Interview with Natalja Horohordina, the Head of Eesti Energia Head of External Offspring and Recruitment.
Why have you decided to use the portal in your recruitment process?
Eesti Energia is the largest internship provider in Estonia: the company has about 200 interns per year. We take on interns all year round. We are interested in TalTech students because the University of Technology is a provider of high-level education and the first choice for many young people.
Estonian job portals are not effective at recruiting students, as students do not spend time on job sites on a daily basis. Students are a target group who need a flexible approach that job sites often cannot provide. That is why we prefer a youthful and student-centred environment for addressing students, such as the internship portal of the School of Business and Governance. The portal manages communication simply and clearly and is an elementary choice for us.
I am very pleased that TalTech School of Business and Governance has created such a portal, and I would encourage other Schools to launch it as well. The COVID-9 situation has pointed out the significance of properly launched web feeds.
Could you describe the user-friendliness of the portal, please?
The internship portal of the School of Business and Governance has been rationally developed. I would not recommend building a too complicated system. Many companies do not have specific recruitment software; thus, a candidate's CV should provide sufficient ground for moving on with the recruitment process.
How have you benefited from using the portal?
The portal has enabled us to easily reach students, be visible and find suitable interns.
For which positions have you been looking for interns or employees?
We are mainly looking for financial controllers and analysts. Data-driven management is the future trend, so there is a growing demand for specialists who have the competence of collecting, processing and visualizing data, and making smart decisions based on them. It would certainly be useful for current students to develop these competencies.
Do you have any suggestions for developing the field of internship?
The university could organize a series of short online career events for students, with 2-3 company representatives sharing their experiences and giving career tips, e.g. on how to apply successfully or how to perform well in a job interview. We can see that international students are able to present themselves much better than locals. Estonian students should develop these skills. We also see that LinkedIn is still underestimated in the Estonian market. Submitting your LinkedIn link might be enough to apply for an internship. I would encourage students to make LinkedIn work for them.