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Meet Me Monday - today we are meeting a Finnish team member Jenny-Liisa Salila. She is working from our Oslo Office together with the Finnish team! Continue reading below!

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Tell me about yourself briefly:

My name is Jenny-Liisa, although most call me Jenny or Jen. I was born in Jyväskylä, Finland, where I lived for the majority of my life. I am an extroverted, bubbly and positive person. I love to put all into the challenges that I take on and I do everything with a lot of passion. I consider myself somewhat of a nerd because I am super interested in history, world politics and space. To balance that, I am also very innovative and creative, and I love to hear random facts regardless of the subject, I think it’s exciting!

Three fun facts about you:

1.     I actually met my boyfriend through Fortnite. We had no common friends and we lived in different countries, now we’ve been together for around 2 years, and I can’t wait to see what the future brings! Video games can truly change your life!

2.     I have been in a hot air balloon, I have visited the Eiffel tower and the Empire State Building, but I am in fact deadly afraid of hights. I guess my thought process is that the experiences outweigh the pure horror and panic of my brain trying to convince me of the “imminent death” of completely secured places up in the hights... Go figure.

3.     I actually never wore make-up until middle school. My classmates would always compete on who could do my make-up for the first time, and after a while I finally gave in. I only started really getting into make-up after starting in university, and now I feel like it is probably one of the best ways for me to express myself artistically on a day-to-day basis.

Tell us a little about your hobbies:

My biggest hobby at the time is probably video games, I love coming back from work after a long day of recruiting and sitting down, putting up my headset and turning my ps4 on and start playing. On top of that I really love going outside and discovering new places and taking beautiful photos. From time to time, I tend to get obsessed with things like knitting or sewing until I realize it’s been 4 hours since I last checked the time. I also used to play ice hockey for 15 years, until a bit over a year ago I got an injury in my back that has so far prevented me from going back on ice. I still have my hopes up, that I’d be able to join my favourite sport once again, patience is the key!

You work with recruitment, could you tell us more about your career?

I am the best example of a person who had no idea what they wanted to do for the longest of time. I started as simply as doing gardening for my dad during the summers when I was in middle school. From there I went into weeklong internships at the local police and the airport. I ended up getting hired to clean airplanes once a week.

From there I moved on to working in various department stores, restaurants, delivery jobs, promotional gigs, and even got promoted to be a check-in agent at the airport. Many of these jobs I was doing simultaneously, having at best 4 jobs, university, and actively playing ice hockey all at the same time, I kept myself busy to say the least.

Once I graduated and got my bachelor’s degree in International Business, I was ready to apply for more challenging jobs. Through some intense and long job hunting, I ended up getting hired in the very same university I graduated from as a project assistant. I worked mainly with events, marketing and esports, it was a blast. However, my contract there was only temporary, and I knew I wanted to move to Norway next. I made a deal with myself, that the next job I get will be in Oslo, Norway and I will get it by January 2022. Through my perseverance and initiative, I believe I got to show my true potential to my now colleagues and that’s how ended up working in recruitment.

What has been your favourite travel destination so far and where would you go next? WHY?

This is an interesting question. I have been lucky enough to have travelled a lot with my family ever since I was a wee baby. In fact, the first time I was on the airplane I was only 6-months old. When it comes to a favourite travel destination I have been so far, its hard to decide. It would probably say it would be between St. Petersburg and the amazing palaces and the history behind them, Kennedy Space centre in Orlando, Florida or Chamonix, Mt. Blanc, and the beautiful views of the Alps!

The next place I want to go is Vietnam. I have always been interested in Asian cultures, I have been lucky enough to visit many of the countries before, and of course my best friend lives in Hanoi, which is hands down the best reason to go there!

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How did you find your way to NJW?

While I was still working in my position as a project assistant, I turned down multiple offers from both Finland and abroad, because I wanted to move to Norway. I spent all my evenings and weekends searching for jobs and interesting opportunities located in Oslo. By then I had long been interested in recruitment, but I just hadn’t found the position of my dreams yet.

One night after scrolling for hours I saw a post from Nordic Jobs Worldwide, I decided to not hesitate a moment and I started crafting my application. Fast forward a few weeks, and exactly two days before my flight was to leave for my Christmas holiday to Oslo, I got a call from NJW, telling me that I got this job. I had less than two days to get my affairs in order, before I got on my flight to Oslo, and I have been here ever since!

What are your plans for the future?

So far, I have realised that the career in recruiting and HR has definitely been the most interesting and compelling to me, which is why I believe at the moment, that the path I am on right now is my future path too. I have enjoyed Nordic Jobs Worldwide and the job itself tremendously and I would want to grow inside the company and see where it takes me!

What is the most extreme thing you have ever done in life?

I believe the most extreme thing is when I went to my Erasmus exchange during my university studies. The reason why it was extreme, is that even though I had known for months that I was accepted to the program, and I had a long time to prepare, I hadn’t managed to secure accommodation to myself. It was extreme to me, a compulsive planner, to fly to another country, to live there long-term and not have a permanent place to stay!

Luckily my best friend found some Facebook advertisement and got herself accommodation through that. We went to this address and there was nobody there, it was empty and remote and may I say even a tiny bit sketchy. We ended up waiting for a time that felt like forever and naturally also questioning if the apartment had even been a real deal to begin with. After an excruciatingly long wait, someone came to let us in and I ended up sleeping in the same bed with my best friend for a few days before finding my own rental room in a shared apartment in the city centre of Madrid, which again is a whole another story to tell, believe me... But all in all, I was happy with the accommodation, I met some amazing new people and I learned that even if the situation you’re in might seem desperate or scary, you will always find a solution and manage to turn things around!

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