YIT continues as the construction industry´s most attractive employer for students

Once again, technology students selected YIT as the most ideal construction industry employer in Universum’s Student Survey. On the ranking list of ideal technology industry employers, YIT placed 6th. Despite the challenges caused by the coronavirus in the operating environment, YIT is offering this year too almost 600 traineeships or summer jobs for young people.

YIT will employ nearly 600 trainees and summer workers this year.  Despite the state of emergency caused by the coronavirus, we are able to offer almost the planned number of summer jobs so that young people are able to gain important practical experience, while following appropriate precautions to combat the coronavirus.

“Even in challenging times, we want to carry our responsibility and offer students the opportunity to gain practical know-how from our experienced professionals. This year, our summer jobs heavily emphasise coronavirus-related health matters alongside safety. Even in a time like this, we want to invest in young people who are so important for our future. We have adapted the summer jobs, remote recruitment and in part even remote omboarding to create new operating models. Right now, the summer trainee situation is looking good,” says Head of Group Recruiting & Resourcing Timo Piili.

After last summer, out of the approximately 850 trainees YIT had in 2019, 47% were contracted for the coming summer, were offered a permanent employment contract after their graduation or did hourly work during the school year.

YIT Agent team distributes first-hand information about summer traineeships

For three years, YIT has appointed YIT Agents from young people studying in various educational institutes who have completed a traineeship at YIT. The Agents function as an easy-to-approach point of contact between students and YIT. In addition to ordinary school collaboration, they organise, for example, events, campaigns, summer work evenings and construction site visits to their own schools. 

“Our Agent team does valuable work. They have genuinely made it their business to distribute first-hand information and share their experiences about working with us for the other students. Agent operations also promote interaction between schools and YIT. The most eager students have acted as Agents during their studies and as mentors for new Agents even after their graduation, once they have already been employed by YIT,” Piili explains.

During the past school year, a team of 26 YIT Agents in various educational institutions have talked about the career opportunities YIT offers and why people like YIT so much.

“Our trainee feedback from last summer revealed that 96% of the respondents would like to work with us in the future, and 92% enjoyed their work team. We invest particularly in training and guiding our trainees as well as keeping them safe and healthy. Agents provide us with direct feedback so that we can improve our trainee programme YIT Path and remain the number one company in the construction industry even in the future,” Piili concludes.

YIT Studies turn into study points and a job

In addition to summer traineeships and working on the side while studying, students also have the possibility to participate in YIT Studies, which is a package of five study points that can be included in a construction industry university degree. Annually, approximately 30 motivated second- and third-year students deepen their studies to learn about quality construction, project management and leadership from experienced YIT employees. YIT, on the other hand, offers them a job once they have successfully completed their YIT Studies and graduated.

“What I was most surprised by in the YIT Studies was the enormous amount of silent know-how and experience YIT’s specialists had gathered over the decades of working and which they now shared with us during the studies. At the same time, we got to network with the organisation’s experienced employees and receive first-hand information about the many career opportunities,” explains Kanerva Huovinen, who continued working as a Project Engineer at YIT’s Infra projects after completing the YIT Studies.

YIT Studies are offered at seven universities of applied sciences and Tampere University. Nearly 200 students have already completed the study package, which has been running for eight years. 

A total of 2,636 technology students responded to Universum’s Student Survey 2020.

Read more:
https://www.yitgroup.com/en/careers

For further information, please contact:
Timo Piili, Head of Group Recruiting & Resourcing, YIT Corporation, timo.piili@yit.fi, tel. +358 (0)40 573 3254
Hanna Malmivaara, Senior Vice President, Group Communications, YIT Corporation, hanna.malmivaara@yit.fi tel. +358 (0)40 561 6568

YIT is the largest Finnish and a significant North European construction company and urban developer. We develop and build apartments and living services, business premises and entire areas. We are also specialised in demanding infrastructure construction. Together with our customers, our nearly 8,000 professionals are creating more functional, attractive and sustainable cities and environments. We work in 10 countries: Finland, Russia, Sweden, Norway, the Baltic countries, Czech Republic, Slovakia and Poland. Our revenue in 2019 was approximately EUR 3.4 billion. YIT Corporation's share is listed on Nasdaq Helsinki Oy. www.yitgroup.com