Alumni Ambassador Miikka Huhta: The Aalto University Mentoring Programme benefited me a lot

Who are you? What did you study at Aalto University School of Business?

I am Miikka Huhta, an Employer Branding consultant, who studied leadership and management as my major at the School of Business. I also studied business law and marketing as my minors in order to support my dream to work in the field of HR. During the time of my thesis writing process, I was working at the Department of Management studies and in my first HR job at SEB, which delayed my graduation a bit. Eventually, I graduated in 2012.

In which positions have you worked after graduation?

From the very beginning of my studies, my goal was to work in the field of HR. A part-time job at a Swedish bank SEB prolonged as a four-year position in with different HR tasks. After that, I worked at Canon as a HR Business Partner, where I acted as the support for sales managers and leadership in all matters related to human resources. Both at SEB and at Canon, I was also responsible for the employer branding and recruiting.

I actually got more interested in employer branding and I ended up as a consultant. My first touch in the sales and consultant was at Universum, which is specialized in conducting research study on employer branding. Since the summer 2018, I have worked in a similar task, but with a wider selection of solutions at Miltton, where I am responsible for employer branding and employer experience services.

What has been the most important things in your studies?

The most relevant benefit of the studies was a course in business law, of which the material has proven to be very useful also later when going through my own contracts of employment or in various daily HR tasks.

From the viewpoint of employment, I have got the most important benefit from learning presentation and reflecting skills and the ability to find relevant information from a large amount of data. In addition, the wide networks and a diverse conception of different companies and their business functions.

Would you do something differently during your studies?

After graduation, I have sometimes thought about how I could have received more skills and knowledge from the Master’s studies if I would have worked few years after the Bachelor’s degree, although it seems that it is quite difficult to get a job only with the Bachelor’s degree. In a perfect world, I could have got a few years of work experience in between the degrees, and then study effectively taking into account the phenomena and demands of the work life.

You participated in the Aalto University Mentoring Program as a student. How was it useful to you and why should the students apply for the program?

During my studies, I struggled to find the right career path, even though I knew it would be something related to HR. I applied to the Aalto University Mentoring Program, and I’m glad I did, since it benefited me a lot! My mentor helped me in my career plans and also later on related to my job tasks. The Mentoring Program is a good chance to get advice from your mentor, but also peer support from other mentees.

What does being an alumnus mean to you?

I’m happy that the School of Business is investing in the alumni collaboration, and I hope that in the future there will be even more events for alumni. We, the School of Business graduates, form a great network and I’m proud to say I belong to this group!

Further information:

Get to know Miikka Huhta’s career path more closely on LinkedIn!