Recruiting Through a Crisis: Balancing work and the war in Ukraine

For many recruiters, the past few years have presented many challenges with the pandemic, remote work, and Zoom interviews. Dealing with a war on top of all this seems unimaginable. And yet, that’s the painful reality for Ukrainian-based businesses. How can you stay motivated and continue to engage candidates during a war, if you are now safe to do so? 

Joining us on The Shortlist are Anna Stetsenko and Darja Gornitska from Indigo Tech Recruiters. Anna is the Founder and Darja is co-CEO and Chief Operating Officer of the tech recruiting agency based in Ukraine. We spoke to them about what it’s like to balance recruiting with the ongoing war, how they managed to stay motivated and productive through a crisis, and how they leaned on diverse hiring and education for their continued success.

In this episode:

• The impact of the war in Ukraine on both life and recruiting.
• How the company continued to deliver its service.
• Leading through a crisis.
• The importance of remote working.
• How diversity became a cornerstone of the company.
• SocialTalent and Indigo Tech Recruiters’ partnership to deliver e-learning to Ukrainian recruiters looking for work.

Key takeaways:

1. Safety and wellbeing have been the top priority since the war broke out. Despite all their planning and contingency discussions prior to the unrest, nothing could have prepared the team at Indigo for what happened in February. The immediate concern was to ensure everyone was safe – the company constantly checked in with their dispersed team, running surveys and taking stock of the situation. Even when they got back to some semblance of business as usual, there was always incredible compassion around balancing professional duties and supporting their people. They tried to stay united and positive, even offering online yoga and psychotherapy classes to stabilize the situation. But it was incredibly difficult working environment, to the point that even prospective candidates they were speaking with would break down in tears during calls.

2. The resilience of their recruiters. Indigo Tech Recruiters’ organizational mantra of ‘deliver, care, improve’ infused their entire approach to business and their people since the onset of the war. They knew they were responsible for providing a service to their customers, and despite the challenges, the team endeavoured to do just this. Navigating through unscheduled power outages, disrupted video quality, lack of internet, or even light, the company leaned on its ability to be flexible (they have been operating remotely since 2008!) and work around these complications. It galvanized their focus and helped them band together.

3. Leadership learnings after dealing with a crisis of this magnitude. Darja told us that “the most precious power you have to move your business is the people.” One of the most important factors during this tense time was transparency. They would openly discuss issues and try to make decisions together with their team. Caring for their own people and caring for clients essentially helped to keep the business alive – so even when tough decisions had to be made, there was a sense of support and understanding.

Our guest’s final piece of advice:

“The ancient Greeks had two forms of navigation at sea – one was sailing along the coastline, which was more predictable, the second method was using the sky and stars. This is a great metaphor when trying to move forward during hard times. If you can’t see the boarders or landscape, use the stars, which in our case is our values, beliefs and merits.” 

Highlights:

• [2.52] Introductions
• [7.55] What was business like even before COVID?
• [10.48] The immediate impact of the war
• [18.26] How is business today?
• [21.21] The resilience of their recruiting team
• [25.56] Indigo’s history with working remotely and the importance of this
• [29.19] Why diverse hiring is vital
• [32.27] What did you learn being a leader during this crisis?
• [37.44] The future and supporting Ukraine.

Transcript:

Johnny Campbell:

You’re very welcome, it’s episode 125 of The Shortlist. I’m Johnny Campbell, your host of this podcast and live show, and also the CEO and co-founder of SocialTalent. Today we’re going to be talking about recruiting through a crisis. Many of you may be doing this right now, many of you perhaps have had to do this in the past, but in particular we’re talking about how do you balance work and the war, in particular, the war in Ukraine. For many recruiters, the past few years have presented numerous challenges with the pandemic, remote working, moving to Zoom interviews, but could you imagine dealing with a war on top of all of that? It probably seems unimaginable for most of you. And yet that’s the painful reality for Ukrainian-based businesses. How do you stay motivated, continue to engage candidates, continue to deliver a fantastic service during a war if you’re not safe to do so every day?

Joining us today on The Shortlist are Anna Stetsenko and Darja Gornitska from Indigo Tech Recruiters. Anna is the founder, and Darja the co-CEO and chief operating officer of the tech recruiting agency based in Ukraine. We’re going to be talking to them about what it’s like to balance recruiting with the ongoing war, how they manage to stay motivated and motivate their teams, how they stay productive through a crisis, what you can learn from their experience through this crisis, and how they lean particularly on diverse hiring and education for their continued success.

And before I introduce our guests, if any of our listeners would like to donate to support Ukraine, Anna’s brother Andrew Stetsenko leads an initiative that raises funds for medical and humanitarian aid for Ukrainians. Andrew is also the founder of the job board and recruitment agency Relocate.me and Glossary Tech, a solution that helps make complex tech definition clear in CVs. You can donate by going to the GoFundMe website that’s live on the screen, if you’re watching live, or in the show notes, gofundme.com/f/medical-and-other-humanitarian-aid-for-Ukrainians. You’re going to need to go to the link in the show notes if you listen to the podcast, trust me. You’re not going to find that yourself, but do take the time to click on that, find out more, and donate. Anna and Darja, you’re very welcome to the show. Thank you so much for joining me. Could you please perhaps introduce yourselves, explain to our listeners where you’re joining us from and why did you get into recruiting?

Anna Stetsenko:

Sure. Johnny, thank you so much for invitation, and before we start our introduction, I would like to share a story how it happens that we are here. In the first month of war, we understood, and I guess it’s one of my main lessons during the war, if I would like and don’t know how to help myself, how can I help other people? And it’s really motivated, and it’s given me a sense of life, not only me, but for all team. So we understood that more than six million women forced to leave their houses and cross the border and stayed all around the world, in Europe, in United States, in Canada. We understood as recruiters, very soon, they will have question how to find a job, how to connect with local communities. And we start to ask in our network and our colleagues, maybe you can share information, maybe you can share a job, maybe you can give us some piece of advices.

And I wrote to Bill Borman, a good friend of Ukraine and he support Ukraine a lot, and we hosted few truKiev and truLviv also before the COVID. And he made our connection with SocialTalent. And he shared you our story and you gave free access to SocialTalent platform. And after half a year, we decided to see results, how it was, and we understood that 1,000 Ukrainian recruiters joined to SocialTalent platform. And we got brilliant and amazing feedback about education and how it was supportive, how they became confident, how they could find a job, they shared with us that stories. So I wrote you just to say thank you and you invited us here to this podcast. So thank you so much and for that opportunity, for education opportunity for Ukrainians.

And a few words about about myself, I am Anna Stetsenko. A little bit personal information that I am an artist, I am a traveler, I really like one-way trip style, so just buy a ticket and to travel somewhere. And I saw the world from Japan to Antarctica in that way, so yeah. I’m passionate Buddhist and I try to practice meditation during 10 years. Sometime it’s better, sometimes it’s worse, but I still trying to be balanced and mindful. And about Indigo, I founded that business 15 years ago. We celebrated our 15 year anniversary two weeks ago and I guess we are leading agency in Ukraine and specialize in tech recruitment. So what else? I guess that’s it for beginning, and please, Darja.

Darja Gornitska:

Yeah, thank you. Thank you for inviting us. It’s really great to be today here with you. My name is Daria, Darja. I’m happy mother of two girls and I love learn and encourage everyone to do the same. I’m in the IT business more than 20 years already, worked in international companies as well as agencies who is focused on grow effectiveness and scaling, and joined Indigo about one year ago. We, where we are, and I’m sure we will be number one agency in Ukraine, but in the good way, we are ambitious to continue grow and continue presenting Ukraine all around the world, providing the best in class service. So happy be with you today.

And I can say that if you’re talking about us as a company and as a representative today, we always, really, really basic value for us is caring about team. And we saw that COVID was the bigger challenge, but at that time, we worked remotely all the time. So for us, it was okay, this is quite something new but still, we can handle our teams because they used to work remotely. But having new challenges at the beginning of this year, it was really high level of uncertainty and we all the time was thinking how we can support our team, how we can care about our team, how we can keep business alive. So I guess this is questions which we can share our experience and discuss today with you.

Johnny Campbell:

Thank you both for those fantastic introductions. I’m really keen to understand, maybe for context for our listeners, tell me Anna, about the business before COVID. What was it? How many people working there? What kind of roles were you recruiting for? What kind of customers? Maybe mention a little bit about the impact of COVID. But wondering if one or both of you could then tell me about when did it all change with regards to the war, and what was the kind of immediate impact of the war on a business that I imagine at that point was beginning to recover out of COVID, beginning to work with customers as they’d begun to rehire after the slowdown in 2020. So maybe can you paint that picture for me? Give me a view of what did Indigo look like as a business for those listeners who don’t perhaps know the company?

Anna Stetsenko:

Yeah, sure. Before the COVID, I guess we had 25, 27 people on board and we have different services and we had different services. So we organized HR event, we have our own recruitment school and sourcing school and school for hiring managers. We organized salary survey for C-level and even now, we try to do this even during the war and share information, actual information with the market. What else I would like to share?

We would like to find new way how to do business. Even I would like to share a small story about my partner and co-owner Indigo, Katya Osadchuk. She came to Indigo as a COO because I saw that they would like step back from operation management and to focus more on strategic level, and few years, we worked together as founder and CEO. But then we understood in each partnership, if you go want to go further, you need to change something. And we understood that I would like to invite her to my business and to share a partnership with her, and we decided to celebrate it. Because it’s partnership and we have special place in Ukraine where a couple organize their marriage and signed to… How to say, Darja, can help me to translate?

Darja Gornitska:

Oh, I guess promises would be good.

Anna Stetsenko:

Promises, yes. So in better and worse, everything like this. So we decided to go into place and sign shareholder agreements there, and we invite our team, our partners, our clients and just decided to celebrate it. It was such a nice experience for us how we celebrate our partnership there. So yeah, we always, by show as example, that we always try to find unique solutions and unique way to present ourself in the market.

Johnny Campbell:

Tell me then, Darja, about what was the immediate impact of the war? I imagine there’s a period of, wow, this has happened and then there’s a massive change, and then there’s a period of, okay, now we need to still figure out a way to come together as a team and a business. So walk me through that timeline perhaps and what exactly happened, how many people were impacted, how long did it take before the initial shock and change and the personal impact for everybody, and then how long does it take to get the business back up and running?

Darja Gornitska:

Yeah, we remember when we have a call, virtual call with the whole team in the time of new year and we all discuss that the situation become more and more with more intention, with more higher risks of this happening. And we say that a lot of partners of Ukraine support us but we still think it not happens, it can’t be true in 21 century, nobody’s doing politics like that. Even the scenario which can be worst, we try to be prepared, but we still try to support each other. So hey, let’s think if worse happened, where you will go, how you will care about your team, do you have enough plan to act in the worst case scenario? And we tried to work on business, continue to planning, we tried to support our team, we created different surveys. We even agreed who can come to whom apartment from different cities of Ukraine. And still, we would try to be positive because it just can’t happen, it can’t be true.

And we all remember this day in the morning of February 24 when everyone realized that it’s actually happened. And no matter how good you prepared, you can’t be prepared for everything in this case because nobody faced such challenge and such like, it’s war in our times and even, I don’t know, 50 years, 100 years ago, the business and the world is different. And our first reaction was definitely to find someone who is on the phone, on the call with connection, internet connection and ask, “Hey, can you check that everyone on the way or moved already?” And about I guess two weeks, we just tried to realize what is happening. Someone who didn’t plan to move from the cities where they lived, they moved to other countries, but initially, they are not planning to do this. Someone stays where they are, for example in Kharkiv, a lot of team members from Kharkiv and they stays there for weeks. And we all the time, check with them, how you doing, how you feel, what are you hearing? Maybe let’s like move to Kiev here or let’s move somewhere.

Part of the team, they went to abroad from Ukraine, part still stays in Ukraine, as we with Anna, and a number of our team members. So first weeks really were really stressful because our focus was to make sure that everyone’s safe. And in two weeks, we realized that more or less team on the way or already in the safe place, or they stay where they are and we just check in, how are you doing? Do you need some help? Do you need anything from us? So I guess that somewhere at the end of March, beginning of April, we realized that those who stays in safe place, they continue to do business, they continue to talk to the candidates. And a lot of candidates at that time actually were from Ukraine, and sometimes we shared this story on the call, Anna, do remember that sometimes even candidates, they’re sitting and can’t just stop crying. And sometimes this was the case because we all, especially if it’s Ukraine into Ukraine and we try to support each other.

And we give this time for everyone who’s on the call who need this just to support each other and say, “Hey, everything will be fine, we are together, so just happy to be here with you and support you. Whatever time you need, it’s not a problem.” I think that during all this time, we accept choice of each team member because someone, even right now they back to their homes, and this is not always safe place to stay. But this is the choice of individual choice and we all have different conditions and reasons. And at the beginning of the summer, I guess, we realized that what happening, it’s not only influence Ukraine, it’s actually influence the global economy and a lot of other countries. And we give our time I guess to still different businesses, they react immediately. To continue operating and working, they make tough decisions much more earlier than we.

During the summer when we realize that okay, we’re here, we continue working, we care about our clients, we have business to do, we still focused on our team and we have different yoga classes and psychologist online classes just to support everyone and make sure that everyone have this time to stabilize and continue working. And we were really impressed how team doing with this. Most of them still balance this emotional state, professional duties, and supporting their relatives and still stay really, really strong, and it is encourage a lot. So we leave this three months of summer and I guess that in September, right Anna, we realize that, okay, we make sure that everyone stays safe, we support the team as long as we can, but it’s actually the time to make tough decisions. So we reduced our team partially in September, but still we have a lot of plans. We’ve doing all we can to continue expanding geography but still say that we a global agency but we are the core team from Ukraine. So this is the picture of how we’ve lived through this months.

Johnny Campbell:

And tell me how it is today, because today, I understand that you’re delivering services to businesses in many parts of the world, finding great talent, finding candidates. Anna, to your point, the business is founded on the basis of finding solutions, by fixing problems for organizations. And despite the insane crisis that many of us listening will never be able to comprehend, the reality is as a business owner, the best thing you can do for people is provide them employment, provide them opportunity, to provide a service to a business so that people can earn an income. And you and Darja have done that and you’ve managed to get the business back working.

So tell me, today, who are you working with? I mean, what kind of companies, where in the world, what kind of roles are you filling? And walk me through what it’s like, because I hope and I understand, I think, that it’s just everywhere else. In the job part of it, you may be living in an environment that has massive uncertainty and risk, but your team are recruiting, they’re getting on with it, they’re finding great talent for great companies all over the world. Is that the case today?

Anna Stetsenko:

Yeah, yeah it’s like this and our clients now mostly based in US, UK, Switzerland. Still we have, and we really proud to still have client in Ukraine, so continue to hire and grow their businesses in Ukraine. It’s, I guess, our four location where our client based.

Johnny Campbell:

And in terms of the talent you’re finding, walk me through modern recruiting for those who don’t understand it, US companies and others, are you finding talent from Ukraine for those companies or is it a case of you can find talent anywhere in the world for companies anywhere in the world? What’s the mix today?

Anna Stetsenko:

Yeah. Before the COVID, our branding was Ukraine for the world. So we invited different companies to Ukraine and try to create opportunities for them, and even we try to calculate that we are not feeling like 1,500 vacancies from Indigo, but we also created 2,000 workplace for different companies. Not that we filled vacancies, we just invited these businesses to Ukraine and started to help to open offices here in Ukraine. But after COVID, we understood that a little bit fragile to focus only on one location, so we started to work over the globe and in Europe, in Singapore and LATAM and Canada and United States. So yeah, I guess now, 70% of our vacancies, it’s outside of Ukraine.

Johnny Campbell:

So tell me about the teams that you have always had, and what makes them different to other recruiters, because I imagine living through such an enormous crisis builds enormous resilience. And to me recruiters, great recruiters have always been resilient, maybe it’s a different level of resilience. But what has most impressed you about the team and how they’ve been able to continue to deliver for their customers? So that would be to Darja or Anna or both of you, what do you think has defined your team or defined the type of recruiter that works in your business?

Darja Gornitska:

Sometimes because you still should stay positive, right? We’re joking that everyone, including our team in their CV, they can write Ukrainian and it will tells a lot, because it’s really even if you, at that time or during this nine months or even right now all the time outside of Ukraine, we have such team members because when you are working with Indigo and in a team, you know can be really flexible. And part of our team at this time were outside of Ukraine, but still you care about your relatives, you care about your country, about your friends and all the time, you should stay focused. We even tried to manage approach when somebody, for example, not online so other person can support and join, for example, interview.

But we hear that, we are doing okay if we are not taking some day off, if we are not taking vacation, we are really responsible for providing services for care about our clients and talk with our candidates. Those who right now in Ukraine sometimes, because outages they not always according to the schedule and sometimes they or our candidates, they just join in with bad sound or bad video, quality of video, and they just agreed don’t worry, it’s not a problem, let’s talk later, let’s talk today. So we are here and everything is fine.

So I guess that they learned how to not only balance their emotions and stay professional and focused, but also how to support those who on the call. Sometimes even candidates outside Ukraine from Europe or from US, they just can’t start conversation without asking, how are you doing? So please, if you need anything time or anything to start or we need to reschedule, it’s not a problem. And they surprised that even from the side of our team which says, we’re doing good, thank you, we hear from you, so how are you today?

And this is really what we can say that we learn how to live with this. And even now, when sometimes we can be without internet, sometimes we can be without light or as Anna mentioned at the beginning, we still, I can say this, that we still feel that we as a nation together and we should go through this and we believe in our military forces and we really in Ukraine, a lot of volunteers and many of us who are doing business during the day in the morning or in the evening or during the weekends, trying to volunteer and support our military forces. So I guess that this is the spirit of nation.

Johnny Campbell:

I love that. I’m going to take the opportunity just to make another quick plug. I mentioned at the start of the show that Anna’s brother, Andrew, leads an initiative that raises funds from medically humanitarian a Ukrainians. We have shared a link in the show notes and the chat, it’s a GoFundMe page and that will be if anyone wants to volunteer it but to put their money where their mouth is, so to speak, and help support Ukraine. And federal Ukrainians, please go find that GoFundMe page which is in the show notes and the link and your contributions will be very welcome.

Anna, going to go back to you, and you mentioned the fact that obviously the war came straight after the first crisis being COVID for the business, and that although you had some remote working, you went more remote and remote became a bigger thing I guess for the business. And thank you for mentioning the project that we got to work together on for helping other Ukrainian recruiters and so proud of you and the team for helping 1,000 plus recruiters to train online. But that’s been a big theme, it’s the remoteness, I guess, three, four years ago we were also office focused, learning was an office task as well. You ran your own sourcing and hiring manager academies as well, which I imagine was largely in-person. And talk to me about how the online element has really helped get a business like yours back on track and how people can learn, they can deliver services, they can communicate and the power of that, and your thoughts on the importance of remote to our profession, to recruiting, to making sure that more people have the opportunity to work in this industry, folks from different backgrounds.

Anna Stetsenko:

Yeah, yeah. Thank you for this question, because we started to work remotely in 2008 in that crisis, and understood that it’s better to work remotely. And we looked really weird to the market and to our clients because you can you imagine, in 2008, remote team and you are trying to sell remote and we tried to sell flexibility remote. And when our clients visited Ukraine, they ask, “Do you have office?” And I said, “No, we didn’t.” They say, “How can you work like that?” But yeah, so in 2008, and in that period it was a problem to find people who can work remotely. So no one could work remotely that period. So we started to teach how to work remotely, how to collaborate remotely, how to organize processes remotely, how work in everywhere remotely. But after a few years, team felt like it’s really good, it’s enough that you can combine job and the rest so you can manage your schedule. So for us, it’s like our normal for years to work remotely.

Johnny Campbell:

Wow, wow. I remember back to when myself and my business partner founded our recruitment business in 2008 and we just turned on Skype, and we lived in different parts of the country from home, and we turned on Skype eight in the morning and turned it off at seven o’clock at night and just constantly in the background. And that was our Zoom, I guess. And likewise to yourself, we were filling jobs in every other country apart from our own and it was so important to have VoIP for phone calls because international calls were still very expensive in 2008 and you had to find a way to still do interviews, and then use Skype when you could with certain candidates, but only a certain percent of people would even know how to get onto Skype in 2008 and be comfortable doing an interview. So yeah, it was different time, very much to what it is today. Well I’d love to understand from, so Darja, from your point of view, talk to me about the importance of diverse hiring for Indigo Tech Recruiters, because I know that’s a big part of the business and the culture and what both yourself and Anna are passionate about.

Darja Gornitska:

Yeah, I think that the good start here, just a few words, maybe Anna would like to tell more because this is really great project, we have a school for sources. And a few years ago, there were great project for women, for more adult audience. And we are really proud that not only we were able to train and learn and give them new profession, but also we hired one of them to our team. And in this way, we support that team can be and should be actually really, really different and different point of view and different approaches can help business actually to see to different cases from point of view which helps to find the best decision. So this is the one just quick example, and if you would like to add something about school, maybe this is a good time right now or I can continue.

Anna Stetsenko:

Yeah, yeah. It was such a great project. We had a charity funding Ukraine who organized rest for elder people, like 60 plus. And we leave information that we would like to organize a school for them, who if you would like to joint please come. And we received 50 applications, and so we choose 10 people. And was such interesting experience because when I ask team, and we gave mentors for each person who studied our school, and when ask team, “How is it for you??” And they told us that, “It’s so great… Sometimes I feel felt that I’m not a mentor, I’m still learning.” And it was really interesting experience because Ukrainian IT, we still see that we have ageism. It’s like fear for young people, like people 55 plus it’s complicated to find a job here. So it still shows, no borders, no limits at and recruitment for everyone and IT for everyone.

Johnny Campbell:

I think that’s not just Ukraine unfortunately, I think those biases exist in most parts of our society. And it’s inspiring to hear how as a business and individuals, you’ve helped break down those barriers, which is remarkable. I want to shift gears, if you don’t mind, and talk to you about being leaders in this crisis. And the closest I’ve come was obviously the pandemic and to me, February and March, 2020 really tested me and my leadership skills, having to deal with that and having to downsize a team that you mentioned obviously, making very difficult decisions to cut some of the team because that is the only way you can still provide something for the rest of the team. These are difficult decisions. What did you both learn about yourselves as leaders through this crisis, or what are you still learning about yourselves? And from that, what advice can you give to others who are leaders listening to this podcast that you think apply to any crisis perhaps or just how you manage or lead a team or business?

Darja Gornitska:

I guess I can start that all of the time, I think the precious power to move your business is your people. And you should be honest with them, transparent, and share your challenges and share even if you don’t know what to do, honestly at this moment you can share in team at some point they can help and say, “Hey let’s just try this on, let’s try that, or we are happy to tape on that project or test this idea.” So when you feel the support from the team and they feel your support, this is the most important you can give them.

And I think at the beginning, we said that caring about team and caring about clients, for sure, this is what helps us to keep business alive. And definitely, our client at the beginning, they’re also worried how do you doing right now? But also, do we able to continue? Can you do the same? Can we help you? And this is also really, really encourage and gives understanding that you are not alone but you still focused, you’re still professional, and your team with you. So be transparent, share everything, discuss openly and at some point, make decision together because when everyone knows what is happening and everyone ready to move and sometimes make these tough decisions, people will understand and support you. And I think this is the very right thing to do and the hardest to do.

Johnny Campbell:

Yeah, excellent evergreen advice for any leader in any situation. Anna, for you, is it similar? Anything else you kind of have learned about yourself?

Anna Stetsenko:

I agree with Darja, that we have strong values and it’s care, deliver and improve. And even during the war, we started to balance that this value is not just words in our sites, it’s our truly belief that when we care about people and about client, when we start to still deliver results for our team, for our client, for society, when we always improve our skills, it’s quite a stable situation even if everywhere, it’s very uncertain. And I also would like to share the story really inspired me, maybe that Ancient Greeks, they had two types of navigation and they call that the first navigation and the second navigation. The first navigation was when they fill along the coastline, they see landscape and everything, it was more long but more predictable way to move in the sea. And the second navigation, it’s when they started use sky for sailing. And for me it’s great metaphorical story when in hard crisis and in certain time we can use second navagation. So for me the stars, it’s our beliefs, our values, our merits and our better way of future and our way of bettering ourselves. So yeah, we are trying to navigate to use second navigation now during the war and during this crisis.

Johnny Campbell:

I love that.

Anna Stetsenko:

I guess it’s my advice for our audience also, if you’re in hard conditions and you can see borders and landscape, please use second navigation.

Johnny Campbell:

I love that. And I love the care, deliver, improve ethos as well. I think it’s fantastic. I probably preempted my coming soon last question about advice and to give to our teams, but I was wondering if you wouldn’t mind addressing, what I expect is perhaps a fear or maybe it’s just an uncertainty that a lot of people have perhaps about doing business with Ukrainian companies. Is it something you’ve come across? Do you find that despite the fact that nearly all of the world wants to help Ukraine, people are reluctant or uncertain about how to engage with a Ukrainian company? Or can they, will the business be there? Is this business able to function? What is your experience and what is your advice for people who perhaps want to help but have that nervousness?

Darja Gornitska:

I think I can, thinking about your question, I can say that if we thinking only about business and this stuff, you all the time, you can manage and balance. And if you see risks and you worry if this is possible to work with Ukraine, you still can balance, you can have some part there and some part outside and you will manage your risks, stuff like that. But if we’re talking about supporting Ukraine and people who still manage to deliver and still manage to be online in time and doing their job, this is kind of like social responsibility even in some way, we can see to this case, because the world will end and Ukraine will become a even more beautiful country. And we truly believe that a lot of investment and a lot of businesses will continue or will start to work with Ukraine and maybe doing this as a early birds, this is good case for businesses to think about this because then in few months or even years, it can be harder. So we still really encourage to these people here, not afraid so businesses shouldn’t be afraid to work with Ukraine and candidates from Ukraine.

Johnny Campbell:

I love that, I love that. And I guess Ukraine has been known for the tech or STEM talent over the last couple of decades and been a major source, strictly to European companies and increasingly to US and other businesses to hire from. And hopefully the pandemic, one of the positives of the pandemic, can be the openness to work remotely, hire remotely as well, and that employers will still see Ukraine as a fantastic source of talent and Ukrainian companies as a fantastic source of great services. But to your point, Darja, get in there early before when the war ends because the wars always end, that you’re getting into the ground floor, getting them early to work with these companies to show that loyalty and as you said, that kind of corporate social responsibility. That’s great advice.

We’ve already preempted this, but we’re at the point of the program where I ask our guests to leave us with one piece of advice for our audience from their own experience that has been handed back down to them. But I might ask you, Anna, to repeat that, for those who are waiting for the end of the show for that piece of advice, perhaps I can ask you to rephrase it and tell it again because I think it’s wonderful advice that it’s very much worth resharing.

Anna Stetsenko:

Okay, I have one more advice for our audience because we would like to organize an event after Ukraine win and after victory, we already discussed it with Bill Borman, and I would like to invite everyone to join Ukraine when we win this war to Kiev. It will be grand, grand, true and amazing event. So please guys, join and support Ukraine in different ways.

Johnny Campbell:

For those of you who don’t know the tru events, the recruiting on conference that they brought in, Bill Borman set up 12, 13 years ago that I was one of the early events in Manchester, which inspired me to set up social talent with my business partner Vince, and it’s had a huge impact on the recruiting community around the world. You haven’t been to a true event, this should be your first opportunity, when we will have truKiev next. And Anna and Darja, it will be a pleasure to attend with you as hosts and we can’t wait until that date and we look forward to happen soon and I’ll certainly make sure to share that with our social talent audience and our shortlist audience as well. I thank you both for taking the time out of your busy day because you’re running a business, you’re delivering services, really good services to brilliant customers over the world, helping fantastic talent and candidates. And a quick plug, if any organizations want to reach out and understand a little bit more about Indigo Tech Recruiters services, where can they find out more?

Anna Stetsenko:

Our website, indigo.com, our LinkedIn, please join. You can find us everywhere in different social medias. Please find us.

Johnny Campbell:

Awesome. And we’ll share link to that as well. So thank you both for joining us, sharing that story, and it’s inspiring and it’ll be a pleasure for any organization listening to work with both of you and your teams. We hope to have you again soon when we announce truKiev at the end of the war.

Anna Stetsenko:

Yeah, thank you.

Johnny Campbell:

Thank you so much. And thank you for listening to the podcast on the live show this week. Hope you really enjoyed that. Hope we gave you an insight perhaps into a different world of recruiting that isn’t your every day.

The Shortlist is a workplace, thought-leader focused talkshow that broadcasts every Wednesday. You can watch it live on LinkedIn and on YouTube. Or, why not stream as a podcast after?