A Job Shadow Day shall take place in Ülemiste City today with 70 students studying IT, human resources and financial matters in TalTech and the Estonian Entrepreneurship University of Applied Sciences shadowing specialists in 15 companies of the hub.

Kadi Pärnits, Chairman of the Management Board of Mainor AS, the strategic developer of Ülemiste City, explained that given the shortage of high-quality labour, the objective of the Job Shadow Day was to bring both Estonian and foreign students into contact with the companies operating in the hub, so that they could take apprenticeships, summer and permanent jobs with them.

During this day the students will learn about the working environment, equipment and techniques, so that they’d know what to expect when they decide to work in those firms as apprentices, just during the summer or permanently.

Kerstin Laidmäe, Quality Manager of the Ministry of Finance IT Centre said that they saw participation in the Job Shadow Day as a risk-free opportunity for the employees and employers to learn to know each other, since engaging apprentices was a strategic decision of the ministry. „We really hope to find future apprentices at the Ülemiste City Job Shadow Day and we have prepared for them a carefully designed programme with several top managers and key persons contributing,“ Laidmäe added.

According to Gert Jervan, Dean of the TalTech School of Information Technologies, IT is ubiquitous and therefore their school provides specialists with a wide variety of backgrounds and profiles – programmers, analysts, developers, as well as automation and electronics engineers. „I can safely say that our students get world class knowledge combined with practical experience and very many of them find a job already during their studies,” Jervan maintained.

The following companies and public institutions are participating in today’s Job Shadow Day: ABB, Ericsson Eesti, Fortum, HR Factory, LeapIn, Mainor, Tax and Customs Board, Playtech Estonia, Ramirent, RMIT, Ruutu 6, Securitas Eesti, Tallinn Airport and Tele 2.

„This is the fourth time for us to organise the Job Shadow Day in the hub. This year we are also hosting students and lecturers from Nordic and Baltic universities on another three occasions and hopefully this will help us find more apprentices who would like to get some work experience in Ülemiste City,” Kadi Pärnits explained. She said that Ülemiste City was definitely interested in furthering cooperation with more Estonian and foreign universities.