valoa summary
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Table of contents
VALOA-project
University of Helsinki
Higher Education Group,
School of Management,
University of Tampere
Y S, Y C,
E P
Employability of International
Graduates Educated in Finnish
Higher Education Institutions
Survey
ISBN ---- (PDF)
Employability of International
Graduates Educated in Finnish
Higher Education Institutions
2
www.studentintegration.fi
( Materials Surveys and publications);
www.helsinki.fi/urapalvelut/valoasurvey
P J, VALOA
T B
J P, Cloud Oy
The VALOA project is partly funded by the
EUs European Social Fund, and co-ordinated
by the University of Helsinki. The aim of the
project is to increase cooperation and network-
ing between universities and employers in or-
der to open new employment opportunities for
the international degree students in Finland.
www.beglobal.fiand
www.studentintegration.fi
Intro 3
Significance of the study 3Motivations to study in Finland 4Do international graduates stay in
Finland? 5Employment rate 6Fields and sectors of employment 7Job searching 8Main obstacles to finding a job in
Finland 9Skills required in the workplace 10Skills gained from Finnish higher
education 11Finnish language courses 12Finnish language skills 13Criticism of Finnish higher
education 14Recommendations for
Finnish HEIs 15& 16Employers perspective Cooperation
with HEIs: Good practices 17Degrees and employers 18Employers should become more
open-minded 19Finnish work environment 20Stakeholders should join forces 21Survey 22Research objectives 22Short Bio of Authors 23
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T the study is
determined mainly by four factors:
the lack of information on what hap-
pens to international students after
they graduate; the fact that the Finnish Ministry of
Education and Culture is planning to
use the employment of graduates as
part of its funding allocation system;
the Higher Education Internation-
alisation strategy aiming to increase
the number of international students
in Finland; and
the need to satisfy the rapidly grow-
ing labour market needs with an in-
creased input of foreign talent in the
context of ageing population.
Intro
T
employment is increasingly becom-
ing a concern in terms of both attract-
ing international students to Finnishhigher education and supporting Finn-
ish labour market development and
economic growth. However, there was
little concrete information available
on the subsequent employment of in-
ternational graduates. VALOA-project
launched a research project to fill the
gap by examining the activities, out-
comes and experiences of international
students after graduation from Finnish
higher education institution.
Significance of the study
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F be an at-
tractive place to take ones higher
education degree studies with of
respondents stating that Finland was
their first choice among study abroad
destinations.
T reasons for choosing
Finland were:
. Free of charge education,
. Possibility to study in English,
. A chance to improve employabil-
ity,
. A chance to explore a foreign coun-
try, and
. Reputation of higher education
institution(s).
F is val-
ued for its quality, flexibility, an oppor-
tunity to participate in real-life projects
and self-study options. Also, the vast
majority of respondents (.) would
recommend Finland as a place of studyto their friends or relatives.
E were more
recommendations on what could be
improved in Finnish higher education
respondents gave praising comments
such as the one above.
Motivations to
study in Finland
I think the Finnish higher education system andinstitutions are perfect the way they are. Im veryhappy with the education I have received and ithas helped get into a Masters degree program,develop contacts, and get a high quality managerial
position in a large, global manufacturing company.
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Do international graduates
stay in Finland?
A VALOA study
results Finland is also an attractive
place to live and work in. Among the
international graduates of
who participated in the survey, only
returned to their home countries
or moved elsewhere. This finding is
consistent with the Statistics Finland
data of stating that of inter-
national graduates are still in Finland
one year after graduation.
N, those who
would like to stay in Finland had to
leave due to the obstacles of finding a
job and there is a slight indication of di-
minishing stay up rate with time.
H in mind that of
the respondents spent more than half
a year in Finland before starting their
studies, which means that they may
have other reasons to move to this
country than study, e.g. family ties.
2-5
The place where graduatessettle after graduation
It is all about the 1st job. Finnish employers arehesitant to employ a foreigner mainly due tocultural and language related issues. Once aforeigner is able to get his/her first job and receivegood references for the future a 2nd employeris more willing to take an applicant because the
risk factor has been minimized/vanished.
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T of VALOA
study participants is .
A are not em-
ployed are undertaking fur-
ther studies which make it the most
popular strategy of enhancing onesemployability.
I the students continent
of origin, the variations in the employ-
ment rate are quite large.
A jobs taken by
graduates are characterised by fixed
term work contracts, the situation im-
proves further in the career with half of
the contracts being permanent in the
current job.
3-12
Status of first employment
3-5
Employment rate bygraduates locations
Employment rate
3-3
Employment rate of internationalgraduates by continent of origin
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3-18
Professional fields of thegraduates current jobs
3-19
Distribution of graduates currentemployment in terms of sectors
Fields and sectors
of employment
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T graduates got their
jobs in a traditional way by responding
to a job advertisement or by contacting
the employer directly (sending open
applications).
T play an in-
creasingly important role in finding a
job. Personal connections and recom-
mendations from the teaching staff
helped some graduates.
3-14
Methods of job searching (first job)
Job searching
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Main obstacles to
finding a job in Finland
W employ-
ers have positive attitudes towards
hiring and working with international
graduates, the graduates themselves
find the following obstacles to securing
a job in Finland:
The lack of adequate Finnish/Swed-
ish language skills
The lack of the right networks
The lack of work experience, espe-
cially through internships
The small labour market
Ethnic discrimination in the recruit-
ment process
Lack of career guidance in HEIs
I had to quit my doctoral programme in Finlandafter a year because of lack of scholarship andworking opportunities in Finland. I applied to
Germany and immediately I got a very gooddoctoral position and job at a German university.I wish I had the same opportunities as I havein Germany now in Finland. I lived in Finlandfor three years and had to leave the country intears because of its limited job opportunities.
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I -
that their skills are at higher
level than what is required in their
current job. This can be attributed to
them being overeducated, but in the
case of international graduates who
often have to take on any job avail-
able, the situation rather reflects their
underemployment.
N, of
university graduates have had to
take jobs that require a lower degree
of education or no higher education
whatsoever.
I that the international
graduates have to lower their job ex-
pectations in a foreign labour market
due to e.g. insufficient language skills.
Skills required in
the workplace
People with MBAs and different culturalknowledge work as cleaners and have nochance of getting proper job, because the job
market is not ready for international candidates,or does not have enough vacancies.
4-4.
The level of skills andcompetencies possessed bygraduates and those required atwork (graduates perceptions)
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Skills gained from Finnish
higher education
T Finnish higher
education seems to be in the academ-
ic development of the students. The
graduates thought that they have de-
veloped the most in their
ability to write reports,
in their analytical skills and
in the mastery of their own field.
T entrepre-
neurial skills, work experience and
leadership skills were the weakest di-
mensions of Finnish education.
A survey, the grad-
uates with a higher level of the follow-
ing skills and competencies have better
chances to be employed:
. work experience in the field or dis-
cipline,. team working skills,
. mastery of own field,
. inter-cultural competences,
. leadership skills,
. computer skills,
. knowledge of other fields or disci-
plines,
. ability to coordinate activities/
projects,
. analytical/research skills, and
. ability to rapidly acquire new
knowledge.
As far as the labour market is concerned withall the soft and hard skills needed the Finnishuniversities are not even close. The hard skills
become obsolete very fast, so I would not say thatits very important to know, e.g. the programmingvery well. That would change in six months. Butthe soft skills, for example, how to sell yourself,how to keep up your continuous learning, how torecognise your personal advantage and weakness,how to work within a team and so on... that I havenot seen in the curriculum, thats what is required.
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Finnish language skills
A 35 UAS graduates consid-
ered their language skills to be at least
in the intermediate level. In the univer-
sities, the corresponding share was less
than half of the students.
4-7
Language skills by type ofinstitution and discipline
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T that there
is room for improvement in terms of
the higher educations relevance to the
labour market. The other main issues
with higher education were
the lack of courses offered in English,
the lack of Finnish language courses,
the over-reliance on one industry,
and
the lack of practice in social skills
and customer service.
Criticism of Finnish
higher education
Many important courses are availablein Finnish or Swedish but not availablefor international programmes.
M prefer to
see more practical studies that are clos-
er to the industry. They regretted that,
most of the time, courses were solely
informative and did not teach how toreally work with the technologies.
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Recommendations
for Finnish HEIs
I enhance the interna-
tional graduate employability the re-
spondents have suggested a number of
measures and recommendations.
T situation and
the importance of learning Finnish
need to be explained to the students at
the beginning of their studies.
S
learning Finnish in a communicative
and flexible way should be provided
throughout degree studies. Intensive
summer courses could be offered as well.
If most students would be given theopportunity to carry out internships andother placements in the industries by their
institutions, then the level of employment offoreign students in particular might increase.
A be-
tween HEIs and employer representa-
tives should be encouraged, especially
in terms of curriculum development
and providing more internship op-
portunities. Mentoring programmes
proved to be a good practice in helping
international students become more
employable.
T in
English should be made equivalent
to those offered in Finnish in terms of
availability of courses and the quality
of teaching.
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There was a distinct lack of networking andcoordination of our Masters programme within theuniversity and with the wider Finnish community.
It was an international Masters, but I have apoor network and find it very difficult to becomeemployable. I have not had one interview outsideof my current job as a freelance English teacher.If it werent for family ties, I would not stay.
F, of internation-
al alumni contact details need to be
maintained for further research, mar-
keting and fundraising purposes.
T the interna-
tional graduates showed that there is a
clear need for better career services in
Finnish HEIs. A special emphasis was
placed on the lack of support with find-
ing internships. It was advised to make
work placements compulsory even at
the Masters level. Other comments
indicated difficulties with access to la-
bour market information and profes-
sional networks things that graduates
believe HEIs can help with:
Provide information at the beginning timein Finland, about Finnish job situation andimportance of local language and course.
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Employers perspective
Cooperation with HEIs:
Good practices
T asked about
the types of cooperation that compa-
nies develop with HEIs. Usually, such
cooperation involves the following
activities:
Study visits of students to companies
Internships
Joint projects: companies approach
certain departments in HEIs with
project ideas for students to work
on or use innovative platforms (e.g.
Demola) to form teams of students
from different HEIs and majors.
Such projects allow the students to
develop innovative skills and earnstudy credits.
Summer jobs
Thesis writing in the company.
Representation in HEIs Advisory
Board gives employers an oppor-
tunity to review and influence the
curriculum. In general, at least
of a universitys Governing Board
must comprise representatives of ex-
ternal stakeholders, which ensures
that educational programmes are
more closely linked to labour market
needs.
Offering some teaching in HEIs.
Individual mentorship by compa-
ny representatives: the mentoring
process seems to be a success even
though it is not directly meant to
secure employment for the gradu-
ates. The main outcomes of the
programme are that the mentees
learn new things about the Finnish
working culture and expand theirprofessional networks, the mentors
improve their understanding of their
own and other cultures and, on the
whole, awareness is raised about the
challenges that international gradu-
ates face in Finland.
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Degrees and employers
W who had
problems in degree recognition are
analysed, there are proportional differ-
ences between different nationalities,
genders and fields of study. Accord-
ing to the open-ended comments pro-
vided by the respondents, the major
problems were related to newly-estab-
lished, interdisciplinary programmes
or recently merged universities (e.g.
Aalto) that employers had not had time
to get used to yet.
T quite a few chal-lenges related to developing the in-
ternational programmes, including
their marketing, funding, organising
teaching in English and ensuring the
programmes continuity. In addition,
the employer might need to get used to
the interdisciplinary character of many
new programmes.
E more ac-
tively persuaded to become interested
in the process of curriculum develop-
ment and teaching in English. Also, if
there are more mixed classes for Finn-
ish and foreign students, the percep-tion of differences in the curricula will
fade away.
It is not just inviting companies to marketthemselves in schools that matter, the institutionsof higher education in Finland should have a closer
collaboration with the corporate world in promotingtheir product, who are the students. In other words,even though it seems as though there is a linkbetween the schools and companies, that link isonly seen to be in favour of the local students.
Employers feel that foreigners take somedifferent degree than Finnish students.Some Finnish employers feel that our studydoes not match to that of Finnish students.
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Employers should become
more open-minded
I that employers would
become more lenient towards inter-
national graduates and try to de-em-
phasise the knowledge of the Finnish
language as a criteria for employment.
International graduates represent an
important pool of talent that can help
Finnish companies internationalise.
T sharing suc-
cess stories concerning international
graduate employment was highlighted
by one respondent:
E was no ex-
plicit strategy for hiring international
graduates, the advantages of having
them around, especially in terms of
cross-cultural and native languageskills, are realized and acknowledged.
Also, the novelty of the different ways
of working that might be used in an-
other culture was appreciated:
F, to be impossible
to penetrate the foreign market without
employing experts from that country.
We seldom see highly successful foreigners in Finland.I do not know if this is because of lack of informationor it is the truth. Thus the international studentsfeel it is hard to get a good position for a foreigner.
I think Finnish employers should be educated byproviding cross cultural communication/managementcourses from government. That would enhance theirview then possibly give job chance to immigrants.
It will broaden your own view, improve understandingof different cultures. [] You will think out of the box.
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Finnish work
environment
I like to work in Finland, I like the working atmosphere,the attitude and work ethics here. Its like home, youwork, you show yourself. I would say that Finland is
a great country for opportunities, that people canuse and show their talents in different profession.
I work environment in
Finland, the graduates value the flex-
ibility, multiculturalism, the oppor-
tunity to develop ones potential, the
opportunity to use the knowledge and
skills gained during studies and the
democratic working environment. On
the other side, Finnish straightfor-
wardness, flat hierarchy and a lower
degree of supervision are the things
that international graduates often find
more difficult to get used to.
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Stakeholders should
join forces
T to grad-
uate employment cannot be solved
by HEIs alone as the transition proc-
ess from HEIs to work involves many
stakeholders, such as employers, policy
makers, project managers, recruitment
agencies, immigration authorities and
the graduates themselves.
I
currently extend their residence per-
mit for six months after graduation to
look for a job. Unless they have family
ties or are employed, they are not eligi-
ble for the social benefits, which makes
this group extremely vulnerable.
I is to benefit from for-
eign talent, policy makers should try
to support recent graduates. In order to
enhance the employability of the inter-
national graduates networking forums
for immigrants, HEIs and employers
should be provided.
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Survey
T a survey of
international graduates of -() in Finnish Higher Education
Institutions and interviews with the
graduates and employers. The survey
respondents involved both the Univer-
sity and University of Applied Sciences
graduates representing nationalities.
I acknowledged that the
response rate in the VALOA survey was
relatively low (.), which is one of
the limitations of the study.
Research objectives
To provide an overall and compre-
hensive picture of the activities,
outcomes and experiences of inter-
national graduates from Finnish
HEIs in the years .
To discover what factors affect the
employment of international gradu-
ates.
To explore the relevance of the skills
gained in the course of studies for
the world of work as perceived by in-
ternational graduates and their em-
ployers, focusing on the added value
of Finnish higher education.
To elicit recommendations on howFinnish HEIs can raise their profiles
internationally and enhance the em-
ployability of international gradu-
ates.
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Short Bio of Authors
Y C a Uni-
versity Lecturer and Ad-junct Professor at the
Higher Education Group,
School of Management, University of
Tampere, Finland. His main research
areas are higher education policy and
management, internationalisation of
higher education (employability of in-
ternational graduates and education
export), and transformation of higher
education in innovation systems. His
publications include four books/mono-graphs and more than peer-reviewed
journal articles and book chapters.
E P a
university instructor,
belonging to the Higher
Education Group at the
University of Tampere. He holds mas-
ter degrees in administrative and po-
litical science and is currently enrolled
as PhD student. His main research ar-
eas are academic work, profession and
higher education policy.
Y S
a PhD candidate, at the
Higher Education Group,
School of Management,
University of Tampere, Finland. Her
PhD thesis is related to the employabil-
ity of international graduates in Fin-
land. She graduated from the Erasmus
Mundus European Master in HigherEducation Programme in and has
a six-year experience of administrating
international education.
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