Three keys to land a job in Finland: Finnish language, internships and networks

Priya and Career Club Jyväskylä's facilitator Tirre discussing job search in Finland.

Voit lukea jutun myös suomeksi käännettynä: Kolme avainasiaa työn saamiseksi Suomessa: suomen kieli, harjoittelut ja verkostot

Finding a job is hard and it can be intensely difficult when you are an immigrant.  I am Priya, a material science researcher, and this is my experience in job search in Finland. I finished my PhD in Microfibrillated cellulose extraction from agriculture biomass and preparation of MFC films from the University of Sherbrooke, Canada. I was working as a head of value-added innovation projects at a paper industry in India. I moved to Finland from India as my husband started work here. 

I did not want to look for jobs immediately when I came to Finland. Thanks to my previous experience in France, I understood the importance of the local language and wanted to learn Finnish which would help me in integrating well with the community. So I registered myself with TE office as I was unemployed and I started a Finnish language course with Spring House. This course was a year and intensive.  Now I have a B1 Finnish level and I can confidently speak in Finnish even though I am not fluent and make a few mistakes. During this course, I had to do 3 internships which helped me in approaching companies and finding a place.

 
Networks are one of the keys to land a job in Finland. Many Finns would also agree with this. People get jobs through references, through friend’s friend or funnily enough even at parties through new contacts. Now, honestly, when you are newly arrived, your network is practically non-existent in the professional front. This is where I would like to share some of my experiences. 

• I used the internship opportunity to practice my Finnish and to understand the workplace and work culture. I was very happy to learn Finland’s innovation, application-oriented research approaches, customer relations, collaborations etc. 
• Once I applied for a job at a research centre, which is my dream place to work and guess what, I was not selected. But I kept the contact of the principal scientist and I called him after a few months to ask for an internship. I told him I am still interested in working with him and I got a place. I had my own short project and I made some contacts there. 
• I started sending open applications to a few team managers. My boss also forwarded my CV to other teams which best suits me. I am hoping to get positive reply from them. 
• In addition, I joined Career Club Jyväskylä for highly educated job seekers. I made some new contacts there. Also, I received many tips and toolbox for making my CV better. Many guests came to the group (some of them immigrants themselves) and shared their stories which motivated me further.

So the takeaway (if there is any!) is: you are not alone. I am confident that recruiters will see the international talents without any barriers and give them opportunities too. I would like to convey that in the end what matters is what you bring to the job not where you come from. Sometimes coming from a different place, exposure and experience will bring different perspectives to the table which would benefit the workplace even more.
 

- Priya, Motivated and driven researcher looking to beat the odds

Priya and many other highly educated job seekers search for jobs with the help of the Expertise Centre, for instance, in our Career Club Jyväskylä group. They are professionals in, among others, IT, science, business, marketing, education and social sciences, with knowledge of many languages.
Are you searching for a new employee who could be one of them? Please, contact Tirre Hentinen, tel.  050 576 4769 or tirre.hentinen[at]Jyvaskyla.fi