Meet Angelina
A few weeks ago, Angelina fled her town after several days of heavy bombing and fighting. Now, she’s on route to the UK, having secured a job with prestigious communications firm ThoughtLDR.
This is her story.
A month ago Angelina was in her final year of studying law at university in Lviv. She was working as a legal intern at a local law firm, and getting ready to graduate in 3 months.
Then the invasion began. The immediate issue was financial – her rent rose and her minimum wage salary was halved. But the situation deteriorated quickly.
The bombs began falling. Like many, her initial feeling was of shock as she sat in her bathtub, the safest spot as the air-raid sirens rang out. Then the ground troops arrived. After 3 days of seeing fighting in the street, she decided to leave.
After a bus ride to the Polish border, she waited in line with her friend for 15 hours. Then she took a 9 hour bus ride to Dresden where fortunately she had a friend of a friend who offered accommodation in their home.
Angelina immediately started looking for work to pay for her living expenses and found a job in a local bar.
“It was a little difficult because my German is only intermediate and in Saxony everyone speaks so quickly!”
She began looking for another job. That’s when she spotted a website a friend shared on Facebook – EmployUkraine.org.
It took Angelina about 15 minutes to register and create her profile on EmployUkraine.org. She looked through some of the relevant roles amongst the 1,500+ available, and applied for a few of them.
“It was very easy to use and I’m so happy that I got a great outcome so quickly!”
3 days later, she heard from Tamara, the founder and MD at ThoughtLDR. Angelina was invited for an interview, which was swiftly followed by a job offer for ongoing consulting work.
Tamara first heard about EmployUkraine through its founder Iman Fadaei, who spoke at an event on ClubHouse hosted by TechCrunch’s editor-at-large Mike Butcher. The event offered companies in the tech community and beyond practical ways to help the situation of Ukrainian refugees – including EmployUkraine.org. She was keen to do something to help the situation of Ukrainian refugees and jumped at the opportunity to hire someone for an open vacancy she had at ThoughtLDR.
After registering and posting the vacancy on EmployUkraine.org, the team at ThoughtLDR looked through the talent pool on EmployUkraine.org and spotted Angelina’s profile and CV among other suitable candidates for open roles at ThoughtLDR. A couple of emails and a zoom interview later, and a contract for Angelina was on its way!
Now that Angelina has a confirmed job, she plans to head to the UK. A friend is sponsoring her through the government’s Homes for Ukrainians scheme and now she’s waiting on their response to her visa application.
We asked Angelina if there was any support she needed.
“No thank-you, I’ll handle it myself. Like other Ukrainians, I’ll be working hard to make a life for myself for the long term.”
What an inspiration. Good luck to you Angelina, although we doubt you’ll need it.
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