EN – FI

After graduating with a Master's degree, Lauren Stevens ended up applying for a job as a food delivery courier

Immigrant integration professional Lauren Stevens would like to work in communication, advocacy, or international relations, for example.

”I'm from Reading, South East England. I moved to Finland to study in an international peace research degree programme. I graduated with a Master's degree in 2019.
 
After graduation, I realised that job seeking in Finland isn’t easy. I sent hundreds of applications with meagre results. My dream job would include tasks related to communication, advocacy work and international expertise.

My first job interview came after I applied for a position at a sorting warehouse. After ten years of higher education, sorting through a bag of clothes during a job interview felt humiliating. I also applied to be a food delivery courier, but luckily I got another job offer just before the food delivery courier training started. 
 
I can’t help but compare myself to native Finns who graduated from the same degree programme as me around the same time: they work as special advisers and in other responsible roles in embassies, ministries, and international organisations, for example.
 
It's clear that language has been an obstacle to my employment. I’ve participated in a total of 18 Finnish language courses, and I’m currently working in Finnish in a Finnish-speaking organisation. I still have a foreign accent, and I feel that some people are unnerved by it.
 
After graduating with a Master's degree, I thought that my native English language skills would be useful, but in the end it has felt like more of a disadvantage for me. I feel people are afraid that I will judge their English language skills, although I actually try to be as encouraging as possible. After all, I myself speak Finnish as a foreign language every day.
 
Studying Finnish alone hasn’t solved my problems. At the end of one recruitment process, I was informed that I would need Finnish citizenship to get that position. After I was granted Finnish citizenship, I was asked about my Swedish language skills. This led me to think that job seeking in this country is unreasonably difficult.

Finally, job application number 498 led to my current position. I work as a project planner in the field of immigrant integration. I see surprisingly few people with an immigrant background in the field, even though supporting immigrants is central to the work.
 
Many organisations desperately need more immigration experts, and people with an immigrant background in particular ought to be hired for these positions. It would also be meaningful if more people who speak Finnish with a foreign accent were visible in our society.

I would have hoped that my job demand and salary level had increased more since my internship six years ago. I still value that I’m currently learning financial management at work. I believe that this will be useful in the future, even though it isn’t directly related to my career goals.
 
I consider flexibility, trust, and the opportunity to work independently as positive aspects of Finnish working life. I want to believe that the more people of immigrant backgrounds send job applications, the more recruiters and employers need to acknowledge our existence and our capabilities.”
 

Lauren Stevens is sharing her story as part of Rastor-instituutti’s Työelämäteko working life action campaign.