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.
“Anastasiia has a brilliant attitude and has shown resilience beyond compare, given what’s going on back home in Kharkiv. She grew in confidence throughout her time with us, and now knows she’s capable of pushing on and securing the marketing roles she deserves.”
Outcomes Anastasiia is settling into her new life in Sheffield, and has found a home with the Jones family, who live on the outskirts of the city, as part of the Homes for Ukraine scheme – a popular initiative which has found accommodation in the UK for refugees. She began a two-month contract in October 2022 as an events marketing intern for a project run by TWI Ltd, a technology engineering firm providing key research and consultancy work. Anastasiia has also submitted an application for a remote role at PET-Xi supporting the marketing department, and is planning to put herself forward for other roles. She said: “All the things I learned in the team leading and IT user skills element of the Level Up programme will be useful to me in my work at TWI Ltd, and in future roles, as I look to continue my marketing career in the UK. Through the customer services course, I found out a lot of useful things about customers in this country and their needs, and I’ve been able to acquire some new skills in an area I wasn’t so familiar with! “I’m thankful to PET-Xi for the support they’ve shown me, and would definitely recommend PET-Xi to other job seekers. They helped me, as a non-native, understand how employers in the UK operate, and I was fortunate enough to come across some really great people at PET-Xi who’ve helped me with my career and have provided an avenue of support for me from right at the beginning of my time in the country. “A real strength of the organisation is the human factor – as the staff are friendly and very professional. My tutor Miguel explained everything very clearly and in great detail. With the skills that the course gave me, I feel like a sought-after specialist. “In May 2022, with half of my city, Kharkiv, destroyed, I made the incredibly difficult choice that the best thing to do for me and my career was to move to a different country. I feel I am now well positioned to make the most of the opportunity presented to me to use my skillset in the UK and keep picking up new work experiences as part of this new phase of my life.”
Together we work as one In partnership with the South Yorkshire Mayoral Combined Authority, the PET-Xi Sheffield Level Up programme offers remote and face-to-face support to 19-24-year-old care leavers across Sheffield who are not in employment, education or training. Its mission is to inspire and empower young people into workLearners receive 1:1 mentor coaching from start to finish on the course to support them in overcoming barriers and reaching their goals, with each programme tailored to the individual. As part of the programme, learners can receive digital skills and employability skills training, as well as personal vocational support.
If you would like to do the same course as Anastasiia we would love to hear from you! To sign up call Kendall Clark on: 07876 832 094 or email: kclark@pet-xi.co.uk