Summer jobs to full-time - Ville Paananen combines work and study at FP Products

Starting his studies in 2020, the business studies student Ville Paanasella had already gained work experience from mowing lawns to construction work and substitute teaching, but the project-based summer job at FP Products that opened up in summer 2021 was something new - office work in financial administration. As the job description was something he had already studied, Ville decided to apply.

”I got to work on a project that went well and I was given the opportunity to continue part-time,” he says. ”Although the start through a summer job was not exactly traditional, I got a good orientation and my colleagues were always ready to advise me.”

Ville's part-time job involved some regular financial administration work, and the aim was to work the same day every week. However, this was flexible as needed, depending on the school's requirements.

”Some weeks I could work on a different day, some weeks I could miss a day of work altogether,” he recalls. ”We also always tried to schedule the orientation for new tasks during the school holidays, so that learning the work didn't take away from my studies.”

”At school you learn about things at a more general level, at work you learn how to do things in practice. It has taught me a lot and supports my studies,” he says. ”I'm currently working on a thesis where I did a project for the workplace and now I'm doing the written part to get the papers out of school,” Paananen grins.

Especially for younger employees, it is important that it is easy to join the team without feeling like an outsider. In this respect, FP-Products has provided a low threshold.

”We have people of all ages at work, including other young people,” says Ville Paananen. ”We are all ’Facilitators’, and this is reflected in our everyday work through the products and the company's activities. But it's also part of our everyday humour. At the coffee table it's nice to have a laugh and not always be so serious.”

Ville also praises the open and consultative atmosphere.

By his third year at FP-Products, Ville is now a full-time employee, and his tasks have expanded from routine tasks to more varied financial administration and back-office work.

”Now a working day can bring unexpected tasks,” Ville says. ”If you tell a frontline employee that you are interested in a particular task, they will take it seriously and try to make sure they enjoy their work. You get to do what you want to do, what you like to do and what you know how to do.”

Now some of Ville's previous financial management routines are taken care of by Netta, a student in his lower year, alongside his studies.

”With new tasks, there would no longer be enough time for the old ones,” says Paananen. ”The job has provided a good mix of familiar routines and new opportunities for growth.”

Ville can see himself at FP Products in the future, say five years from now, but hopefully in new and different roles.

When skills and the right attitude meet the need, a summer job can become a mutually beneficial working relationship. When you ask Ville, it's easy to come up with the top three things he says about FP Products as a summer employer:

”They are varied work experience, nice colleagues and the possibility of a longer-term employment relationship - if the stars align,” Ville lists. ”It's good to be here.”