Make your skills visible – Spark helped Satu find a new job

Topics

• Competence development
• Job seeking
• Member benefit
• Personal story
• Unemployment

Satu spent about half a year looking for work in a situation where there could be as many as hundreds of applicants for the same positions. With the help of YTK Spark, she learned to better identify and articulate her own skills and eventually found a new job in a new field.

“I feel that YTK’s job search services are always up to date. They offer truly comprehensive, timely assistance for the job search at any given moment.”

Satu has participated in Spark’s webinars and completed a work personality assessment and aptitude tests. She has also used Spark’s model for identifying her skills and strengths.

“The webinars provided excellent, concrete tools for articulating my own skills, and I found them to be the most beneficial of all. The webinars featured the hottest job-search coaches and experts of the moment, speaking about topics such as LinkedIn. I also gained confidence in my own skills and the belief that I still have opportunities to find a job.”

Spark provided ways to stand out

Satu recently started a new HR role in an industry that’s new to her. In her previous position, she worked for just under three years before being laid off for operational and financial reasons.

Before her previous job, Satu had also been looking for work for some time in 2022. She feels that the job market is now clearly more challenging than before.

“This time, job hunting felt really difficult, even though the last time I was looking for a job was over 2,5 years ago. There were even hundreds of applicants competing for the same positions as me. The situation wasn’t the same last time.”

“These days, when job hunting, you have to stand out from a large pool of other qualified applicants. You have to be able to highlight your own strengths and skills so that recruiters can spot what you have to offer among hundreds of applicants in just a few seconds. As a job seeker, that’s why you want all the help you can get to polish your application materials.”

Satu says that it was specifically the skill of articulating her own expertise and strengths that initially led her to seek answers through Spark’s services. Above all, Spark has provided the kind of job search support that other organizations haven’t offered.

“I’ve systematically gone through Spark’s content and used the sections where I hadn’t yet received help from other sources. I recommend the service to others as well. Spark offered specific information and guidance on job hunting – not the kind of generic advice you get just by Googling.”

Job search training and peer support from YTK Worklife

Satu says she also participated in the small-group job search sessions organized by YTK Worklife following the Spark webinars.

“The small group gave me peer support and reinforced my own skills. I also managed to sign up for YTK Worklife’s career coaching, but I never got around to starting it because I found my current job.”

Satu also praises the Eduhouse training courses, which are included in the YTK Worklife membership.

“I’ve especially enjoyed the opportunity to use the training courses and webinars on the Eduhouse online learning platform. You can take advantage of them both while working and while job hunting to develop your own skills.”

All in all, she is very satisfied with the support she has received from YTK.

“I’ve been a member of YTK for 17 years, and I’ve always felt that I’ve received help. My membership has helped me stay on top of things while job hunting during periods of unemployment.”