Guest blogger: From a work try-out to working life

A work try-out teaches important working life skills

A 22-year-old young person registered as a job seeker with the employment services in January 2024. The person had dropped out of vocational studies a couple of years earlier. They did not have much work experience, and their skills for working life had to be strengthened. The young person was interested in the early childhood education and care sector, and a work try-out with the aim of supporting the person’s education and career planning and familiarising them with the sector was agreed on in the employment plan.

The majority of young job seekers have good basic skills for working life, but some still have room for improvement in areas such as the rules of working life and self-direction. Research evidence suggests that rushing into working life without sufficient skills may increase employment interruptions and experiences of failing and weaken a young person’s confidence in their ability to cope.

Especially with young people who are in a vulnerable position, the development of working life skills should be assessed more extensively than just through finding employment: have the person's interaction and work community skills improved, is the young person able to take responsibility for their work duties, and have they found their direction so that a place in working life feels possible?

An open and continuous dialogue supports learning and coping

The young person started a two-month work try-out, working five days a week in a daycare centre, first six hours a day and then with full working hours.

When looking for a work try-out place, it is essential to take into account the young person’s own goals and strengths. At the workplace, work can be adapted in several ways to match the young person’s work ability and functional capacity. Regular monitoring and discussions during the work try-out also play a crucial role. When responsibility is shared between the work try-out participant, the place of the work try-out and the employment authority, the work try-out becomes a genuinely developing experience.

Work try-outs may help students clarify their study plans

During the work try-out, the young person’s career plans were clarified, and the employer gave them encouraging feedback on the work try-out. The young person showed initiative and a sense of responsibility during the work try-out. Based on these experiences, the young person decided to apply for a practical nurse education and graduated as a practical nurse in March 2026.

During the work try-out, it is important to open up future prospects and reflect on what the person's career will look like after the work try-out in advance: will the work try-out lead to finding employment or education and training, or to some other outcome? When implemented in a planned and goal-oriented manner, a work try-out may be a significant turning point in a young person’s career. A work try-out may provide something meaningful to do and a rhythm to young people’s everyday life when they have not yet engaged in anything else. At best, it opens doors in a direction that feels like their own.

The Finnish Institute of Occupational Health is currently running a project developing an online training course on work try-outs (Työkokeilu online training, which is funded by the European Social Fund. The online training is aimed at providing actors at workplaces, service system experts, and work try-out participants with information and tools for implementing work try-outs, and it will be piloted in autumn 2027.

Authors:
Kirsi Unkila and Mari Haverinen from the Finnish Institute of Occupational Health and Employment Adviser Katja Nivala from the Municipality of Sotkamo.

More information

Työkokeilu online training (ttl.fi, in Finnish)

Sources

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