INNOVATORS VS COVID 19

The Importance of Focusing on Long-term Goals during this Uncertain Time

Published

3 years ago

01/31/2021

Kokou Adzo

We talked to Andrew Stetsenko of Relocate.me about exploring countries and finding tech jobs with verified relocation packages and he had the following to say about it:-

First of all, how are you and your family doing in these COVID-19 times?

Andrew Stetsenko: We are doing well, thanks for asking. It’s a pretty challenging time for almost everyone in the world, so we’re trying to adjust to the current reality and, more importantly, accept it and stay optimistic.

Tell us about you, your career, how you founded Relocate.me.

Andrew Stetsenko: I am an HR Tech entrepreneur who is passionate about making the tech recruitment industry better. I have founded a few startups—Relocate.me, CV Compiler, and GlossaryTech—which aim to set a higher bar for the traditional user and the employer experience when hiring tech professionals, as well as support recruiters to be more productive. Before starting to walk down the entrepreneurship path, I studied computer programming, worked as a quality assurance engineer, and later as a tech recruiter.

How does Relocate.me innovate?

Andrew Stetsenko: Relocate.me offers a one-stop platform for tech professionals who are willing to relocate for work. Unlike other job boards, Relocate.me provides a lot of helpful information when searching for jobs, such as net pay calculators, cost of living, personalized relocation tips, etc. Every month we publish open lists of international job seekers and companies who are still hiring talent from beyond their borders.

To help job seekers succeed in their international job hunt, we are planning on launching a learning center that will cover all aspects of getting a tech job abroad. Under this initiative, we are also planning to invite recruiters and hiring managers from different countries for Q&A webinars, where they share insights about recruiting and hiring expectations in the most popular countries for relocation.

How the coronavirus pandemic affects your business, and how are you coping?

Andrew Stetsenko: The relocation job market has been significantly affected by the COVID-19 pandemic.

At Relocate.me, we experienced a significant drop in the number of applicants from March-May 2020. However, job-seeking interest has started to recover, and at the beginning of June, we observed a growth in the number of job seekers who were willing to move abroad for their tech careers.

Due to hiring freezes and lockdowns, 70% of our clients (employers) paused their international hiring drives, and the number of “foreigner-friendly” vacancies have not yet returned to pre-pandemic conditions.

“The darkest nights produce the brightest stars.” Despite losing the majority of our customers since the beginning of the pandemic, there is one thing that has made me want to keep going—our users. Every day, we work on improving our product for the long term. Our goal of becoming the leading platform for tech jobs abroad brings me and my team motivation and energy to keep moving.

Did you have to make difficult choices, and what are the lessons learned?

Andrew Stetsenko: We had to reduce the hours of some of our employees to work part-time, which momentarily paused the pace of developing new features, testing new hypotheses, etc. I realized that slowing down development is not dramatically bad for business. As the world changes, you have to adjust your own speed and enjoy the impact of your results.

How do you deal with stress and anxiety?

Andrew Stetsenko: For me, the best way to deal with stress is moderate physical exercises. Even 20 minutes of walking in the fresh air help a lot. If I have a chance to combine walking with business meetings without video, I definitely leave the room to walk outside.

Who are your competitors? And how do you plan to stay in the game?

Andrew Stetsenko: Our biggest competitor is Stack Overflow, a well-known portal for software engineers. It will be hard to overcome this competition, but we are working on building our community and offering our users a better experience in our relocation job niche.