P E T-X i C A S E S T U DY Anastasiia Kutsenko, 21, from Kharkiv in Ukraine, was in Sheffield looking to progress her career as a marketing professional in a different country, as a refugee, when she first encountered PET-Xi. With her country of birth embroiled in a war on home soil orchestrated by Vladimir Putin, and her h ometown, just 60 kilometres away from the Russian border, one of the centre points of the fighting, Anastasiia made a courageous decision to flee the conflict and travel to the UK. She was also actively looking for a new chapter in her professional career – having already picked up three years of experience in marketing roles in Ukraine, as well as in Poland and Germany. While she was looking for marketing work at a Job Centre in Sheffield, Anastasiia was told about PET-Xi, and she wanted to utilise the opportunity given to her to use PET-Xi’s services to explore fresh and exciting job opportunities in the city. She also wanted to obtain UK qualifications to show employers she was willing to continually upskill and demonstrate her commitment to actively adapting to life in the UK.
Support provided by PET-Xi PET-Xi enrolled Anastasiia on its Sheffield Level Up programme, which included training in keyworker s upport, as well as a Level 2 certificate in Customer Service, Team Leading & IT User Skills. They also reviewed and refined her CV, and made her aware of potential roles of interest. This all enabled her to secure employment in the city. Kendall Clark, Contract Manager at PET-Xi, said: “Over the last few months, we’ve been helping a number of Ukrainian refugees in cities like Birmingham and Sheffield, and were delighted to meet Anastasiia and recommend our Level Up programme to her. “After finishing her degree in June, Anastasiia initially found being new in the UK a little difficult to navigate and experienced rejection in her applications. She was understandably unsure on where she was going wrong. “Although she was open to exploring alternative routes of work, she now has the ability and confidence to sell her skills at application and interview to continue with her passion of marketing.