School of Business’ Partnership corporations met students in Otaniemi

The School of Business’ Partnership Programme builds and maintains diverse and active cooperation between corporations and the school, and promotes business cooperation within the Aalto University as a whole. At the moment, 13 companies participate in the programme of which as many as 10 introduced their activities to students at the School of Business Partnership Day held on 20 September.

‘We organise the Partnership Day annually, because we want to make our students familiar with our partnership corporations from the very early stages of their studies,’ says Anne Salonvaara from the School of Business' External Relations Team.

‘Our partnership corporations are actively involved in the everyday lives of our students, whether it concerns lecture collaboration, different student projects or, say, job search training given to students relating to recruitment,’ says Salonvaara.

Introducing different career opportunities

During the Partnership Day, corporations have a chance to meet students face to face and inform them about, for example, career opportunities in different stages of their studies.

‘We had long and inspiring discussions with students. The feeling we had of the event was very positive,’ rejoiced Ilkka Kallonen, Talent Acquisition and Employer Branding Specialist at Finnair.

Numerous partner corporations are currently in the process of recruiting, so, especially CV guidance was extremely popular at the event. Deloitte held its own CV clinic in the lecture hall named after the company.

‘This year, the CV clinic was the absolute crowd puller at our stand. We were pleased to see that students were even queuing up for the clinic by the door of the Deloitte lecture hall,’ said Riikka Niemelä from Deloitte's Talent team.

The newest corporation to join the Partnership Programme Elisa also participated in Partnership Day.

‘One feature that stayed in my mind as a very positive thing was that even many younger students had the courage to come and talk with us. We had many good conversations on what kind of career opportunities Elisa could offer to School of Business students at different stages of their studies’, Emilie Sohlström, recruitment coordinator at Elisa pointed out.

Building bridges between theory and practice

Hanna-Leena Hemming and Maria Pekkala from the Finnish Business School Graduates gave a symbolic tree to Jonna Söderholm from the School of Business to represent the donation.

Professor Rita Järventie-Thesleff from Aalto GM/CEMS Master's programme was all smiles after the event.

‘As part of the CEMS programme our students collaborate extensively with the CEMS Corporate Partners, many of which are also partner corporations of our school. The event was highly useful for us: we had a chance to inform the students about our great programme and to establish valuable contacts with the new partner corporations as well,’ says Järventie-Thesleff.

During the Partnership Day, attention was also paid to the donation of 100 000 euros granted to Aalto University by the Finnish Business School Graduates for research and education in economics and business administration, with particular focus on students.

‘The students doing their master's studies are the most eager to seek corporate collaboration. They understand how important it is to build bridges between theory and practice,’ said Suvi Eriksson, education policy expert at the Finnish Business School Graduates.

‘At universities, solid research helps to create high-quality teaching. The competence based on that gives business school graduates the best possible security with a view to their own future. During working years, this security is supplemented by the Finnish Business School Graduates,’ summarised Hanna-Leena Hemming, Executive Director of the Finnish Business School Graduates.

The following companies took part in the Partnership Day: Deloitte, CGI, Elisa, Fazer, Finnair, EY, KPMG, OP, Nokia and PwC. The event was organised by the School of Business External Relations Team.

Further information
Anne Salonvaara, Senior Manager, External Relations Team
+358 50 5905620
[email protected]