KTH Royal Institute of Technology: Student-oriented careers fair Armada returns to KTH
After being held digitally the past two years, Armada is back at KTH. On 22–23 November, thousands of students and almost 150 exhibiting companies will come together at Sweden’s biggest student-oriented careers fair.
The last time Armada was held live at KTH, it attracted more than 4,000 students and 175 companies. Attendance was down slightly during the pandemic, when the fair had to be held online. But now it’s back at KTH, and is once again attracting a lot of interest.
“This year we have 145 exhibiting companies and are expecting 4,000 visitors,” says Filip Rydén, Project Manager for THS Armada at KTH.
A visit to Armada is an excellent opportunity for KTH students to forge contacts with potential employers. Most of the students are in the final stages of their education, and this is also when they are of greatest interest to the companies, Rydén says.
Armada a plus on the CV
Rydén has taken a year off from his Mechanical Engineering programme at KTH to work full time as Project Manager for a project group of 19 students working voluntarily. They spend an average of six to seven hours a week for the seven or eight months they work on the Armada fair – but they also get a lot back for their efforts.
“Above all, they gain practical experience and an insight into how large projects work. This year, there are 246 students involved with the fair in some way. Since there are so many of us and everything has to fall into place during the fair, the volunteers get an excellent grounding in communication, teamwork, leadership, and also planning the process right to the end,” says Rydén.
Working with Armada is also a plus point on the CV, especially among companies that have attended the fair and know what it’s all about, he adds.
“A friend of mine who I worked with in the project group last year got a job at Ericsson via Armada,” says Rydén.
Focus on sustainability and diversity
While Armada was held digitally during the pandemic, a new element called Armada Competition was launched. Students could collect tickets from companies they visited, and were then entered into a draw to win prizes. This year, Armada Competition will take place physically for the first time.
“We’ve developed a brand new platform for it. The companies that sign up to Armada Competition will have some kind of competition involving the students who visit them. After each visit, the students scan a QR code to get digital tickets, which are then entered in a prize draw,” says Rydén.
Armada focuses a lot on sustainability and diversity, and has a special coordinator for each area. Naturally, diversity is about ensuring as well-balanced a gender distribution as possible in the project. But since KTH is a university with many international students, Armada puts an extra focus on including them.
“Armada is an international organisation, and we have many international students involved in the project. This means that all communication, internal and external, is for everyone, so our working language is English. That also applies when we communicate externally with companies and students.”