More than a hundred summer trainees working in Olkiluoto

The summer trainee jobs in Olkiluoto have been highly sought after over the years. The interesting work environment and the unique jobs attract applicants from all over the country. This year was no different. To become selected is something to congratulate yourself for. The screening process is a tight one.
The recruiters this year received more than 1,500 summer job applications from more than 1,200 applicants.

According to TVO Group's HR Manager Elina Salo, the high number of applications is due to many different factors.

– However, the most important reason is that we offer such interesting and challenging jobs. Another contributing factor is surely also the media hype that has surrounded as lately, she begins.

She also brings up the versatile nature of the jobs that are being offered. The diversity of the tasks also speaks for this.

– All in all, we have openings for summer trainee jobs in 42 different positions. The clear majority are technology-related, but nowhere near all of them.

– Trainee posts are filled also in e.g., HR, finance and communication, Salo sums up.

Most of the trainees are students of technology also this summer, like in previous years, but many represent also other fields. The numbers of, for example, students of mathematics, education and chemistry are also quite high.

Applicants are ready to travel from quite far for a summer job in Olkiluoto.

– In addition to TVO's home region Satakunta, applications were received from all over Finland, including Lappeenranta, Tampere and Helsinki, she confirms. In practice, virtually all of the selected trainees come from universities or other institutes of higher education, i.e., universities of applied sciences.

More than one third of the summer employees of TVO Group start already in April. Trainees for radiation protection are among the early comers. Their summer employment started already well in advance of the annual outages.

Elina Salo points out that the traineeships are important also for TVO's future recruitment processes.

– It is our task to support the trainees during the work period and tell them about the employment opportunities we can offer, she summarises.

The trainee jobs support TVO's career path model. For about 40 percent of this year's trainees, this is their second or third summer spent in Olkiluoto. And with some the path goes even further.

– Over the years, a summer job has in many cases been later followed by writing a thesis for TVO and eventually resulted in permanent employment, Salo concludes.

Text: Ville Kulmala
Image: Tapani Karjanlahti