Gurung, Kanchan & Riaz, Asmara. Project of Making Guidebook to Employment: Developing a Guidebook for Students of Bachelor of Social Services that Aims to Prepare Students for Challenges of Finnish Labor Market. A Product Thesis. 54 pages. 5 appendices. Language: English.

Diaconia University of Applied Sciences, Degree Program in Social Services, Bachelor in Social Services. Autumn 2015.

The aim of this report is to elaborate the process, objectives and challenges of producing the guidebook called – Guidebook to Employment. As the name suggests it is designed to guide English speaking international students of Universities of Applied Sciences in Helsinki region; who are in first and second years of their studies. It will help them to enhance their employment prospects in Finnish labor market particularly in the social service field. This guidebook has been designed to help social service students seeking jobs in the relevant fields. Along with the process of making the guidebook; the report will give information to readers on concepts such as employability, international students and Finnish labor market that are widely used in this guidebook. Furthermore this report elaborates the background and applicability of these concepts.

The process of making the guidebook was educative and helped us to understand the demands of Finnish labor market and preparatory efforts needed from the international students. The project development process began in February 2015 and ended in May 2015. The content formation was based on relevant literature, qualitative research, feedback from professionals and authors’ own experiences as international students. Every step, from data collection, research, analysis for writing the contents or receiving feedback, was a learning curve for us. The first draft of guidebook was scrutinized by professionals from Finnish labor market and second draft was tested with students of Diaconia Universiy of Applied Sciences (Diak).

We have produced a guidebook for international students of social services to to help and assist them in finding jobs. The guidebook contains informations on Finnish language courses, multicultural activity centres, tips of writing CV and cover letters.

Professionals from certain organizations showed their support and have expressed their willingness to publish it on their websites, which was encouraging. We hope the guidebook will help students to improve their employment prospects and provide them ideas about the employment situation of international students in social sector.