Finland : Help and advice abroad

Public employment services

Almost every big municipality has its own employment office (työvoimatoimistot) that provides information about jobs throughout Finland, vocational guidance and career planning services. Additionally, they can give you information about study opportunities, the labour market, professions and job profiles. Some have special units for students and graduates and cooperate closely with educational institutions, sometimes even having a presence in the university careers service.

Many employment offices in the larger municipalities have international labour advisers or EURES - European Job Mobility Portal advisers, trained to help and advise people from other countries looking for jobs in Finland. As well as the EURES advisers, most of the other staff members speak or understand English. All local employment office services are free.

Details of employment offices are available on the Employment and Economic Development Office website. It is also possible to write to the relevant employment office before going to Finland for details of job and training opportunities.

Higher education careers support

There are careers services at every university in Finland, similar to the UK. They are usually called rekrytointipalvelut (urapalvelut and työllistymispalvelut are other terms used in Finnish, Arbetsforum and Ekonomforum in Swedish). Their main aim is to facilitate recruitment, which they do by means of career counselling, career fairs and web pages, which provide links for students to employers, vacancies and other relevant information.

Students and employers may place CVs and vacancies on some careers services websites themselves. Subject to a preliminary interview, students may sometimes also become part of a confidential CV database, which is searched by the career service at the request of employers. All career services encourage networking and self-marketing skills and run courses in effective job seeking.

The facilities and services offered by each university careers service are normally restricted to students of that university. Contact details for the university careers services may be found on the Aarresaari website, which is a network of academic career services representing around 18 Finnish universities.

Help in an emergency

The British Embassy Finland provides help if you get into difficulty in Finland, offering a range of advice and services, including issuing replacement passports, help if you have been a victim of crime and details of local services.

The emergency number, 112, is used for ambulances, the fire brigade, police and emergency social services.