Prepar­ing for Life and Work in Oulu – Webi­nar Recap

We recent­ly host­ed an insight­ful webi­nar “Prepar­ing for Life and Work in Fin­land” aimed to pro­vide infor­ma­tion to prospec­tive res­i­dents about life and career oppor­tu­ni­ties in Oulu. The ses­sion cov­ered an array of aspects, from the local lifestyle to the ICT job mar­ket, and high­light­ed the ser­vices we pro­vide at IH Oulu.

Liv­ing in Oulu: A Per­fect Bal­ance

The webi­nar kicked off with the unique lifestyle in Oulu. Known for its wel­com­ing com­mu­ni­ty and beau­ti­ful nature, Oulu offers a high qual­i­ty of life. Par­tic­i­pants learned about how they can expe­ri­ence true four sea­sons that bring a vari­ety of activ­i­ties, from sum­mer and win­ter sports, cul­tur­al events, and year-round fes­ti­vals.

Oulu’s ICT Job Mar­ket

One of the key focus­es of the webi­nar was the ICT job mar­ket in Oulu. The city is home to over 1 000 tech com­pa­nies and 25 00 tech pro­fes­sion­als, with around 1,000 new tal­ents join­ing annu­al­ly. Major glob­al com­pa­nies such as Nokia, Oura, Polar, and Halt­ian have sig­nif­i­cant oper­a­tions, con­tribut­ing to Oulu’s rep­u­ta­tion as a tech inno­va­tion hub.

The ICT sec­tor in Oulu focus­es on var­i­ous areas of tech­nol­o­gy, includ­ing:

• 5G/6G Con­nec­tiv­i­ty
• Arti­cif­i­cal Intel­li­gence (AI) and Machine Learn­ing (ML)
• Aug­ment­ed Real­i­ty (AR), Vir­tu­al Real­i­ty (VR), and Extend­ed Real­i­ty (XR)
• Cloud Com­put­ing
• Cyber­se­cu­ri­ty
• Health Tech­nol­o­gy
• Inter­net of Things (IoT)
• Robot­ics and Print­ed Elec­tron­ics

This diver­si­ty pro­vides pro­fes­sion­als with var­i­ous tech­no­log­i­cal back­grounds reward­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties. At the moment the ICT sec­tor is in demand for hard­ware (HW) engi­neers with exper­tise in micro­elec­tron­ics, semi­con­duc­tors, archi­tects for SoC (Sys­tem on Chip) and RF appli­ca­tion spe­cial­ists for inno­v­a­tive wire­less tech­nolo­gies.

When it comes to soft­ware (SW) engi­neers, the demand is for engi­neers with a back­ground in embed­ded sys­tems for IoT solu­tions, devel­op­ers for B2B & B2C web and mobile prod­ucts, and spe­cial­ists in cloud, AI and ML, and cyber­se­cu­ri­ty.

Rea­sons to Live in Oulu

Through­out the webi­nar, there were rea­sons why Oulu is a won­der­ful city to live and work:

1. High Qual­i­ty of Life: Oulu offers a blend of urban ameni­ties and nat­ur­al beau­ty, pro­vid­ing res­i­dents with an excep­tion­al liv­ing expe­ri­ence.
2. ICT Job Mar­ket: The ICT job mar­ket pro­vides oppor­tu­ni­ties to many tech experts annu­al­ly.
3. Wel­com­ing Com­mu­ni­ty: The city’s inclu­sive and sup­port­ive atmos­phere makes it easy for new­com­ers to feel at home.
4. Work-Life Bal­ance: Oulu’s work envi­ron­ment is char­ac­ter­ized with flex­i­bil­i­ty, trust and bal­anced orga­ni­za­tion­al struc­ture, pro­mot­ing a healthy work life bal­ance.
5. Edu­ca­tion­al Excel­lence: Top-tier edu­ca­tion­al insti­tu­tions like the Uni­ver­si­ty of Oulu pro­duce a con­stant flow of new tal­ent and oppor­tu­ni­ties.

Sup­port Ser­vices by Inter­na­tion­al House Oulu

Inter­na­tion­al House Oulu pro­vides exten­sive sup­port to help new­com­ers inte­grate into the local com­mu­ni­ty and job mar­ket. For exam­ple, net­work­ing events that offer oppor­tu­ni­ties to con­nect with locals and oth­er inter­na­tion­al peo­ple to expand their net­work. Work­shops that focus on var­i­ous top­ics like best job-hunt­ing prac­tices, LinkedIn pro­file build­ing, and opti­miz­ing your CV are a few exam­ples.

Social activ­i­ties, we have a month­ly board game night that gath­ers locals and inter­na­tion­al peo­ple to build social con­nec­tions. Last but not least our ser­vice point which is open Mon–Fri 9 AM to 3 PM, which offers assis­tance with var­i­ous needs and sit­u­a­tions.

For fur­ther inquires, you can con­tact IHOulu at ihoulu@ouka.fi or explore more about liv­ing and work­ing in Oulu at oulu.com/talent.

Main pho­to: Max Ray­mond and Adri­an Canales – the Webi­nar Hosts.