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Estonia targets UK tech talent
Estonian businesses are trying to close the country’s IT skills gap by targeting UK IT professionals as part of a recruitment campaign
The Estonian government is directly targeting IT professionals in the UK through a recruitment campaign that it hopes will help to close an imminent skills gap in the Baltic country.
Estonia has a population of just 1.3 million and a growing IT sector. By 2020, the country’s job market is expected to be short of 37,000 IT professionals.
It is stepping up its efforts to fill IT skills gaps with talent from overseas, and UK professionals are a major target.
The latest recruitment campaign, known as Career Hunt, is being run in partnership with Estonia’s IT industry. It is encouraging UK IT professionals to apply for jobs at companies operating in Estonia, such as Taxify, Twilio, Microsoft, Skype and Swedbank.
International job portal Jobbatical is supporting the project by helping employers find suitable candidates and conducting preliminary interviews.
Jobbatical CEO Karoli Hindriks said Estonia and its campaigns are changing the way people perceive recruitment. “Simple job ads are not enough any more,” she said. “People are a lot more mobile now, and for them to come your way, you need to put in more effort.”
Career Hunt gives people who are interested in a career in Estonia the chance to visit the country with all travel costs paid.
Because of a lack of natural resources, Estonia has set out to become a top location for IT companies and is also a pioneer of digital government services. It has introduced several programmes to attract investment and foreign workers.
Read more about Estonia’s IT development
- Baltic state is reportedly in early-stage talks with the UK and Luxembourg governments about setting up a backup site in either country to protect citizens’ data from risk of hackers.
- An e-residency programme to help foreigners set up businesses in Estonia through virtual residency is gathering pace.
- The number of non-Estonian people who applied for e-residency of the Baltic state exceeds the birth rate for 2017.
- As the number of people signing up to become Estonian e-residents exceeds the country’s birth rate, Computer Weekly speaks to the man heading up the programme.
The Estonian government is introducing legislation and policies to address the country’s needs quickly. For example, since 2015, Estonia has pioneered an e-residency programme, which gives foreigners, such as entrepreneurs, access to Estonian government services.
An Estonian e-residency is a transnational digital identity available to anyone in the world interested in administering a business online.
The Estonian government is also working with a recruitment platform on the possibility of introducing a special visa for people who work mainly online. Applications are open until 23 September.
