The long road to finding work in your own field
When Ingrian Finnish Marina Pelgemäinen moved to Finland some twenty years ago, she had years of work experience and two qualifications: she was both a teacher specialising in vocational education and training (VET) and a speech therapist.
“I was specialised in the rehabilitation of small children aged 0–3,” Pelgemäinen says. “I also worked with deaf, blind, intellectually disabled and autistic children.”
Before moving, she had been told that it would be easy to get her qualifications recognised in Finland, but in practice it turned out to be anything but. At that time, she was not offered any proper guidance for the recognition of qualifications, employment services or the fulfilment of language requirements – the path forward seemed unclear and difficult.
“At times it felt like trying to get through a wall,” she says.
The long road to finding work
Since then, Finnish higher education institutions have improved their guidance services for immigrants. For example, SIMHE (Supporting Immigrants in Higher Education in Finland) services can provide guidance on how to access Finnish-language courses and supplementary studies. SIMHE services also offer free-of-charge Finnish-language courses.
For Pelgemäinen, finding work was no easy feat either. Although she managed to get her VET teacher qualification recognised, it felt like available teaching jobs kept being offered to Finns instead of her. Eventually she ended up establishing a business and working as a speech rehabilitator, as working as a speech therapist would have required her speech therapist qualification to be recognised as well.
Later, Pelgemäinen also became a qualified special educational needs teacher, which is what finally opened the doors to the labour market for her properly. That being said, she would have preferred her career to have taken off earlier. After all, she had been living in Finland for 20 years before the doors properly opened.
“Many people say that finding your place takes time, but this took way too long,” Pelgemäinen says.
Many leave the country
Although nowadays there are more guidance services available, the paths that highly educated foreigners have to tread to find employment in Finland are not easy.
Project Manager Päivi Vartiainen from Tampere University of Applied Sciences says that, according to statistics, approximately 23% of students with a foreign background move away from Finland within one year of graduation, 27% move away within three years and 33% move away within five years. These figures are from the Finnish education administration’s open Vipunen database. It should be noted that the actual figures are most likely even higher, as many people move away from Finland without their move being recorded in the databases.
“Some people leave right away and may even have been planning to do so upon graduation,” Vartiainen says. “But even those who have sought to remain have often ended up going somewhere else within a few years for one reason or another.”
One major bottleneck is workplace education and training, the doors of which seem to be tight for those who have come to Finland from abroad. In addition to SIMHE services, many higher education institutions have sought to address this problem by strengthening cooperation with companies with Talent Boost funding, which was available in 2021–2024.
“For example, visits to companies are very effective and support international students in finding traineeships,” says Päivi Vartiainen.
In some sectors it is all about timing
The difficulties that people with a foreign background face in finding employment in Finland are often blamed on insufficient language skills and the reluctance of Finnish workplaces to hire foreign-language professionals. However, sometimes the problem can be simpler. For example, completing a master's degree in technology usually takes two years. In practice, this leaves foreign students with only enough time for one summer job and a final project to accumulate work experience in Finland before graduation.
“In the technology sector, these are the routes through which the vast majority of people find employment,” says Project Manager Owain Hopeaketofrom the trade union TEK. He is responsible for the union’s advocacy among its international members.
“In the technology sector, a student who has completed their final project for a company is 2–4 times more likely to find employment,” says Hopeaketo.
In Hopeaketo’s opinion, it is important for educational institutions and companies to engage in cooperation, as doing so also provides international students with business contacts. TEK has also engaged in cooperation with Aalto University and Tampere University to organise final project days and exhibitions, for example.
More compulsory support and skills mapping?
Hopeaketo speculates that the guidance services offered by higher education institutions might not always reach the people who would need them the most. In his opinion, it is worth thinking about whether career guidance should be voluntary at all. Perhaps it would benefit everyone to sit down for an hour with a career advisor to prepare a CV and discuss traineeships?
Marina Pelgemäinen has supported many immigrants as a volunteer, and she thinks that it would benefit highly educated people to undergo comprehensive skills mapping so that they could find employment in their own field as quickly as possible or get access to training for a new vocation.
In Pelgemäinen’s opinion, good guidance services are also necessary because many immigrants do not know how to operate in Finland, what services are available and which of the available services are free and which are subject to fees. The path should be clearer so that people could plan their careers and work towards them.
Language and coffee tips
Owain Hopeaketo has a few tips that he always shares with foreign students.
The first is this: come up with a reason why you are better than a Finn.
“Being foreign is always seen as a weakness, so it is a good idea to think about what kinds of strengths you have due to your background and skills and how to communicate these strengths.”
Hopeaketo’s second tip is to speak all the Finnish you know in job interviews.
“If you are attending Finnish-language courses, you should mention it in your CV because Finnish people assume that foreigners do not speak any Finnish at all.”
It is also a good idea to practise a few phrases well and to say them at the beginning or the end of the interview when you are asked if you have anything to add.
Cultural skills are also needed. One of Hopeaketo’s colleagues has a habit of teaching people how to react when asked in an interview whether they would like some coffee. For example, it is not a good idea to ask for a cappuccino – many foreigners might not be aware of the Moccamaster coffee maker culture prevalent at Finnish workplaces.
Text: Esa Salminen