There’re quite some job opportunities inside the campus. The building is Aalto School of Business.

It is such a crazy and tough time for everyone in this pandemic storm. Still, I want to congratulate all the new students accepted in Aalto University. I hope being accepted into a great university cheers you up. Quite some new students are interested in how to find a part-time job inside the campus. I’d like to share my experience here.

My first paid job at Aalto was a researcher for Customized Student Business Project, working with Helsinki Marketing, City of Helsinki, to make annual LUX Helsinki (light arts festival) more sustainable. I got an interview in the first month I started my study at Aalto because my theater/event experience fitted this project. My program director told me about it when we discussed my study plan. Then he referred me to the project supervisor. I got an interview next morning and got recruited in the afternoon. Although the project targeted second or third-year students, they made an exception for me for my knowledge in event production. Luckily, there was a project requiring my expertise, so I landed my first paid job so quickly. The salary was 1500 euros for a 3-4 month research project, plus 6 ECTs. The amount of work was reasonable. Check my project experience in the previous blogpost – Explore Future Career Paths in Aalto University. 

My second part-time job is being an student ambassador, aka Aalto Squad member. I got the info from the forwarded message by my program study coordinator. I applied for it, wrote about why I was good for this position, got the job after the interview. I think it helps to have a Bachelor degree in Advertising. It started from November, 2017, the third month in the first school year. The recruitment goes once a year. I’ve being told that I’m a valuable Squad member, so my contract continues year after year. I love helping people and sharing my experience with fellow students. This is the job I’ve been doing from the beginning of my study and will continue till the day I graduate. The hourly rate is 15 euros and the monthly working hours are 5-20 hours per month. In the summer of 2019, the coordinator of Aalto Squad team kindly accepted my proposal to work up to 60 hours per month from June till August.

My third part-time job was a summer school assistant in Aalto Ventures Program (AVP) in 2019. The teacher in charge, Sami Tuomi, asked me to do the job. We met in the EIT-Climate summer journey at Aalto in the previous year, Sami was in charge of organizing two-week entrepreneurship workshop. As the only Aalto student in the international summer school and also a student ambassador, I volunteered to introduce Aalto University in the first day. I went beyond the requirement, I did a photo-story presentation to surprise my fellow colleagues about how we spent the first two weeks in Hamburg with my own funny interpretation. There’re full of laughters and applause through the whole presentation. After 2018 summer, Sami and I kept in touch. Once he mentioned about a new summer school coming up in 2019, I told him I’d love to help. When the time came, he called and offered me the assistant position in the intensive one-week workshop. I made 600 euros in that week.

It didn’t end there. Few weeks later, new school year started, Sami was satisfied with my work, he referred me to the teachers in AVP who were looking for a course assistant for Startup Experience. I went to meet the teacher, had a chat about the responsibilities and started my fourth part-time job right away in 2019 fall term. It’s a fixed term contract, 10 hours per week, about 600 euros per month. In mid December 2019, when the contract was about to end, the teachers valued my work and ask me to continue for the next term. So the contract extended till the end of April, 2020.

My fifth job is a EIT Climate-KIC trainee, which is another EU program I study since 2017. With my experience as an Aalto Squad member and knowledge in marketing/advertising, I got the job. It’s a 20% contract, which means I work 20% every month, the total work days of each month are different. Sometimes, it’s 29.4 hours, or 32.2 hours. The payment is 400 euros per month.

So for my experience, the hourly rate for students are between 12-15 euros. Networking is important. When you get a job, work hard and it might lead to another one. Course assistants, researcher positions and other part-time jobs are usually forwarded to students’ Aalto email by program or school coordinators. There’s CareerWeb service at Aalto, where you can search for jobs. So look for part-time jobs or internships actively. During the semester, 20 hours per week are the limit, in the holidays (summer or winter holiday), students can work full-time jobs. Aalto career service organizes job fair and provide various supports for students.

Good luck on job-hunting!
Stay healthy and positive.

Hsiao-Pei Liao
Master Program of Creative Sustainability