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Becoming an enthusiast makes working fun and easy. Would you say that experience is more important?

There has been a debate in media about experience versus motivation, which is more important when recruiting people for entry-level positions. We strongly feel that highly motivated people with positive attitude and desire to learn, will do better. And if you read Koit´s story, you will see why :) Thank you Koit, for being GoWorkaBit user and for sharing your story! 

I first got acquainted with GoWorkaBit through a friend of mine. She suggested I try it out because..

…I was looking for a chance to make some extra money and a long term job would not suit me this summer due to many festivals in Estonia and abroad.

So I thought „I have nothing to lose“ and registered in the end of May. Because I had a few small jobs in June and July I had no need to look closely at the numerous job offers GWB sends on my email and I mostly deleted them.

koitThen one morning as I was going through my e-mails I saw another letter from GWB. I went to the homepage, browsed the job offers and this one caught my eye. Kyabetsuyaki master – preparing Japanese street quisine. In Viljandi. It’s close (as I reside mainly in Tartu), I get to see the famous folk festival a bit and to me it would be a first time working as a merchant/cook in a festival. As I really feel comfortable behind my own kitchen counter at home and I have no problem communicating with strangers wherever I am, I decided to try my luck and applied for the job. After I asked a few questions on the GWP site the boss sent me an e-mail directly confirming my application. The last thing to do was to acquire a health certificate which would allow me to work with food and a simple hygiene training online. And then off to Viljandi.

When I arrived on site at 17:00 on thursday I was warmly greeted by our boss and the rest of the employees. I saw that the bunch working under our tent was friendly from the first look and I was sure I was going to have a fun weekend.

The first thing I had to do was eat one of our products – a kyabetsuyaki – traditional Japanese street food made of mixed cabbage and pancake dough, which is then fried to form cakes and in the end topped with special sauce, ground seaweed and dried fish flakes. I had no idea what to expect so I tried it and it was delicious. As I was eating my first cabbage-pancake (out of 7-8 total that weekend) I also read about the products we sell. In addition to the cakes we also had a variety of Japanese (and a few Italian) craft beers on sale.

By the time I was done eating some customers had come and I was directed to the gas pan and asked if I would like to try my hand frying the cakes. The next few hours flew past as I flipped the cakes and explained to the customers that „Yes, that really is cabbage. Would you like to know more about what we do?“. People came and went, some came back for seconds and some even for a third time during the day. Although I was mostly behind the pan for the first two days I managed to try the other tasks as well because our team was remarkably self-organizing. Everybody learned how to do everything and so we had a healthy and fun rotation for the following days.

I learned more about the food and beers we had on sale and I grew to like them more myself. The merchants next to us were from Põhjala, the makers of finest Estonian craft beer. They gladly answered our questions about beer-making and even let us try their beers, so eventually I had become somewhat of an enthusiast. It was simple for me to introduce products that I personally liked and that made this job fun and easy. The hardest part was standing on your feet for hours. Luckily we had time to rest between the waves of people.

All in all, my experience was positive through and through.

The registration is easy, as is applying to a certain job. There is no need to worry about paperwork. The site is easy to use. I managed to learn a lot in just 4 days and hope to gain more experience through future jobs using GWB.

I strongly encourage more employers to use this service because allowing young people to experience different jobs as well as make acquaintances will definitely benefit workers and employers both.

All the best,
Koit-Romet Rahupõld