Spotlight on Job Hunt - collaboration between Espoo Employment Services, Espoo Cultural Unit and Espoo City Theater

This article series presents cases of innovations built here in Espoo that strive for a better tomorrow for all.

As stated before, in Espoo immigrant women have been identified as a vulnerable group regarding segregation for the job market – in fact, around 60 % of the immigrant clients at the City’s employment services are women. At Espoo’s Competence Centre for Highly Educated Immigrants, we have identified that some of the major barriers to employment for our female jobseekers are their lack of self-efficacy and reduced self-esteem, which are often caused by prolonged unemployment. Additionally, these jobseekers frequently lack social networks and social support.

In order to tackle the problem, we wanted to look outside the box and come up with something new and creative to complement our core services: we decided to combine job seeking practices with drama techniques in collaboration with Espoo City Theater. A cross-functional project between the employment services, cultural unit and city theater, these workshops were designed for immigrant women, with the aim of ensuring that all participants meet as equals. The feedback was highly positive and overall the participants found using creative methods very useful in job search and strengthening their role as community members.