Trans­form­ing Recruit­ment: Anna-Mai­ja Västilä on the Future of Job Hunt­ing at Mega­Match­mak­ing 2024

In Mega­Match­mak­ing 2024 recruit­ment pro­fes­sion­al Anna-Mai­ja Västilä will speak about more humane job seek­ing and how all of us can har­ness our full poten­tial when it comes to job-hunt­ing. In this inter­view, Västilä will tear the veil of recruit­ment more care­ful­ly.

– I would like to see that in every ren­dezvous peo­ple work on the assump­tion of appre­ci­at­ing the oth­er and being friend­ly to each oth­er. See­ing the best parts and poten­tial of the oth­er in a pos­i­tive­ly curi­ous way, replies Anna-Mai­ja Västilä, part­ner and an advi­sor at Notarec, when asked about how HR pro­fes­sion­al sees job-hunt­ing and espe­cial­ly job inter­views.

Word inter­ac­tion comes up many times, when dis­cussing about what should be con­sid­ered in recruit­ment sit­u­a­tions – whether it is a case of job seek­er, recruit­ing employ­er, exec­u­tive lev­el pro­fes­sion or more chal­leng­ing lead­er­ship posi­tion. Instead of see­ing recruit­ing sit­u­a­tion as an ‘oblig­a­tory evil’, Västilä empha­sizes that the sit­u­a­tion is espe­cial­ly an inter­ac­tion sit­u­a­tion, where both par­ties get to know each oth­er, giv­ing each oth­er the oppor­tu­ni­ty to show their best.

– Of course, in more respon­si­ble jobs, for exam­ple in man­age­ment posi­tions, you must map things out in a cer­tain way, Västilä states, – but I think that in all recruit­ment sit­u­a­tions the best results can be achieved with a gen­uine­ly appli­cant-ori­ent­ed approach.

Skilled in the Art

Grad­u­at­ed from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Oulu with a mas­ter’s degree in eco­nom­ics, first Västilä jumped in a larg­er indus­tri­al com­pa­ny and did a vari­ety of tasks in the HR field, from HR report­ing to recruit­ment. Now she has been at Notarec for more than three years.

– At Notarec, we take real­ly good care of our own per­son­nel, besides of our cus­tomer com­pa­nies. We have an amaz­ing team of experts sup­port­ing each oth­er. In our team every­one can devel­op as an expert and shine, smiles Västilä.

The mis­sion of Notarec, Oulu based HR indus­try com­pa­ny, is to build a hap­pi­er and bet­ter work­ing life exact­ly where it is required. This struck in Västilä’s heart, even though at first she thought she would not become a con­sul­tant. Västilä and her col­leagues are active­ly work­ing for turn­ing stale and old-fash­ioned recruit­ing habits into a humane and appli­cant-ori­ent­ed ways of recruit­ing. She finds her work with HR and recruit­ment clients par­tic­u­lar­ly reward­ing.

– The best part of my job is help­ing both busi­ness clients and can­di­dates to real­ize their own strengths, giv­ing them tools to solve prob­lems and see­ing how clients can flour­ish by going for­ward. We encour­age, we chal­lenge, and we typ­i­cal­ly walk side by side in the most chal­leng­ing moments of work­ing life – it is tru­ly reward­ing to suc­ceed togeth­er, nar­rates Västilä.

Cre­at­ing Pos­si­bil­i­ties – What’s Mega­Match­mak­ing?

Mega­Match­mak­ing is tak­ing over Oulu’s Tullisali on Sep­tem­ber 25th. Mega­match­Mak­ing is one of Fin­land’s largest recruit­ment events. Västilä is excit­ed to have the hon­or to speak in the event about a top­ic that is par­tic­u­lar­ly close to her heart – and espe­cial­ly when the event is held in her home turf, Oulu.

In Mega­Match­mak­ing, Västilä takes over the stage twice, speak­ing in both Finnish and Eng­lish. In addi­tion to pay­ing atten­tion to the Finnish and inter­na­tion­al audi­ence, as a speak­er, she wants to serve as much con­crete as pos­si­ble, as well as inspire and cre­ate hope when it comes to job hunt­ing.

– Each of us has some­thing spe­cial that makes us stand out, Västilä encour­ages.

To stand out in a recruit­ment sit­u­a­tion, it is impor­tant to help the recruiter get to know you as an appli­cant as com­pre­hen­sive­ly as pos­si­ble, by freely shar­ing things out­side of your day job. Those things can for exam­ple be telling about your hob­bies or vol­un­teer work expe­ri­ence. Accord­ing to Västilä, an appli­ca­tion cre­ates a bet­ter emo­tion­al impres­sion when you dare to open your per­son­al­i­ty a lit­tle more in a recruit­ment sit­u­a­tion.

“Each of us has some­thing spe­cial that makes us stand out.”

Västilä believes that Mega­Match­mak­ing offers some­thing for every­one as an event. Mega­Match­mak­ing includes sev­er­al pro­fes­sion­al speech­es, a career cafe, the oppor­tu­ni­ty to grab new CV pho­tos and tour the employ­ers’ exhi­bi­tion stands. The event is a great place to net­work with rep­re­sen­ta­tives of employ­ers, but also with pro­fes­sion­als in the recruit­ment indus­try and oth­er job seek­ers.

When talk­ing about recruit­ment, as well as tips for job hunt­ing, Västilä con­sid­ers net­work­ing as one of the most impor­tant things, whether it is about a native Finn or an inter­na­tion­al expert seek­ing for a job. How­ev­er, if chat­ting at stands does not feel nat­ur­al, Västilä rec­om­mends the net­work­ing ser­vice LinkedIn, where in addi­tion to set­ting up a pro­file, you can send net­work­ing requests.

– LinkedIn is not only intend­ed for those work­ing in expert or man­age­r­i­al posi­tions, she states.

The plat­form enables you to show­case your exper­tise in a way that Västilä com­pares to a phone book:

– In the old days, if con­tact infor­ma­tion could not be found in the phone book, it was much more dif­fi­cult for reach­ing a per­son. You don’t have to be active in post­ing to join LinkedIn, but an account in the ser­vice can enable inter­est­ing job oppor­tu­ni­ties.

In con­clu­sion, Västilä would like to send the fol­low­ing greet­ings to the Mega­Matchamak­ing audi­ence:

– Believe in your­self, get excit­ed about your­self, and help your future employ­er to ful­ly under­stand how great you are. Let’s get inspired togeth­er at Mega­Match­Mak­ing in Sep­tem­ber!

Ama’s Tips for Job Hunt­ing

• First-timer div­ing into work­ing life: If you don’t have much work expe­ri­ence yet, bold­ly bring up how you have become famil­iar with the skills need­ed at work, for exam­ple, through a hob­by or self-direct­ed ori­en­ta­tion.
• Job chang­er: If you already have more work expe­ri­ence, high­light in your job search how you have updat­ed your skills and how you plan to devel­op fur­ther in the near future — sol­id sub­stan­tive skills and a desire to devel­op are an unbeat­able com­bo. Feel free to also make use of your accu­mu­lat­ed work­ing life con­tacts and add a cou­ple of colleagues’/supervisor’s/customer’s rec­om­men­da­tions about you to your CV (these can also be put anony­mous­ly).
• Inter­est­ed in a com­plete­ly dif­fer­ent field: Strive to net­work and spar bold­ly with poten­tial col­leagues and com­pa­nies in the field that inter­ests you. In this way, you will get con­fir­ma­tion that you are apply­ing in the right direc­tion, and tips for apply­ing to the field in ques­tion.
• Inter­na­tion­al tal­ent: Take advan­tage of net­work­ing events, hob­bies, and LinkedIn and net­work as wide­ly as pos­si­ble with peo­ple and com­pa­nies in your field. If you don’t know the lan­guage, try to get in con­tact with the locals and there­by get valu­able infor­ma­tion about the Finnish work cul­ture and cus­toms, as well as tips for job hunt­ing.
• In gen­er­al: Get the most out of the recruit­ment process, and try to ask for feedback/tips from the recruiter, which you can ben­e­fit from in your future job search. Also remem­ber the pos­si­bil­i­ty of career coach­ing.

Anna-Mai­ja Västilä: Humane job search of 2024: Nobody’s per­fect — enable your full poten­tial as a job seek­er
Pre­sen­ta­tion Time: 10.00–10.30

Read more:

Becom­ing a Mag­net to Employ­ers: Learn­ing from Luku­manu Iddrisu