- Programme studied: MSc Global Management
- Year of Graduation: 2021
- LinkedIn
After graduating from MSc Global Management (Finance Concentration) Anzhelika (Angelika) Arzumanian immediately started her career at Mazars UK in London. Owing to her prior consulting experience at CBRE in Ukraine she was able to join Mazars Financial Services division as a Senior Consultant, leveraging on the transferable skills gained in her previous workplace. After graduating from LSE, Anzhelika diverted her career into a different industry and has recently been promoted to Assistant Manager at Mazars UK.
What course did you study at LSE and what year did you graduate?
I graduated from LSE in 2021 after completing a Global MSc Management with Finance Specialisation. After powering through the university’s rigorous master’s programme during the peak of the pandemic, little did I know that 2022 would be another challenging year for me and my loved ones. On February 24th at approximately 4am Kyiv time I receive a call from my brother saying, “Russia started a full-scale invasion of Ukraine”.
Please tell us about yourself and your career journey.
Unlike many Ukrainians who were forced to flee their homes due to the war, I was lucky to have moved to the UK during peaceful times almost 10 years ago, at the age of 16. I am forever grateful to my parents for this opportunity, which I think a lot of us take for granted after living here for so long. I completed my education from A-levels to master’s degree here and I am now working in financial services consulting at Mazars London.
Despite my well-established life in the UK, I have always considered Ukraine my home and have been spending at least a few months of the year in Kyiv with family. After living a large portion of my teenage years in the UK, I felt that I am losing touch with my family and my identity, so I decided to return home and work in Kyiv for two years. These were perhaps the happiest two years of my life, reconnecting with my family and childhood friends. I have also grown considerably as a professional in my first graduate job at CBRE Ukraine, where I met wonderful people and made lifelong friends. However, I craved more for my career development and moved back to London to challenge myself.
What has been your experience of living in the UK as a Ukrainian?
You would generally assume that people would know quite a bit about the largest country in Europe, but that wasn’t the case. I am sure Ukrainians reading this can relate to what I am about to say. When I moved here in 2011, I soon realised that easily 70% of the people I met weren’t particularly sure where Ukraine is or what language we speak. One time during a seminar introduction at the university, a girl questioned me for saying that Ukrainian is a legit language. Another time somebody asked me whether Ukraine is one of the republics in Russia. One more common mistake I found to be made by foreigners is calling Ukraine “the Ukraine” following Soviet practices of undermining Ukraine’s sovereignty. All of these are the repercussions of the so-called Russification that Ukraine was subject to for many decades. Part of the ideology designed to eradicate people’s identities, by imposing restrictions on language and cultural individuality.
What are your top tips about the UK job market?
The UK job market is highly competitive and saturated with qualified experts. Not only those who decided to stay in London after completing their higher educational studies, but also professionals who moved to London at a more senior stage of their careers. Despite this, I learnt that you have to be quite philosophical when it comes to finding a job, otherwise the process becomes extremely frustrating. And the philosophy is simple: although your education, skills and qualifications undoubtedly matter, it takes a little bit of luck to land that job of your dreams. Under no circumstance compare yourself to the achievements of others, who, perhaps, found their ‘true calling’ faster than you. Let their success push and motivate you – yes (!), but never let it divert you from your path. There is no way to know what happens behind ‘closed doors’ and what these people have gone through to get to where they are, so no added value can be gained from focusing on that. It takes quite a bit of self-reflection to stick to your own thinking, especially when you are surrounded by overachievers from top universities. But also keep in mind that you are in a societal bubble that fools you into thinking that everyone is better and more ambitious than you. So, the faster you master the skill of healthy indifference, the sooner you will focus on your achievements and mould your unique career path.
Please tell us about your current volunteer work.
In addition to the regular army and humanitarian aid donations that all Ukrainians contribute to date, I have also been a part of several initiatives to support Ukraine. Because the Russia-Ukraine war is also informational warfare, for the first 3 months I was volunteering for the main verified source of official information about the current news in Ukraine - UkraineNow. There I was translating live news from Ukrainian to Russian, to create a trustworthy source of information for Russians in an attempt to fight Russian propaganda. The project is running to date and has over half a million subscribers.
The second big issue for Ukrainians who left everything behind was finding jobs in Europe. Note that most of them had no knowledge or experience of working in the European market or in a foreign language, which added stress to what is already a difficult circumstance. As such, a couple of talented Ukrainians founded a platform called Goodjob and were actively looking for volunteers to write content, career guides, resume and interview tips to quickly educate Ukrainians about the market and help them find jobs. Goodjob has now grown to 50,000+ subscribers and became a popular platform with job search resources for those affected by the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine. The platform has been featured on the official site of the Ministry of Ukraine, Vogue, The Village, Prostir, Afisha, kp.ua and others. To date, a team of 50+ volunteers including myself continue finding vacancies, providing access to free resume consultations and translations, interview tips, and educational guidance for all Ukrainians in need of career advice. To address a similar issue, I have been volunteering as a community manager for Opportunities for Ukraine Platform on the Dots. The page was created to help Ukrainians from the digital industry find jobs in the UK. My responsibilities as a community manager on the platform are to help connect the right people on the platform with Ukrainians looking for opportunities and advise on the best ways to find work in the creative industry in the UK. The platform is available to everyone with the Dots account, and we admit new members (either needing help or willing to help) regularly. Thinking back, it is crazy to realise that we have truly contributed to the lives of people by helping them in a such difficult period of their lives.
What motivates you to volunteer?
With the beginning of the full-scale war against Ukraine, perhaps every Ukrainian across the world began to do anything in their ability to help our nation. Every single one of my friends was proactively volunteering: donating humanitarian aid, bringing food for people at train stations who were fleeing the country, crowdfunding for cars and armoury of their friends going to the Armed Forced of Ukraine, and helping people find shelter in Europe etc. I have never seen a nation more united regardless of our geographical location. Ukrainians are currently operating as one organism, where everyone knows what their task is and understands that each role is important no matter how small it is. Seeing this, the international community has shown so much support and we are so grateful for every kind word and every small or big donation!
I think I speak for most Ukrainians when I say that we volunteer for the following reasons: because a neighbouring country decided to start a war against a sovereign nation – something unimaginable for Europe until February 2022; because it is now up to Ukraine to stop Russia from invading more countries; because our peers, both men and women, are dying every day on the frontline for our country’s freedom. Volunteering, spreading the information and wholeheartedly believing in Ukraine's victory is the least we can do to support them.