The biannual Kyiv Post Employment Fair welcomed over 1,400 job seekers, as well as 50 companies, at the Ukrainian House in Kyiv on Sept. 22. It is the highest attendance that the career event has seen in its 13-year history.
For the first time, attendance at the fair was free.
The Employment Fair offered guests a chance to meet a potential employer, file an application on the spot, talk representatives of companies, learn about job opportunities and market competitors, and expand networks.
The companies represented various fields, including consulting, tech, product distribution, law, online shopping, state bodies, and anti-corruption institutions. To bring more attention, some companies prepared entertaining, workshops, product distribution and other activities.
In addition, the event held panels with discussions and speeches from the experts in various fields. The speakers shared their success stories and gave career advice.
Panel discussions and speeches
The first discussion on civil service reform hosted four speakers and representatives of several ministries. Some of the new civil servants got a job through the new application processes that came in force with the new civil service law in May 2016. The selection process now demands applicants to participate in an open competition. After being accepted, the servants set specific goals and get assessments from their supervisors.
Vladyslav Vlasiuk, 29, the director of the human rights department at the Ministry of Justice, said that his performance is controlled by the performance indicators every three months.
“This way you know that they (goals) are reachable and measurable,” Vlasiuk said.
Yaroslava Gres, CEO at Gres Todorchuk PR, spoke about finding a dream job. Her public relations company works exclusively with social and cultural events.
To succeed, Gres suggests starting working early. In the office, they have a team of teenagers in the age of 14-18 years, who are working on creative tasks. Their way of thinking is often different from older employees, Gres said.
The young team is now working on a project for people experiencing difficulties in hearing. To approach the wide young audience, they developed a way to conduct hearing checks through Instagram Stories, a tool to share online a picture or video that disappears in 24 hours.
Ihor Syrovatko, the client service department head at the international OLX classified ads company, shared his personal success path. Coming from a village with only seven houses in Luhansk Oblast in eastern Ukraine, he grew up grazing cows. But he was always tempted with big city life.
Today, Syrovatko has three rules in life: to be always happy, work hard, and see and use opportunities around.
“Unhappy people do not attract opportunities,” Syrovatko said. “Don’t compare yourself to anyone else. Just be better today than you were yesterday.”
Besides them, the speakers from Nexia DK auditor and consulting, Ulichnaya Eda food festival organizer, and the United Nations Development Program also talked to the audience.
Meet the needs
KT Ukraine, electric tools for gardening and construction distributor and maker, has prepared in advance to attract more applicants. They made a stand with all vacancies and requirements and asked all job seekers to answer a questionnaire.
With 26 offices around Ukraine, they are in search of human resources for marketing, accounting, and tech departments with the salary starting from Hr 10,000.
Above that, the company made a workshop using their tools. The guests assembled a notepad with two wooden plates, blank paper, and holders making holes with an electric screwdriver.
“This fall, there are more people than it was in the spring,” Tetiana Krotenko, HR manager, said about the fair. “A lot of people and they are interested and active.”
Krotenko said the majority of applicants don’t bring their CV – they leave their contacts to be later approached by a human resources specialist.
Besides private companies, the state agencies also hope to recruit more candidates as a part of civil service reform. The state bodies are in need to fill 84 vacancies. For the newly created departments, there are openings for experts, the head of expert groups and general directors, Communication Manager Zhanna Panchenko said.
For those positions, salary starts at Hr 30,000, which is higher than salaries for other civil servants, including lawmakers. To meet the criteria, job applicants need skills, like strategic thinking and planning, risk analysis and knowledge of the field they plan to work in. Around 400 of visitors were interested in the new civil service positions.
“Earlier, there was a requirement to have an experience as a civil servant, but not for these new positions,” Panchenko said. “A lot of people are interested in here. They are asking what the state can finally offer and whether the state can be a competitive employer.”
Job seekers
With different experience, skills, and age, the visitors look for what is called a dream job.
“Dream job is a job that you want to go to – either it is in the office or a remote one – and the one you don’t even want to leave to go on vacation,” law student Veronika Yevtushenko said.
A third-year student, Yevtushenko said that youth employment is problematic in Ukraine.
“So it’s great there are career fairs of this kind, where students can come and before being employed, simply meet famous companies, famous brands, and learn about their history and opportunities,” Yevtushenko said.
Among well-known representatives, companies like E&Y, Procter & Gamble, Puma, PepsiCo, Transparency International, Red Cross, United Nations Development Program, Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe and others participated in the career event.
While some guests browse the companies, others target a specific sector of employment.
A job seeker Ilya Kanevsky returned from Poland, where he graduated with MA degree in international relations, to find his dream job in an international organization or as a state servant.
“Everything is great, but I need a job here as I decided to come back (to Ukraine),” Kanevsky said, adding that it’s his first experience at a career fair.
Kanevsky has worked in Poland, Germany, and the United States, but returned to Ukraine because he feels “more comfortable here.”
Alisa Vasilyeva hopes to find a job where she can practice English. She is a civil servant but wants to switch to an international company to do project management in accordance with international standards.
Vasilyeva had no time to prepare her curriculum vitae, so she collected business cards and plans to send her resume to the companies.
“I hope people who came here will have a plus sign in front of their resume,” Vasilyeva said.
