“Give us a chance, you won’t be disappointed”–how do inter­na­tion­al experts and com­pa­nies find each oth­er?

Are you look­ing for an inter­na­tion­al expert for your com­pa­ny? It’s easy to employ a skilled work­er in the Oulu region, as var­i­ous sources offer sup­port in recruit­ing. ‘Addi­tion­al­ly, cir­ca 12 000 for­eign­ers live in Oulu, who have the enthu­si­asm and exper­tise to offer to local busi­ness­es’, says Sal­la Hir­vo­nen, Project Man­ag­er of Oulu Tal­ent Hub.

Flex­i­bil­i­ty and bal­ance. Among oth­ers, these two things come to Moustafa Khair’s mind regard­ing the Finnish work­ing cul­ture and its best char­ac­ter­is­tics, which he great­ly appre­ci­ates.

Moustafa, an Egypt­ian, moved to Oulu two years ago in Jan­u­ary 2021. He com­plet­ed a Master’s degree in Data Pro­cess­ing Sci­ence in just over a year at the Oulu Uni­ver­si­ty and spe­cial­ized in AI.

He already worked for Nokia dur­ing his stud­ies and also com­plet­ed his Pro Gradu the­sis with Nokia. After which, he has worked for a num­ber of Finnish com­pa­nies. At the moment, Moustafa is employed by Dentsu Fin­land.

– I got my first job six weeks after mov­ing to Fin­land. But I start­ed look­ing for work long before com­ing here. It’s impor­tant to research the labor mar­ket, and the required qual­i­fi­ca­tions before­hand, says Moustafa.

– Work­ing in the tech­nol­o­gy indus­try, not speak­ing the local lan­guage is def­i­nite­ly not the biggest bar­ri­er. The more inter­na­tion­al the com­pa­ny is, the less com­pe­tence in Finnish is required.

Net­work­ing plays an impor­tant part in job search­ing, he admits. He thinks it’s good to know the right peo­ple and to hear from them about so-called hid­den jobs, because not all job open­ings are adver­tised in pub­lic search­es.

– Look­ing for jobs with­in my field was chal­leng­ing, but a reward­ing process. The best thing about work life in Fin­land is the bal­ance between work and pri­vate life. My man­agers have always made sure I’m not over­bur­dened and that I get to rest enough.

Moustafa, dur­ing his stud­ies, also par­tic­i­pat­ed in sev­er­al recruit­ment fairs and net­work­ing events, and he found them to be cru­cial in help­ing him find work. These events were arranged by the edu­ca­tion­al insti­tutes, the City of Oulu, and Oulu Tal­ent Hub, he says.

“Con­cerns regard­ing the spous­es’ com­fort”

Sal­la Hir­vo­nen, Project Man­ag­er of Oulu Tal­ent Hub (OTH) has noticed in her work that inter­na­tion­al experts first and fore­most wish for trans­paren­cy from com­pa­nies in their job open­ing adver­tise­ments. They also wish for more net­work­ing events in Oulu, where they could meet with locals.

– Job open­ings are often adver­tised in Eng­lish, but the job may still require per­fect Finnish skills. It would be impor­tant to state in the job adver­tise­ment if the job requires com­pe­tence in Finnish and the lev­el of com­pe­tence required, says Sal­la Hir­vo­nen.

On the oth­er hand, for busi­ness­es in Oulu, find­ing a suit­able skilled work­er and the lack of lan­guage skills are often the biggest chal­lenges in inter­na­tion­al recruit­ments. There may not be a com­mon lan­guage, or chang­ing the lan­guage of busi­ness meet­ings to Eng­lish might be a big ask for the com­pa­ny, says Sal­la.

– In addi­tion, com­pa­nies are also con­cerned about the com­fort of the spous­es of inter­na­tion­al experts in Oulu. Will they be able to find work, friends or study places, and will the fam­i­ly find a suit­able school for the chil­dren?

– We are con­stant­ly devel­op­ing our ser­vices in Oulu and we are atten­tive to the needs of com­pa­nies. Around a 100 indi­vid­ual com­pa­nies have par­tic­i­pat­ed in the Oulu Tal­ent Hub activ­i­ties, and we have offered them, for instance, free-of-charge coach­ing, men­tor­ing as well as infor­ma­tion and recruit­ment events, Sal­la men­tions.

Nowa­days, there is a lot of sup­port avail­able for inter­na­tion­al recruit­ments – and they are made easy by focus­ing on the experts resid­ing with­in the Oulu region, Sal­la sug­gests.

– There are around 12 000 for­eign­ers liv­ing in Oulu. They have the enthu­si­asm, exper­tise and a great deal more to offer to local com­pa­nies. The pri­ma­ry mes­sage they usu­al­ly have for local employ­ers is “give us a chance, you won’t be dis­ap­point­ed.

Oulu Tal­ent Hub recent­ly com­piled a “Wel­come to Oulu” brochure for peo­ple who have just moved to Oulu or who are plan­ning to move here. The Oulu Tal­ent Hub web­pages also con­tain impor­tant infor­ma­tion for com­pa­nies and inter­na­tion­al experts con­cern­ing the dif­fer­ent ser­vices avail­able in Oulu. www.oulutalenthub.fi

– In the ear­ly spring of 2023, we will com­bine a num­ber of dif­fer­ent ser­vices under the “Inter­na­tion­al House Oulu” con­cept. The phys­i­cal loca­tion will be Busi­nes­sAs­e­ma. Like­wise, we are going to pub­lish com­pre­hen­sive web­pages, where both inter­na­tion­al peo­ple and com­pa­nies can eas­i­ly find infor­ma­tion under one roof.

Learn­ing from the men­tor­ing pro­gram

E. Helaakos­ki Oy is a lift­ing ser­vices com­pa­ny, who believes they will have more inter­na­tion­al work­ers in the future. Mar­ket­ing Man­ag­er Iiris Helaakos­ki says that there is a short­age of vehi­cle crane dri­vers at the moment.

– We have recent­ly start­ed think­ing about recruit­ing inter­na­tion­al experts on a larg­er scale. Our goal is to find com­pe­tent crane dri­vers, and this is one option that we’re look­ing into, says Iiris Helaakos­ki.

– We have around 130 employ­ees at the moment. A few of them are inter­na­tion­al work­ers. The longest work con­tract with an inter­na­tion­al work­er has been ten years.

The com­pa­ny has par­tic­i­pat­ed in the joint men­tor­ing train­ing arranged by Oulu Tal­ent Hub and Oulun Kaup­paka­mari. Accord­ing to Iiris, the “Pohjoisen bis­ne­shalti­jat” men­tor­ing pro­gram has been very help­ful for their com­pa­ny.

Dur­ing the men­tor­ing pro­gram, they pon­dered, for exam­ple, on what the path for inter­na­tion­al recruit­ment could look like for E. Helaakos­ki Oy and what prac­ti­cal changes would be required in the orga­ni­za­tion­al cul­ture.

– At the moment all of our work­ers speak Finnish, but mov­ing for­ward we’ll have to think about whether we could par­tial­ly use Eng­lish as a lan­guage of com­mu­ni­ca­tion. This, of course, depends a great deal on our cus­tomers and their demands.

Sup­port on an inter­na­tion­al lev­el

1. Sup­port ser­vices for inter­na­tion­al recruit­ment have devel­oped at a light speed over the past cou­ple of years in Fin­land. Last year a so-called fast-track lane was opened for spe­cial­ists, through which it is pos­si­ble to get a res­i­dence per­mit in two weeks
2. Recent­ly a com­mon phone and email con­sul­ta­tion ser­vice was estab­lished for employ­ers, offer­ing low-cost con­sul­ta­tions on all inter­na­tion­al hir­ing-relat­ed issues.
3. A new ser­vice in 2023 will be a men­tor­ing pro­gram direct­ed at man­agers. Busi­ness Finland’s Tal­ent fund­ing is being updat­ed to sup­port com­pa­nies’ com­pe­tence in inter­na­tion­al recruit­ment and in lead­ing an inter­na­tion­al work­ing com­mu­ni­ty.
4. In addi­tion, the Työ­paik­ka Suo­mi ‑palvelu ser­vice for learn­ing the lan­guage is still avail­able.

The goal of Oulu Tal­ent Hub was to sup­port the employ­ment of inter­na­tion­al experts in the com­pa­nies of the Oulu region, for instance, through com­pa­ny vis­its, recruit­ment and infor­ma­tion events, as well as job search­ing work­shops. The enti­ties respon­si­ble for the project (1.2.2021–31.1.2023) were Business­Oulu, Oulun Kaup­paka­mari, Uni­ver­si­ty of Oulu, Oulu Uni­ver­si­ty of Applied Sci­ences and OSAO. The project was fund­ed by the Euro­pean Social Fund ESF.

You can read more pos­i­tive career sto­ries from inter­na­tion­al experts here.

Tag: Salla Hirvonen

“Give us a chance, you won’t be disappointed”–how do inter­na­tion­al experts and com­pa­nies find each oth­er?

Published at 26.1.2023

Are you looking for an international expert for your company? It’s easy to employ a skilled worker in the Oulu region, as various sources offer support in recruiting. ‘Additionally, circa 12 000 foreigners live in Oulu, who have the enthusiasm and expertise to offer to local businesses’, says Salla Hirvonen, Project Manager of Oulu Talent Hub.