You're reading: Kyiv Post Employment Fair speakers: Take more career risks to get ahead

The Kyiv Post Employment Fair on May 16 attracted around 500 job seekers and 29 employers. The participants included auditors PricewaterhouseCoopers, Ernst & Young, and KPMG; grocers Auchan and Metro, dairy producer Danone, software developer Microsoft and state-owned oil and gas conglomerate Naftogaz.

The matchmaking event took place at the Ukrainian Chamber of Commerce and Industry amid an employers’ market. Speakers covered a variety of topics on what it means to be a CEO, taking risks, and what the job market expects of employees.

Sasha Borovik, who until May 14 served as first deputy economy minister, was the star of the fair. Before his two-month tenure at the ministry, Borovik worked at the London office of Akamai Technologies, a cloud service provider for companies such as Apple, Facebook and Twitter, earning $500,000 a year. The 46-year-old Harvard graduate blames Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk for his removal from the advisory role, something the prime minister has denied. Yatsenyuk said on May 18 that Borovik is welcome to re-join the government, reports the U.S.-funded news outlet Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.

Borovik used his experience to illustrate to the audience what it means to take risk, something that is not always rewarded. “Here in Ukraine you take a risk because there is something new and there is a feeling that you are unified with a nation,” Borovik said.

He advised job hunters and career builders to avoid comfort zones. “Your career is never set in stone, it either goes up or goes down,” Borovik said.

Being brave and fluent in foreign languages were some of the practical bits of advice the lawyer gave. “Look for the window of opportunities. It never comes to you by itself,” he said.

Ultimately, one should never stay idle. People should compete and keep moving forward, echoed Vyacheslav Klimov, the co-founder of Nova Poshta, Ukraine’s largest privately-owned postal service and logistics company. “Forget about stability,” he said, telling the audience that the 21st century is a time of constant changes.

Customer-oriented service is still lacking in Ukraine, said Klimov. This requires people skills, where one is able to work in a team environment and for the better of the company.

Canada’s Ambassador to Ukraine Roman Waschuk, another speaker at the event, pointed out that “the right fit” for a team can be much more valuable than the employee’s knowledge.

“You can be a genius, but if you cannot work with other people your genius, unfortunately, will not fully open,” the ambassador said. Waschuk lingered to talk with participants and answer questions long after his seminar.

Tsvetalin Radeff, 30, of Bulgaria has been looking for a job in the banking or energy industries of Ukraine for more than two months. Having five years of work experience in the U.S. and a master’s degree in diplomacy from a Western university, he is looking for a well-paying job in the capital but is not sure he will find one.

“We are literally talking about exploitation. Four thousand hryvnia (or $170 per month) is a ridiculous job offer for the city of Kyiv. They know that people don’t have much of a choice,” he told the Kyiv Post.

But Teodor Plesha and Yuliya Sobkova, both first-year graduate students at Wisconsin International University Ukraine, are willing to get unpaid summer internships. “The employers actively took our resumes and openly told us about the possibilities in their companies, despite that we just have finished our first year of university,” Sobkova said.

Olha Morozionok, head of human resources at the National Bank of Ukraine, said that she accepted more than 40 resumes from candidates at the fair.

Soren Sonderstrup, the media information analysis officer at the European Union Association Mission, said he was impressed with the candidates.

“I have seen some wonderful young people,” said the Denmark native who already has spent a year in Ukraine. “I think we will have a tough job ahead selecting among all these…candidates.”

Kyiv Post staff writer Ilya Timtchenko can be reached at timtchenko@kyivpost.