Getting involved is the key to getting ahead
Kayla is from the United States and has been living in Finland for three years. She came here to study her masters in business and has a degree in mechanical engineering from back home. Kayla started volunteering in The Shortcut earlier this year as a Coding Coach. Now she has gotten a job in a start up and is a group lead at Slush. Read her story here.
When it comes to the challenge of finding a job in a foreign country, Kayla knows what she is talking about. Since moving here three years ago her search for work has been a bit of a bumpy ride and includes everything from flirty men who might never have been able to give her a job to begin with to people who get back to you three months after you sent your application and then never get back to you about actually having a meeting about the position. Expat life is not easy.
”I got my degree in mechanical engineering back in the States and I decided to apply for masters in business since I was very keen on starting my own business. Helsinki seemed like a great choice, judging from the beautiful photos I found on Google of the White Cathedral and the blue water. Since here I am. As far as job hunting goes, that was a bit of a rollercoaster, and it definitely has been discouraging at times.”
Having a degree in mechanical engineering motivated her to look for work in that field here in Finland but the language barrier made it very difficult for her to get any job as engineer since she didn’t speak Finnish.
A friend of Kayla’s was head of one of the Slush teams and at this point she had heard so much about volunteering that she decided to give it a go. She got involved in Arctic15 last April. It was also her involvement in this event that led her to The Shortcut.
“We had a WhatsApp group for all the volunteers and one of the other members was active at The Shortcut and mentioned they were looking for people to help out at their prototyping weekend. Since I know coding and thought it sounded interesting I expressed my interest and ending up helping out during that weekend and that’s how I got introduced to The Shortcut.”
Suddenly a whole new range of opportunities opened up following her involvement in Arctic15 and the prototyping weekend.
“The people at The Shortcut are super great people; easy to talk to and really friendly. It’s a very welcoming environment. I got to try out a bunch of different things but mainly put my energy in the Coding Club. I was a coach, which meant that every Thursday I was helping out a group of people, who were new to coding learning about the basics.”
Kayla herself did some coding when she was younger, but it was not until she had her own business idea that she found the determination to really learn the skill.
“I had this idea for a business that I really wanted to do while I was still back in the States. One of my classmates did coding and agreed to help me out, but when he got busy with freelancing, I wasn’t ready to give up on the project at all. I ended up teaching myself how to code. This is one of the best decisions I ever made, I realised how much fun coding is and all the possibilities coding brings. In that sense it was a blessing in disguise that he decided to quit.”
Kayla was so enthusiastic about her idea that she would not just spend an hour a day or a week, but that she would literally be coding on her website from sundown to sunup. She was determined to make it happen and in less than a year she had a fully functioning website with customer login and everything.
Her coding skills got her involved in the coding club and eventually opened the door to her current job.
“The Shortcut gave me a lot of opportunities to meet a lot of new people and really expand my network. They have a lot of guests coming in at different events and the people at The Shortcut are well aware what your skills are and if you’re looking for work. So I was introduced to a lot of different people and it was actually the CEO of The Shortcut who suggested me to some companies she knew were looking for coders. That’s how I got introduced to them; I was invited for interviews and got call-backs. Eventually I got hired in my current position. If it hadn’t been for those connections at The Shortcut and the willingness to help I would not have a job right now to be completely honest.”
After Kayla’s rocky start with the Finnish job market she is now claiming that 2017 has been her most successful year so far and she has no doubts about the cause of her success: “Getting out of the house, becoming more active and getting involved has definitely been the key to my success. Get out and volunteer, meet new people, get new connections and expand your network. This has definitely made the biggest difference for me and that are the most important things that have brought me to where I am today.”
Stepping into the work market in Finland can be very challenging, especially when you are new to the country, don’t speak the language and have not yet built your network. Figuring out where to meet the people that could potentially help you in the right direction is another key problem. Kayla has faced all of the above and her advice for people who are new here and looking for work is simple.
“First of all it’s so important not to give up. You might have to turn over a few rocks but it’s out there, just never give up. And second of all, as somebody told me 80% of the jobs in Finland are not on LinkedIn or the Hub or anywhere to be found. It’s all through connections; it’s all through networks. So get out there, network as much as you can, it is honestly your greatest resource building up that network. In the end though, the main thing is just to never give up.”
