The Coronavirus situation brought many challenges to the workforce and business life of Finland as well as the rest of Europe and the world. Talent Coastline planned a series of online events called Talent Café. The Talent Café is meant for the internationals living in the Ostrobothnia and Central Ostrobothnia regions who are searching for a job, have recently been laid off or who are employed but will start searching for a new position in the close future. The first event took place on Microsoft Teams on Thursday 4th of June at 16.00-17.00.
After a short introduction about Talent Coastline given by Francesca Cucinotta, Competence and Internationalisation Manager and Talent Coastline Manager, there was a presentation about the current issues in the job market in Finland and the most updated information on employment trends, with useful links for the international talents, as well as advice on what to do during the Coronavirus time. One of the points was to learn how to use LinkedIn efficiently: not only to find a job in this very moment, but also as a networking and personal branding tool, to optimize the job search on a long run.
These were the main points presented to the international jobseekers who participated in the event:
- Don’t wait for vacancies to appear now, as there might be generally less open vacancies.
- Take this time to find specific companies you wish to work for and reach out to them personally.
- Ask these companies if they have vacancies, and if they can keep your CV for the future.
- Stand out: the CV and application need, now more than ever, to help you stand out from the crowd. Work on these to make them as efficient as possible.
- Improve and maintain your Finnish/Swedish language skills with, for example, online courses.
After this presentation, the participants got more information about the TE-services, with a short and efficient presentation given by Anna Korsbäck, International TE-services Specialist.
After the presentations, we had a discussion facilitated by Narashima Boopathi, Entrepreneur at Cultural Analysis International, with the participation of Lukumanu Iddrisu, Intern at the Ostrobothnia Chamber of Commerce. The internationals brought up plenty of topics for discussion, and we picked and answered the most common ones:
- Employment of highly educated people. How and in which way do I need to prepare myself to get a job after graduation?
- What is the best way to approach job applications with little experience in the Finnish language? What are the language requirements for foreigner job seekers in Finland? Is it important to study Finnish and/or Swedish?
- Would you recommend calling a company if there is no response to a job application or should I just leave it be?
- Can an individual with little skill but eager to learn find a job in a local company?
Are you interested in finding out more? Join our next Talent Cafè on Thursday July 2nd, the theme will be Networking. During this café we will have three speakers who will provide you with useful tips and advice on how to boost your networking skills: Johanna Kauppinen, Managing Counsel at Wärtsilä, Kamilla Sultanova, Project Manager at Hanken and Shaima Abdelmageed, Business Solutions Manager.
To join, register through this link and check your e-mail (and your spam folder!) on July 1st to get the Microsoft Teams meeting link: https://bit.ly/2AIjs0H
-Eleonora Matrella, Talent Coastline Expert, ELY-Centre Ostrobothnia
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