Through her higher education internship, Katia gained a lot of valuable experience in HR work and recruitment in education, as well as understanding Finnish work practices. Language exchange with colleagues was also proved valuable in daily life.
When Katia Willma, 25, applied for an internship at the Education Division’s Human Resources Services, she had a clear idea of what she wanted to learn and experience.
Katia is from Toruń, Poland, and is completing her Master's studies in a European Studies programme in Germany, is not a first-timer in Finland – she has lived here for a few months and studied Finnish before. However, there are many reasons for why this six-month higher education internship in the Education Division was a particularly exiting step for Katia.
Right off the bat, Katia got involved in an interesting project: international recruitment for early childhood education. Her work focused on evaluating the recruitment pilot and launching a new recruitment project. She would work with recruitment partners and participate in job interviews with candidates. In addition, she got to build cooperation structures for international recruitment with cities like Berlin, Hamburg and Ghent.
"I wanted to learn more about HR work, and it has been a privilege getting to learn on the job in a place that receives high praise for its education", Katia says.
"Everyone abroad knows Finland’s education system. I wanted to see how you do things here."
I, too, am an immigrant and that is why I was able to identify with the job seekers' situation and difficulties.
Katia's work also landed her at international employee events, such as Rekrytori for Internationals and the Startup Refugees information event, where she got to meet international job seekers.
"I, too, am an immigrant and that is why I was able to identify with the job seekers' situation and difficulties and have valuable discussions with them,” Katia says.
"It has been great to really help people find jobs and develop ways to work that can benefit a larger group of people in the future.”
While English was her main working language, Katia had also wanted practical experience of working in Finnish and meeting Finns.
"People often think that you only need to learn it for work, but I want to use the language outside of work – I want to learn to talk to people in the real life, too."
Her work community found a natural way to combine the different languages.
"My coworkers didn't change what language they would speak at meetings, but they always prepared an agenda for me so I could keep up", Katia says.
"If I there was something I didn’t understand, they would explain it to me. It was also nice that they didn’t bend over backwards to only speak English for my sake – they spoke Finnish, but would also explain things in another language when it was called for. It made me feel like I was a part of the team and that helped me develop as a language learner."
People often think that you only need to learn it for work, but I want to use the language outside of work – I want to learn to talk to people in the real life, too.
Katia would always be invited for lunch, for example, and although the conversations were often in Finnish, someone always made sure that she understood.
"This is a perfect example of inclusion: if we were to speak English all the time and then someone switches to Finnish, that makes you feel like an outsider. There were no limits in my team, things just flowed naturally."
Language exchange with colleagues was also proved valuable in daily life. As a counterbalance to her Finnish language practice, Katia helped her colleagues develop their English skills.
"We found our own ways to communicate – my Finnish isn’t perfect yet by far, but it’s not like everyone else is good with English either. Sometimes I spoke Finnish to the best of my ability, and people would answer in English or simple Finnish. And since I was obviously not perfect, others felt safe speaking a language they themselves aren’t perfect at", says Katia.
"Hearing people be excited about my Finnish skills was such a boost to my motivation. It encouraged me to learn more."
Above all, I now know how important the work of municipal administration is.
The Finns’ small talk skills were also a big surprise to Katia.
"People say that Finns don’t talk, but that is just not true – someone would always start a conversation in the office elevator", Katia laughs.
"I always tried to reply in Finnish, and if I didn't understand, they would explain more slowly or switched to English without stopping the conversation, which was really nice. People were really happy to hear me try to speak Finnish."
Through her higher education internship, Katia gained a lot of valuable experience in HR work, recruitment and understanding Finnish work practices. At the same time, she also learned things that are certain to help her no matter what.
"I'm really grateful to my team and everyone here! I’ve gotten to work on a lot of different things and above all, I now know how important the work of municipal administration is", says Katia.
"Getting to really help people and see how meaning the work is has been the most valuable thing to me. I want to keep doing work that is meaningful, work where you know that you are truly helping others."
