Nicolas,

My typical day at work: Typical day doesn't really exist. But things I do generally is coordinating requests from customers and taking care of them. Learning on a daily basis about multiple things, e.g. procurement analytics, database environments, data integrations, ERPs etc.

Skills I need in my work: Communication, Teamwork, management

How I got my present job: Search on a daily basis (3-4 times/day) on www.indeed.fi (or .com) and actually applied for a Pre-Sales position at my current company. Had an interview, but didn't got the job. Still, I was very interested in working for them and continued to ask if they have any other positions open that are not yet announced. This gave me 2 more interviews which lead me to my current position.

These studies have been most useful in my work: - Communication and negotiation

- Leadership and Management

- Sales & Marketing (Basics)

- Basics of R (or any other programming language)

- Marketing & Consumer Communication

- PhDs to Business

- Biobusiness

Tips for those interested in this job area: A bit of a list, but back then I wished someone would have given me such a list:

1) Identify early if you want to stay in Academic or not. If you do not know right away, I recommend to go for some basic courses outside of your mayor studies, this will help to give you an insight into other fields.

2) Try to visit companies that you might be interested in on "open door" days, (job) fairs and any other event to learn more about them. Ask if they are hiring, what they are looking in a potential candidate. Try to get contacts within the company as early as possible.

3) If possible have an internship (didn't have that, made things more challenging for me). This will give you a chance to meet people and also looks good on the CV.

4) Dive into the Start-Up scene. Hell, you will never find more determination, inspiration and motivation than from those events. Even better, join a Start-Up company! It will give you valuable insights and good punch of (business) reality into your face/brain.

5) Build your network early on (should be top 1, but it kinda goes 1-on-1 with visiting fairs, having internships)

6) Applying for jobs/ internship. Try "www.indeed.com" they have all announcements. If something interest you, before you start writing think about why you want to work there, what kind of questions you have (e.g. job requirements, daily work) and CALL THEM! It is 101 for job applications everywhere in the world, but apparently in Finland this is still an uncommon practice. This will make you pop out of the masses and get you noticed. Plus, it will save you time about thinking if you want to apply to a particular job or not.

7) Apply ASAP as an/the announcement is out. Remember the saying: "Early bird..." Well, classic example for this case.

8) It is okay to not know where you want to go and what you want to do later, but most of all try while you can. Once you are graduated and search for jobs and change jobs to frequent in a short time.... well, would you not be starting to be sceptical as a recruitment person if you see such an application?

9) Send an email after the interview. It is important to make them realise you were interested in them and also recognise the time they used to interview you.