if they are not advertising job openings. You can search contact information for employers in your industry in the local business database or register. Gathering knowledge about your own field, how things are working in your vocational competence and industry in Finland is worth the effort. You will learn on the way all the time!

At the local level works, the so-called The Talent Hub service models, which bring together international talents and companies interested in their expertise. This aims to promote access to job and recruiting in Finland. Check out, if there are Talent Hub`s advisors in your city`s and ask existing recruitment opportunities in your professional field. This service works under a program called Talent Boost. The purpose of that program is to try help companies and international employees to find each other. They have for example created a website with useful information for international talents – you can find it here. City career development services also arrange job or career clubs to help international talents to network with each other and potential employers.

Professional networking helps to understand what kind of skills and requirements are needed and valued in your career field and what`s happening in the local job market in your profession. The services and events offered in the region can be easily accessed through local services. You can google with keywords "International House" plus “city name.” One strategy for meeting fellow international talents is using social media groups such as Facebook and LinkedIn. Use right key words in searching for the groups like your city`s name and topic. Finnish companies are also active on social media if you are looking for professional opportunities.

One opportunity to promote your career development is Global Talent F.E.C (Further Educated with Companies). That is a labor market training program, which brings highly educated international talents and organizations together and aims for an employment contract. The target group consists of foreign nationals who have completed a university degree or have graduated from University of Applied Sciences. Aalto Pro Global Talent offers career path in Uusimaa Region. You can read more about current opportunities on Aalto University's professional development website.

There are several job search websites that advertise job opportunities in Finland. Use many different channels to find a job: Jobs in Finland, Pointer Potential for international professionals, Academic positions, Location-specific job search portals in English: Jobs in Helsinki, Jobs in Espoo, Jobs in Vantaa and Find a job in Europe. Be active in searching career and industry focused events and check online events too. Recruitment events and fairs are a good and straightforward way to meet representatives of companies that interest you. Talent Boost Summit is an annual event which aims creating new service innovations related to international recruitment. Save the date of event this year is 10.11.2022 and time: 8.45am-5pm. It is an excellent opportunity to have visibility for employers and job seekers alike.

EJD recruitment events bring together different industries, companies, and professionals either on-site or virtually. Employers and jobseekers can take part in recruitment events from across Europe. You will find up-to-date information on events from webpage europeanjobdays.eu. If you are looking for a job or a new direction for your career, join to the Finland Works recruitment event! The event is free of charge, in English and organized by the EURES job placement network. Read more and register 5th October 2022 11:00 am - 3 pm (CET)! As a final word, there is no shame in asking for help, there is much to gain.

Johanna

Psychologist TE-telephone service, National career counseling