Blog

Living as a Solitan for two weeks – Senior Lecturer’s perspective

Miina Kivelä Senior Lecturer in Digital Marketing, Tampere University of Applied Sciences

Published 07 Dec 2023

Reading time 4 min

I’m sipping cappuccino in the ninth-floor lounge on a crisp, frosty day in late November. Snow is falling on the Tampere silhouette. It’s the first day of my teacher working life period and I’ve arrived at Solita to learn new things and maintain and develop my own core expertise as a Senior Lecturer in Digital Marketing. It is my 11th academic year working at Tampere University of Applied Sciences and it felt like the right time to freshen my perspective with some hands-on work.

Why I chose Solita

Finally, the long-awaited work experience period began. I had heard good things about Solita beforehand. The company-specific collective agreement published earlier in 2023 and Solita’s reputation for its people values and company culture influenced my decision to choose Solita. During the work experience itself, I was also impressed by the small things that ensure the well-being and comfort of employees – such as fresh fruit and good coffee in the break room, offering brief therapy and mentoring for personal growth, and leaving hairspray and perfume available in the bathroom. It might seem obvious to some, but these advantages do not exist in many industries!

An award-winning employer image is built on thoughtful details and, of course, delivering on those promises. As a professional myself, I also value the freedom to choose my tools and software, as well as the time allocated between the home office and the headquarters.

Let’s make the working life period at Solita come true!

The start of the working life experience period must have been equally thrilling for both parties – it’s an unusual situation in general, and there is certainly no common approach to it. As for us, we had a short video call at the beginning of the autumn, during which we explored whether we would be a good match and whether there would be mutual benefits to the experiment. The process started to move forward and was given the green light within Solita. A few weeks before the working life period started, I visited Solita’s Tampere office to get to know the company some more and to talk about the upcoming weeks. At Solita, the person in charge of the working life period was Henna Paakinaho

“This was a wonderful learning opportunity for both Miina and the Solitans. It is always good to gain a fresh perspective, especially when working with marketing.” Henna Paakinaho

Getting down to digital marketing business

During the two weeks, I got to see in-house recruitment marketing, customer marketing, social media content production, and 2024 planning processes. These are exactly the things I talk about in my courses! It was awesome to get the front-row view of the digital marketing systems used and to hear and see the day-to-day work of the marketing teams. I also got to spar over interesting challenges, such as how to build engaging content for multiple different target audiences around a complex product and service offering. It was fascinating to see the different levels of digital marketing planning from the perspective of a large B2B company. Everything I saw and experienced during the weeks will bring inspiration, engagement, and energy to my courses for a long time to come!

If you think tech might be for you, go for it!

I received a lot of positive feedback on my competencies from fellow Solitans over the two weeks. I’ve always been fascinated to work in the IT sector, but doubted that my own technical skills and experience might not be sufficient enough. However, during my working life period I came to discover that my knowledge is in many ways very useful for the industry. I also feel that this is my chance to compliment the IT industry for women; more of us are needed in tech companies! If you are interested in the topic, but still need to strengthen your skills a bit, you can also get involved through various academy programs, such as the Solita Data Academy.

Thank you, people of Solita! ♡

Based on my experience, I can highly recommend both the working life period concept and Solita as a workplace. Those weeks in November will stay with me for a long time. I would like to thank all the people I met during my working life period, especially my mentor Henna. With this energy and enthusiasm, I am heading towards the spring semester of 2024.

  1. Culture