Epical's Future Data & Analytics professional program in Finland has once again produced a new batch of enthusiastic and skilled data and analytics consultants, of whom we as a whole company are proud. With the help of the program, Epical's Data and Analytics business has coached and trained newly graduated students in the applicable field for Data and analytics consultant positions at our clients. In this article, our most recent junior consultants share their own experience with the training program and Epical  

Interest in data and technology joined all participants  

Mikko Kuusisto, Teppo Vartiainen, Santeri Löppönen, and Patrik Mäkelä started in Epical's Future Data & Analytics program in May 2023 under the leadership of Tommi Salmi, SVP Business Development. All of them joined the program with different study and work experience backgrounds. Patrik studied Economics at the University of Helsinki and worked at Finnish immigration services in statistics. Santeri also has a background in economics, from Aalto University, but Teppo, on the other hand, graduated from LUT University as Master of Science in Technology (Industrial Engineering and Management) last spring and got his first exposure to the world of reporting from financial administration tasks, while Mikko studied applied mathematics at the Tampere University and worked in product development before joining Epical.  

Despite their different backgrounds, all four shared an interest in data, analytics, and technologies. Whereas Patrik got drawn in by the keywords mentioned in the job advertisement, Santeri, Mikko, and Teppo were excited after reading that Epical is investing heavily in the development of skills without the assumption that you already know everything in advance. There are still a lot of misunderstandings about the consultant's job description, and the job advertisement tackled these effectively. None of them had experience working as a consultant, but it was reassuring that they didn't need to know how to do it on their first day.  

Interactive and practice-based training  

The memories of the first days are warm. Santeri says that he vividly remembers from the first day the four juniors, who shared the same nervousness about what they had gotten themselves into. From the first days, Santeri remembers that they had a lot of fun and that the training started quickly. Teppo said that he immediately got a warm impression of the people, as many came to welcome him and during the first weeks, the senior consultants shared a lot of their wisdom and experience with them. They helped with everything, wherever help was needed.  

In the training itself, data storage and data modeling were generally covered, but on the other hand, we also delved very deeply into how different technologies can be used, the juniors state. In addition, master data and ETL were also studied in more detail. Mikko said that, for example, SQL becomes familiar during university studies, but one can't access any tools that require a license at school. Mikko thinks it was great that in Epical's training program, you could get to know these tools in practice. The studies were anyway more practice-based than university studies. Santeri also felt that as a learning experience, it was nice that a more experienced colleague was next to him, and that learning took place very interactively and based on practice.  

Trust from the client surprised  

The junior consultants first got to know the consulting work itself by following the more experienced consultants, and by September at the latest, everyone was in billable work with their clients. Many of them would have liked to get to customer work even earlier. Although all four had been prepared for consultant work during the training, they still faced some surprises as well. Santeri thought it was a positive surprise that he could simply sit down at his workstation and start working. He didn't have to go to the customer to prove how good we are at this. The customer already had a strong faith in Epical's data and analytics consultants, and it was a great experience. Mikko laughs and adds that working as a consultant is not about splitting hair and trying to be smart but being able to deliver what you talk about. Patrik, on the other hand, was surprised by the fact that customer situations are, after all, very relaxed and that, on the other hand, it might take a lot of time to do the consultant's time reporting at the beginning. When working as a consultant, every hour worked is reported, and the consultant must have a well-functioning routine for this.  

Tommi Salmi has played a key role in implementing this training program at Epical. When discussing how clients feel about juniors in projects, Tommi says that of course clients want to include as many experienced consultants as possible in the project, thus wanting to ensure that there are no unnecessary costs or delays. "However, through experience, we have developed a way to tackle the challenges so that the schedules do not get longer, and the customer's costs do not increase because the project involves more junior consultants", acknowledges Tommi. Epical always takes responsibility for junior consultants.  

Today, Mikko, Santeri, Teppo, and Patrik work for their clients partnering with one or more senior colleagues. For example, Santeri says that he is involved with a more experienced colleague in a customer project where the customer's ERP system is being changed from SAP to Microsoft. Santeri has the role of Data Engineer in the project, focusing especially on ETL development. Mikko, on the other hand, has been able to develop the entire data pipeline extensively, doing both ETL development and reporting and everything in between. Roles and tasks change as clients and projects change and as one's skills develop.  

We are recruiting for the Future Data & Analytics Professionals training program again in the spring of 2024. Please follow us on social media and connect with us on our career pages to be the first to know!