The Ukrainian Army is the top employer in 2022, and Lobby X is currently the leader among recruiting platforms. After all, thanks to the Lobby X team, this year the Ukrainian army was replenished with effective, valuable, motivated people whose skills acquired in civilian life are used exactly where they are most needed.
“Our goal is to reform the army in this way, where everyone will be in their place and will do what they do best. Because ideas are good, but without people they are worthless,” says the founder of the platform, entrepreneur and public activist Vladyslav Grezev.
Lobby X is one of those “sector of changes” projects born after the Revolution of Dignity in 2016. And that is why it is a qualitatively new platform that has kept the focus of attention on the public sector and recruitment of personnel for public bodies, and also has its own network of contacts and creates a community around it.
The Executive Director of UVF Nataliya Kalmykova says: “I have known Lobby X for many years, I know their approach to supporting the creation of valuable teams, so their help in selecting people for my team was important for me, and I also believe that when a company is not just looking for employees, and selects people who will do their work with fire in their hearts, then everyone will benefit from this.”
Shared values and the desire to strengthen the Armed Forces of Ukraine with qualified veterans and servicemen became the basis for signing a memorandum of cooperation between the Ukrainian Veterans Foundation and Lobby X.
Since June of this year, the platform has started a new direction, which is now gaining momentum, namely, replenishing the ranks of the Armed Forces with qualified personnel.
Olga Bandrivska, the coordinator of the military vacancies department, says: “For 6 months of our work on military vacancies – we can see by the number of candidate submissions – the AFU is the leader among employers. The competition consists of 39 people per place. This speaks of the high motivation of Ukrainians and their readiness to join the defense of the Motherland in the direction where they are strongest. After all, the Armed Forces are not only combat vacancies. These are technical, IT, creative positions. We are looking for not only machine gunners and attack fighters, but also videographers, programmers, engineers, and communicators. The war we are waging is an intellectual one. That is why our goal is the most effective use of human potential.“
Finding your place in the Armed Forces by responding to a vacancy on Lobby X is beneficial for everyone: the person who wants to serve, the command that seeks to find professional personnel, and, most importantly, the country that wants to win the war as soon as possible.
As of the end of December 2022, the team received 5,000 responses to military vacancies, recruited more than 150 servicemen and works with 24 units.
Vlad says: “We were pleasantly surprised that we helped one special unit shut down an entire communications group in two days. When we posted vacancies, we did not expect such a result.“
The most common mechanics for mobilization on a specific request to a specific unit through Lobby X are as follows:
- The request is recorded. The team cares about the time and resources of the applicants, battalion, brigade or company commanders, so job functionality, skills and expertise are discussed over the phone/voicemail/brief face-to-face meeting. No forms or letters in the mail. No bureaucracy.
- A request is drawn up and an advertisement is prepared for the search of a person for a certain position. The vacancy is published on the Lobby X platform and social networks. An active search is being conducted through the partner network, in the direction of those who are hypothetically ready to mobilize. For example, Lobby X began to distribute vacancies through military social networks, communicate with graduates of all specialized educational institutions and courses. Reviews of candidates are collected.
- The team makes pre-screening based on resumes and motivational, communicate and screen out those who definitely do not fit the nominal requirements. Interviews are conducted for officer and management positions, and a comprehensive report with recommendations and feedback is prepared for the commander.
- Information about candidates is transferred to the relevant department. Then the commander communicates with the person. If everything is fine, the unit makes a report to the military commissar to which the candidate is attached about the readiness to issue a person, transfer, etc.
- Information about candidates is transferred to the relevant department. Then the commander communicates with the person. If everything is fine, the unit makes a report to the military commissar to which the candidate is attached about the readiness to issue a person, transfer, etc.
Newly arrived soldiers are future veterans. And, cooperating with the Lobby X platform, we help people find themselves, so that after the military, our veterans are not “lost mechanisms” who cannot find themselves, and do not want to return to their previous civilian workplace under any circumstances.
“Our soldiers should have the opportunity to grow today, in the army, and then in civilian life. This is a complex habilitation — a system of realization of capabilities,” concludes Nataliya Kalmykova.
