The first students of YIT’s Digital Talent programme graduated in the late spring

YIT’s first Digital Talent programme gave university students the opportunity to grow as IT specialists in our company’s various IT teams and by participating in training provided by YIT as well as our partners Microsoft, Solita and CGI. Nine young talents were recruited to participate in the year-long programme last spring, with five of them subsequently becoming employed by YIT.

“The programme was launched during the COVID-19 pandemic. Finding work is not always easy for students who are approaching graduation, and COVID-19 has created additional challenges in that respect. We see this programme as a great opportunity to develop students into IT specialists who have an understanding of the construction industry when they graduate,” says Sari Enckell-Jylhä, who was in charge of the programme at YIT.

During their year of studies, the participating young talents worked in small groups to solve a challenge presented by YIT.

“We already have a number of trainee programmes for construction industry students, but this programme allowed us to increase the visibility of the construction industry and our company to IT students. There is significant value in having students who learn to understand and process construction industry data while they are still in school. In the best case, the programme also provides us with the opportunity to recruit talented new employees.”

Final showcase

The programme ended in April with a competition involving final presentations delivered on the pitching stage of Workery+. The competition gave the participating young talents the opportunity to showcase their skills and apply what they had learned.

“The participants spent 10 weeks working on a business challenge in small groups before presenting their work to an audience and a panel of judges at a hybrid event.  Each team consisted of young talents specialising in areas such as data and user interface design. The panel of judges, comprised of the business owners of the challenge together with our partners CGI, Microsoft and Solita, voted to decide the winning team. Each of the presented solutions was excellent and received a lot of praise from the business representatives,” Enckell-Jylhä notes.

The winning team solved a planning problem related to a project-specific dashboard that is important for construction sites. The team members were Ina Häkkä, Rikhard Perttilä and Vlada Haikara.

One of the participants of the Digital Talent programme, Ella Alahäme, describes the challenge as a rewarding experience that had both ups and downs:

“The best thing about this challenge was the opportunity to work closely with others as well as your team members and to get together to present the results of our work. The programme gave me a lot of insight into YIT’s business and new perspectives on my work.”

Towards graduation through cooperation

In addition to each team having its own supervisor, each of the participating young talents also had a personal mentor.

“It was great to have a personal mentor for sparring and support,” says Digital Talent Vlada Haikara.

Enckell-Jylhä points out that the young talents have their hands full throughout the year, so having access to occasional support is very helpful. Their university studies are still ongoing, some of them are working on their thesis, and they also have team assignments from our IT function in addition to the Digital Talent studies.

YIT’s first class of Digital Talents completed the programme in April. The next class started their nearly year-long training in May.

We wish all of our IT talent graduates the best of luck and success in their studies and careers!