Bridging the Gap: My Experience with Talent Vantaa

Blog Business Vantaa 19.12.2024

Blen Hailu, the Talent Vantaa project coordinator at the City of Vantaa, shares her ideas on tackling the challenges of integrating international talents into the Finnish labor market.

Blen Hailu with her colleagues at Talent Vantaa.

Blen Hailu (right) and her colleagues at Talent Vantaa formed an excellent team, organizing matchmaking events and providing coaching for international talents and employers.

My journey with the Talent Vantaa team began in March 2023 when I participated in the Talent Hackathon. At the time, I was actively attending networking events and workshops. When I joined the team six months later, both the Talent Vantaa team and the broader EPA team were incredibly welcoming and have been supportive ever since. In this article, I share my experience to provide a glimpse into the challenges and rewards of working in a space dedicated to empowering international professionals like myself.

Talent Boost Summit was designed to bridge the gap between international job seekers and employers while promoting discussions about inclusive hiring practices.

When I joined, the team was deeply immersed in planning the Talent Boost Summit and TalentMatch event scheduled for November 2023.

Organizing the event required extensive planning and significant commitment from everyone involved. Although the work was intense initially, diving into the event planning gave me a unique opportunity to understand the complexity of organizing events on such a scale. My role involved collaborating with stakeholders to promote the event, ensure diverse representation and working on marketing and communications for effective outreach. By leveraging my personal and professional networks in combination with a multi-channel outreach strategy using social media, email campaigns and community partnerships, we were able to shape the event to meet as well as exceed participants’ expectations. In addition, we managed to reach a wider network of target audiences representing diverse communities and organizations.

Following the Talent Boost Summit, the Talent Vantaa team organized several other events designed to connect international professionals with prospective employers. These include Welcome to Vantaa, the Talent Hackathon, Tech and Talents, Starting Up together event with Startups etc. Each of these initiatives were important in creating diverse and innovative pathways for international professionals to engage with employers to land their first job.

Addressing Challenges: Convincing Companies to Engage

Despite the success of these events, our team persistently faced one challenge: convincing companies to actively participate in events and hire international professionals. This reluctance is not unique to our team but reflects a broader trend in Finland’s recruitment practices.

It’s clear that no amount of coaching, CV workshops, or LinkedIn optimization will lead to employment if companies are not open to hiring international talents.

And bridging this gap requires a holistic approach: addressing both the readiness of international professionals and improving companies’ hiring practices by investing in data driven, strategic solutions and services that aim to create not only connections but also result in concrete employment opportunities.

Tackling the Challenges: A Dual-Focused Approach

Services designed to support international talents usually focus on preparing them to navigate the Finnish labor market by offering support, coaching, and networking opportunities to help them create meaningful connections. Ideally, such efforts should begin early, when students start their studies at Finnish universities, rather than after graduation. This can be achieved through collaboration with educational institutions to integrate intensive Finnish language studies into international degree programs from the outset and to create pathways for work placements and internships during their studies.

However, for such initiatives, events and fairs to effectively lead to employment, it is essential to shift the approach companies take toward hiring international professionals. This involves a focus on changing attitudes, fostering honest discussions on sensitive topics and investing in concrete employment outcomes to encourage and support companies to open their doors to international professionals. Additionally, success stories should be highlighted to demonstrate the benefits for companies’ profitability, growth and brand awareness.

Working on such topics at Talent Vantaa has been an incredibly rewarding experience. Not only have I grown as a professional in the sector, but this role has also given me the opportunity to give back to the community and organizations that supported me during my job search journey.