Julia Kononchuk is a Ukrainian from Kyiv, she is a participant in the Women for the Future project. Photo: Courtesy of Women for the Future
Before the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine, Julia Kononchuk was studying at Taras Shevchenko National University in Kyiv. He won a scholarship to study in Britain and was supposed to start university there in the fall of 2022, but his visa was not granted in time. After looking for work in Kiev, he was discouraged by the lack of opportunities. According to national surveyas of April 2022, 53% of Ukrainian men and women who were employed before the war were not working, and there were 168,100 unemployed women as of September 2022, according to the State Employment Service. But everything changed for Kononchuk after he found her the Women for the Future projectwhich fights gender inequality in the labor market and creates additional opportunities to improve the economic capabilities of Ukrainian women.
I began the fall of 2022 in a state of despair. I finished my degree in journalism, won a scholarship to study in Britain and was ready to go, but they didn’t give me my visa in time, so I had to go back to Kyiv.
I started a passive job search: in 4 months I responded to 20 vacancies and attended an interview. I was disappointed by this situation and felt that everything in my life was confused and unclear. He needed moral and expert support. Around the same time, I saw an invitation to participate in the Women for the Future project and realized that this was my chance to improve my life, so I signed up.
After joining the initiative, I realized that I don’t want to work as a journalist, but to develop myself in the field of humanities. After researching the opportunities available in the job market, I identified three areas of interest to me: copywriting, search engine optimization (SEO), and user experience/user interface (UX/UI) design.
I signed up for mentoring consultation sessions. I liked the idea of talking to people who are already working in the fields mentioned above, getting advice from them and finding out how to go down the path that is right for me. As a result of this consulting support, I realized that copywriting is not ideal for me, but SEO is.
After this realization, I started looking for open jobs or opportunities for SEO specialists in the closed community of women in the project. I saw an ad for an internship at the Netpeak agency for people who want to try their hand at SEO. Although more than 500 candidates applied for the program, I was the one who got the chance. The practices were excellent. It gave me the confidence and knowledge and skills to work. And based on their results, they offered me a job as an SEO specialist!
I now work in an industry that I really enjoy at a company that values me. I feel financially secure and continue to develop my career despite the war in my country. And I am very grateful for a project like Women for the Future, which supports women on the way to employment and professional development, because it is very necessary and relevant!”.
This article was prepared as part of the Women for the Future project implemented by the public organization “Professionals for the Future”, which is supported by the UN Women project “Transformative Approaches to Achieving Gender Equality in Ukraine”, funded by the Government of Sweden and implemented. in cooperation with the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister for European and Euro-Atlantic Integration.
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