Michaël Elbaz from Canada studied for his Master's degree in the Faculty of Social Sciences in the 1990s
at the University of Helsinki. He has often been asked to what degree he has been able to match his career goals with his two-year experience of studying in Finland.

Michaël Elbaz

Back to summer issue 2002

I recently returned to Montreal from a two-week visit in Finland, which was mostly spent in Helsinki. It was a highly satisfying vacation, giving me the opportunity to both reconnect with several old friends that I don't get to see very often and refamiliarize myself with the city I called home for two years. From 1994 to 1996, I studied for my Master's in Social Sciences at the University of Helsinki. This was my second visit back to Helsinki since completing my Master's degree in the fall of 1996.

One of the things that people have asked me during my return visits to Finland is how my studies at the University of Helsinki have helped shape my work experience back home in Canada and to what degree I've been able to match my career goals with my two-year experience of studying at the university's Social Sciences Faculty.

While there were some initial hurdles to overcome (as is so often the case with students making the transition from university studies to the "real world"), overall I feel that my studies here contributed appreciably in getting me started on my career path. They have served as an excellent basis for my current work in the NGO sector in Canada. Beginning a job search is never easy, and there also proved to be a few negative side-effects from having been away from Canada for two years. But let me explain how things ended up working out for me.

Back home: getting started

When I returned to Canada in September 1996, I moved to Toronto, Canada's biggest city (population 4 million). Though I'd been there a number of times, I had never lived there before and did not know the city very well. Naturally, having completed two years of studies with only some modest savings and part-time work to sustain me, I was not in the best financial situation either. This was all relative, however. One clear advantage from having studied in Helsinki was not having to carry the burdensome debt of many of my Canadian peers. It is not unusual for students in Canada to complete their studies 25,000 Canadian dollars (18,500 euros) in debt. Many spend years repaying their debts, putting off a family or house purchase in the process. It's often a crippling situation for young Canadians out of university. I was spared this situation, in part because I did not have to pay tuition fees at the University of Helsinki.

In any event, I needed to find work in Toronto. I had vague notions about getting a job in either a government ministry or in the NGO sector, but I needed to find out what was out there first. It was at this point that I first came to recognize the principal disadvantage of having been "off the radar" for two years. Though I had a solid university education under my belt, I did not know very many people in my new city initially, and had very few professional contacts who could help me find out about or possibly land an interesting job.

Generally speaking, there is a great deal of competition for jobs in both the government and NGO sectors in Canada, especially outside of Ottawa, the capital city, where both federal government departments and many national organizations are based. I was at a disadvantage because I was in direct competition for jobs with many individuals who had completed their graduate degrees at local universities and thus had something of a head-start on me. The same way I might have expected my graduate supervisor and other professors at the University of Helsinki's Political Science Department to perhaps give me some leads on a possible career path after graduating had I stayed in Helsinki, many of these recent graduates from Canadian universities had built up a solid base of contacts through their university contacts at home, something I missed from being abroad.

Thus, a key part of my initial job-search involved taking the time and energy to rebuild a base of work-related contacts; individuals who might be able to guide me in the right direction, possibly know of a job that might be the right fit or even offer me a job themselves.

This is often how things work in the Canadian job market, as in so many other countries. It is estimated that less than 20 percent of available jobs are actually advertised in newspapers in my country. The majority of us find work through word-of-mouth or directly through our contacts. As such, I did a lot of research at first, finding out which organizations were locally-based and which ones I might be interested in working with. My job search also involved quite a bit of "cold-calling": calling people up who didn't know me and asking for one hour of their time in order to present myself and let them get to know me a little. Most of the time, people were willing to meet with me and pass on some useful advice.

This is where the advantages of my two years in Helsinki started to weigh in.

Graduate studies at the University of
Helsinki: a foot in the door back home

Whether going to a job interview or meeting potential contacts for a brief introductory meeting, part of my strategy was always to bring along a copy of my Master's thesis. I figured that since these people did not know me, this was one way of demonstrating in a very concrete way exactly what it was I was doing in the far reaches of Northern Europe for two years. I also thought (hoped) this might help me gain an edge against other possible candidates for a job.

When I came home after finishing my Master's, I could honestly say that I was most satisfied with my work on my thesis. My topic was UNESCO's New Communication Strategy and the Struggles to Democratize Media Development in the 1990s. It involved a comparative analysis of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization's (UNESCO) communications programmes from the 1970s to the 1990s. I focused on the organization's efforts to seek solutions to the problems of access to information in developing countries and its efforts to narrow the gap between information haves and have-nots in the North and South.

My thesis was a true labour of love for me. It involved months of research at the University of Helsinki, several research trips to UNESCO headquarters in Paris, hours of consultation with my supervisor, Professor Anne Eskelinen from the Political Science Department, and several more months of writing and editing. I knew when I completed my degree and left Helsinki that through my work on my thesis, notably, I had acquired a solid base of research and writing skills and also sharpened my analytical skills to a great extent. I also knew that these acquired skills would be welcome and useful on a practical level back
home.

This was not lost on my potential employers and contacts in Toronto. Many were clearly impressed when I presented them with a copy of my thesis. They took the time to review it and asked me pertinent questions about the issues I covered. My thesis proved to be a solid marketing tool for me in a market saturated with potential candidates. It was something that distinguished me from the pack.

My graduate studies at the University of Helsinki proved to be an excellent point of departure for discussion during interviews and meetings with potential employers. I found that many employers were keenly interested in my experience in Finland and shaped their interviews around my experience. I often sensed that people were curious at first and then warmed up to me once I described what my University of Helsinki experience was all about. After I completed my "selling job" (a big part of job-hunting in Canada is being able to "sell yourself" to employers), I often left my interviews feeling that I had succeeded in demonstrating to them why my experience in Finland made me an excellent candidate and proved that I had gone the distance to develop my professional skills.

Perseverance and … results

Six years on, I can say that my efforts have considerably paid off since completing my Master's degree at the University of Helsinki. In my first two years back in Canada, I worked for a number of organisations in a research and administrative capacity, including Canada's Coalition for Public Information, a national NGO, the University of Toronto's McLuhan Program in Culture and Technology, and the Canadian Commission for UNESCO.

Since 1998, I have been working for Canadian Journalists for Free Expression (CJFE), a national, non-profit organization that promotes and defends freedom of expression in Canada and abroad (www.cjfe.org). The organization administers the International Freedom of Expression Exchange (IFEX), a network of over 50 international freedom of expression organizations (www.ifex.org). My day-to-day work involves translating, editing and preparing advisories, press releases and reports about attacks on press freedom and broader freedom of expression issues around the world. This information is then sent to individuals and groups in over 110 countries and is posted on the Internet. My work also involves leading workshops and seminars and representing the organization at local, national and international events. I relocated to Montreal from Toronto last fall and continue to work for CJFE from an office based in my home. I have in effect become the local office for CJFE here in Montreal.

Quite clearly, my studies at the University of Helsinki helped provide me with an excellent basis to pursue my current work activities. But in addition to the clear benefits I gained from my studies in Helsinki, my two years in Finland were highly enriching in many other respects. I was introduced to a new culture that I came to appreciate a great deal and gained several lasting friendships which I treasure greatly to this day. It's no surprise that I've been back and will undoubtedly continue to keep up my Helsinki connection for years to come.

Get foreign alumni on board

Let me close with a suggestion. As more and more foreign students come to study at the University of Helsinki, the university has a unique opportunity to build a profile abroad. As part of its overall strategy, the university could do more to encourage and strengthen contacts with its foreign alumni. We graduates are uniquely placed as potential "ambassadors" for the university. It would be a shame not to build stronger links with former students and encourage others to share in this special opportunity.