Rethinking dreams
In Tia Laakkonen’s opinion, the best part of the careers service has been the personal support you get. Photo: Liisa Takala
A year ago, Tia Laakkonen landed her first permanent job. The position as hospitality host and sales representative in a hotel in Helsinki region was her dream job. Then Covid came along.
For Tia Laakkonen, like many others, the year has been full of challenges. In March 2020 she found her dream job in the completely new role of hospitality host in a new hotel in the Helsinki region.
But Covid changed all that. She was laid off as soon as she started, so she ended up applying for other jobs too.
During the year she has worked at Prisma, as an online service advisor and has applied for numerous other jobs. At one stage she had 27 applications on the go, one of which resulted in an interview.
In July Laakkonen returned to her original job on part-time lay-off. The workload has varied from 60 to 90 hours over a three-week period. As the mother of two pre-school children the financial situation is a worry. Her partner’s job has also suffered due to Covid.
“When you find yourself applying for all sorts of jobs but you know you would rather stay in the hospitality sector if the situation was different, that gives you a really insecure feeling”
“When you find yourself applying for all sorts of jobs but you know you would rather stay in the hospitality sector if the situation was different, that gives you a really insecure feeling”, says Laakkonen.
She hasn’t applied for job application coaching with TE services, because she wouldn’t want to change to a completely different sector. A colleague in the same hotel recommended PAM’s careers advice service to Tia. This has helped to focus her ideas. “An outsider is able to step back and look at my situation in a different way."
“Now these ideas, some of them a bit crazy perhaps, have given me a clearer path to go down”, says Laakkonen.
PAM employment and careers service
Who is it for: PAM members who are at risk of unemployment, unemployed, laid off or are planning to change jobs.
When: The service launches at the start of May. Due to the situation in the hospitality sector, members in that sector can access the service earlier.
What is it: personal coaching, interview coaching. Coaching is available in Finnish, Swedish, English and Russian.
Other options: Service sector job vacancies