Working opportunities

Many international students are asking about the working possibilities in Finland and specifically in Jyväskylä. Let’s look into this topic to give you some idea about the situation! 

In general, finding work in Finland is troublesome for international students who do not have at least a basic knowledge of Finnish language. Therefore, the most common part-time jobs of international students are newspaper/add delivery, cleaning jobs, delivering food, etc. However, IT is probably the most significant exception as English is globally the working language there. 

I remember around 20 international students working in the local IT companies throughout the years of my stay in Jyväskylä. It is possible to find a job in the IT field without advanced knowledge of Finnish but it naturally depends on the skills that you can offer to the potential employer. As far as I remember some kind of software development is the most common position that you could be aiming at. Part-time arrangement during the studies might be a bit more difficult to get than a full-time job after graduation but it naturally depends on the employer and the position in question.

Finding a job is primarily your responsibility but during the process, you can benefit from wide support of the university. University’s Career Services offer support for example in the form of consulting your CV, collecting available positions or organizing the Team&Client course where you work on a case project for a real company. There are various job fairs as well. DuunIT fair is specifically targeted at the students of the IT faculty so I definitely recommend visiting it to get to know the potential employers! The City of Jyväskylä and two local universities also organize an annual event, International Networking Event, which aims to promote employment and internship opportunities of foreign students. The students of the IT faculty receive a weekly e-mail with open internship and job positions and there are always some that do not require a command of Finnish language.

To sum this up, finding a job without Finnish skills can be difficult but luckily IT (especially the technical positions) is a significant exception. However, it will require you to take the responsibility, be active and offer the employers good attitude and needed skills. If you manage to do that, I would be positive that you can find a job here.