School of Business Career Services second-best in the Nordic region

^{The yearly ARENA Career Fair held at the School of Business has been an excellent event for employers and future business talents to meet and connect. Next year will be historic as, under one roof in Otaniemi (in the City of Espoo) the employers can meet students from all of the Aalto University’s schools.}

The School of Business Career Services was rated as the second-best in the Nordic region according to students contributing to the Universum Talent 2018 report. Each year, Universum sends its survey to the previous year's graduates from higher education institutes in the Nordic region. Around 2,000 Finnish business students participated, with 364 coming from Aalto University School of Business. The response period for this year's survey ran from November 2017 to April 2018.

‘Aalto University School of Business scored really well in our survey. Although the Stockholm School of Economics received the highest ranking I would like to highly commend Aalto for its excellent service’, says Alexandra Eklöf, Nordics project manager for Universum.

The School of Business Career Services is part of Aalto University School of Business' External Relations team. The service was the established in 1991 and was the first of its kind in Finland. The service is staffed by Tanja Makkonen, responsible for student-orientated services, and Annemari Rautio, who takes care of recruitment services. They work closely with the other functions within the External Relations team – corporate relations, customised student projects, alumni relations, and events – as well as with the careers services of Aalto's other schools. The head of the team is Jonna Söderholm.

According to Tanja Makkonen, the service relies on great teamwork, close relationships with the local business community, and effective student outreach.

‘Over the course of a the last decade, we've made really good use of the student council that has sparred with our career services and our co-work with employers and alumni. On top of this, we take on interns throughout the year and these are always students from the School of Business. While we get a lot of practical assistance from our interns, they also provide us with valuable insight into the services offer. Also, Annemari and I meet students individually and we've received a lot of thanks and appreciation from them. We offer advice to students during job searches, go through CVs, job applications, internship opportunities, and ways of utilising social media’, explains Tanja.

Aalto CareerWeb brings together all of Aalto's careers and recruitment services

Aalto CareerWeb is a hub of services and a careers portal for every Aalto student. Aalto CareerWeb provides information on the School of Business’ careers service, employability statistics on the School's graduates, and a guide to job applications. Around 8,500 job ads are published on the portal annually, the vast majority of which are aimed at students and recent graduates from the School of Business. According to a study compiled by the Careers Service, around 35% of students found work through the CareerWeb, with 15–17% of the School's graduates finding their first job via the Careers Service.

What our students have to say: “I’ve found my last three jobs via the CareerWeb. Funding made it possible for me to look for an international internship. Whenever I have something to ask, I get a quick response and don’t need to worry about things on my own.”

Indeed, as Tanja Makkonen goes on to reveal, as many as 92% of the School’s students use at least one of the careers services the School of Business offers, according to the latest Universum survey. Information on upcoming Aalto CareerWeb activities is available via the events calendar. The unit's monthly newsletter has shown itself to be an effective way of reaching students. The newsletter lets readers know about upcoming careers events and keeps students up-to-date with interesting careers-related news items. In addition to the traditional campus noticeboards, Facebook and Instagram are also effective ways of reaching students. Then there is the close relationship with the KY student body for Aalto University’s business students, an organisation that plays an active role in sharing news and events info through our various channels.

‘We're constantly developing our services on the basis of student feedback. We collate all the feedback we receive and even discuss development matters with the students themselves. There is nothing quite as important as working as closely as possible with students – they are the reason we do this work, after all. And it is really rewarding to get such positive feedback via the Universum survey. It tells us that the services we provide are valuable in the eyes of our students and that they are really satisfied with what we have to offer’, Tanja notes.

Further information:
Tanja Makkonen
Senior Manager, Career Services
tanja.makkonen@aalto.fi
tel. +358 50 383 2488