Spotlight your TRUE self

If you have set a long-term target for yourself – that can be finding a (better) job or running a marathon – what you need to be successful is NOT motivation, it’s also NOT discipline, but it is: JOY! Here is why: When you set yourself a target, you will have a huge initial motivation – but this will drop after a few days or weeks. Discipline alone might keep you going, but just push you to do som...

If you are currently unemployed, you might think getting a job is what you need to make your life alright. However, there is something wrong in corporate companies – making having a job feeling anything else than “alright”: Permanent contracts are offered first, while positions might get discontinued one year later, so the security you are looking for does not exist. While the workload gets higher...

Imagine you move to Finland, you have a degree from one of the best universities, have professional experience from the best companies – but still you don’t find a job in Finland. My interview guest Lidiia Salo is sharing her own story how she did not give up to get the right knowledge about the Finnish job market and talked to hundreds of people to find out what it takes to get hired in Finland....

“Your network is your net-worth!” – So, who do you make the most out of your LinkedIn network, and especially grow your networking contacts by creating well-visible content? However, I know that many people either don’t like writing, don’t know what to write or don’t know how to translate their expertise into a text that resonates with anyone. So they end up with posting without plan – and get fru...

... and what coconuts and peaches have to do with that. Whenever the spotlight is on us – whether you are speaking on a stage, holding a presentation, pitching your business ideas or in a job interview – it can be challenging to authentic and to fully be ourselves. We think we should “sound professional”, should not exclude or hurt anyone, should not be too emotional, and as a result we generalize...

This is my reality right now. My manager position that I have had since January 2024 will be discontinued from 1st June 2025 onwards due to cost-cutting measures in my company and a decision to reduce the number of team leaders. In this episode I want to share with you the background around my personal information, because I believe that this is very insightful as well to understand What politics...

Is the employment situation for immigrants in Finland really as bad as we think? What does the statistics tell us? And how can we use this data to initiate improvements both for international job seekers and Finnish companies to hire more diverse work force? In this super-interesting episode I am interviewing Vaida Kavaliukaite-Kaijanmäki, who is a labour-market analyst, event coordinator and proj...

Kingsley grew up in Nigeria and just turned 18, when his parents died at a car accident. Suddenly he had the full responsibility for his four younger sisters, the youngest just being 7 years old. It was clear that they will end up in poverty and without any future if he doesn’t find a way to take care of their financials. His only choice: getting to Europe, no matter what. In this podcast intervie...

We have all knowledge available for free nowadays. You just need to pull your smartphone out of the pocket and use Google or ChatGPT to find information. And in plus of that we have access to free education from schools and universities. So why should you pay a coach? What additional knowledge should a coach provide you that you don’t have available already and why should you spend money on this?...

Yes, the job market is extremely tough right now. There are hundreds of applicants for one open position and more and more headlines that companies are laying of people. Yle News has recently shared that the unemployment rate in Finland has increased to almost 10% and that the country is facing an economic depression: https://yle.fi/a/74-20145914 To stay resilient and not get lost in your struggle...

Are you playing small in your job applications or at your workplace? Do you catch yourself thinking “I’m not qualified” or “I should not call myself an expert”? That voice in your head could be the so called ‘ Imposter Syndrome ’ and it might be the very thing sabotaging your chances of landing your next career opportunity! In this episode, we tackle the hidden barriers that the imposter syndrome...

Is that you? You are writing hundreds of job applications, but you always get rejected. You never make it to the job interview. And you have no clue what should be wrong with your CV or cover letter. In this episode you will learn about the most common five reasons why a hiring manager or recruiter rejects a job application. And only making one of these five mistakes can lead to a rejection. So pl...

You see a job ad, you want to be smart and quick, you feed ChatGPT with it to create a cover letter and think you have a good text to apply for this position. I tell you as a hiring manager: It is very obvious when a job application was created with AI. And you immediately disqualify yourself with something like this. Your job application is a representation for the work that the company can expec...

It doesn’t matter what you know. It doesn’t matter what you say or do. It only matters how you make other people feel. And having the ability to imagine what other people think or feel (to make them feel good) is called: Empathy. Empathetic people have a “service-mindset” towards their co-workers. They think about others. They share information. They communicate pro-actively. This will lead to thi...

If you look back on 2024 – how do you feel about it? What experiences have you made? Which decisions have you made? What people have you met? And did you achieve the targets you have set for yourself? I looked back on my own year 2024 and realized that I have fulfilled all the following targets that I had set for myself at the beginning of the year: Becoming a good manager for my team Renew my web...

“What are your weaknesses?” or “Tell us about your biggest weakness!” – are you afraid to be asked this question in your job interview? Because you are so insecure what do respond to that? Recruiters or hiring managers actually like it a lot to ask this question and there is a good reason for it, that I will explain you in this episode. And in addition, you will learn what are the four steps to gi...

Do you have a job interview upcoming – but you are afraid that you will miss this unique chance to land the job, because you are so nervous that this might jeopardize that you present yourself well there? A hiring manager is inviting you for the interview also to test how it is to talk with you. So yes, if you are mumbling and stuttering, because you are so nervous, that will not give a very good...

Yes, the job market is tough and when >100 of candidates apply for one position only about 10-15% of them get shortlisted to the first round of job interviews. How do you get among this small share of people with your job application? How should your CV and cover letter look like to attract enough attention to the recruiter or hiring manager so that he/she really feels a desire to get to know y...

Have you ever dated someone that ended up in a relationship? I hope we all have! – And hey, this means that you know also how to land a job. Because searching for a job is like dating! Many people who are desperately searching work have the feeling that the whole recruitment process is a big mysterious black box full of tricky technical challenges to overcome so that the own job application gets c...

“All my life I had been chasing success, but here I was – with 38 – and had no idea when I will ever work again.” This episode is the second part of the interview with Tomi Kaukinen, a Finnish start-up entrepreneur who shares in a very open and personal way how he experienced a burn-out in 2017, after his company successfully expanded from Finland over Spain to Asia. In 2018 he started talking abo...

From a cleaner to an elite scholar, from investment banking to the colorful start-up world, from Finland over Spain to Asia. And finally into a burn-out. I had the honor to interview Tomi Kaukinen, who is a successful serial entrepreneur and one of the most-wanted keynote speakers in the Finnish business sector. Graduated from the Stockholm School of Economics, he quit is well-paid job in an inves...

Networking is not to get 100 business cards on an event. Networking is not to connect with people randomly on LinkedIn. Networking also does not mean to pitch something to potential clients. Networking means knowing yourself well enough so that you can share with the world what you have to offer. It means to share our story in a vulnerable way. And synergies will grow out of that. So how do you ac...

Everyone knows that networking is important to find your next job and to build up your career. But most of the people don’t know how networking works in a good way. Why do you want to network? What is your intention to grow your network and connect with certain people? This podcast episode is the first part of me interviewing Joppe Quaedvlieg (or during the first minutes he is more interview me 😊...

It is important to recognize the point in time when you have to let something go. That can be a job position that you were hoping to get but you were rejected last minute, or you were dating someone which did not work out in the end. In both situations, you have invested a lot of time and energy – and now your mind stays busy with thinking about what went wrong or what you could have done better?...

Are you afraid that your job application is not considered, because the company you are applying for is using an Applicant Tracking System (ATS)? Do you fear this is a big black box, and finally your application gets rejected by an algorithm based on weird criteria while a human recruiter never took a look at it? After you have shared many concerns like this with me, I have investigated this topic...