Project reference · Software & gaming
A first team for a company that was five days old.
A UK-owned games-software company had just registered its Ukrainian entity and taken a serviced office in Kyiv. The owners were abroad, there was no HR, and nobody yet knew what a developer should be offered there. Two weeks after the order, the first two offers were signed. When the company was ready to grow, we filled six more seats in six weeks.
Five days old at the first call
Start-up
8 people started work
Hires
60+ pre-interviewed candidates
Shortlists
Employees and contractors
Two models
Two hiring rounds
Eight starts, counted in weeks
Both rounds on one scale, counted in weeks from the client’s order. The first round filled two seats; the second, about six months later, filled six.
The brief
What the client actually needed
The first call was simple: an HTML5 developer and a marketing manager for a new office in Kyiv, with good English, “as soon as possible”. What sat behind it was less simple. The owners ran the business from the UK, the Ukrainian company had existed for less than a week, and there was nobody on the ground who knew the market, the pay levels or the paperwork.
So the job was more than a search. We sourced and interviewed the candidates, brought a shortlist to the owners’ interviews in Kyiv, turned “salary is no issue” into written offer terms, and prepared the contracts the new hires would sign, together with the company’s own lawyers.
The hard parts
Where it gets difficult
No pay scales, no templates, no HR
Before the first offer could go out we needed answers the company had never had to give: working hours, paid holidays, probation, start dates, who pays which taxes and bank fees. We put thirteen questions to the owners and built the offers from their answers.
Contractor or employee
Most of the new team joined as self-employed contractors, which is common in Ukrainian IT. That changes every document: an offer that talks about probation, reporting lines and holidays can turn a service contract into employment in the eyes of the tax office. The wording had to hold up.
Juniors with potential
The second round was mostly junior developers. With little work history to go on, the client wanted evidence of study, courses or a portfolio, and a test task before any offer. It took about eight shortlisted candidates for every person hired.
Offers that fall through late
Two candidates withdrew after accepting, one for family reasons and one for a counter-offer. In both cases the search was running again the same day.
Three parties on every offer
Owners in the UK, a new office in Kyiv, and outside lawyers who reviewed and signed each offer for the company. Every offer went round that loop and back to the candidate, usually within a day.
Our first hire became our client
The marketing manager we placed in the first round ran the client side of the second: interviews, feedback and start dates. Decisions got faster because he knew both sides of the process.
What we did
Search, decide, start, scale
- Week 1 · Search. Agreement signed, candidates sourced from our database, job boards and direct approaches, each one interviewed before the client saw a CV.
- Weeks 1–2 · Decide. Interviews with the owners at their Kyiv office, two offers confirmed the same day, offer terms agreed and contractor agreements drafted with the client’s lawyers.
- Weeks 3–4 · Start. Both hires at their desks, with office passes and first-day logistics arranged.
- Month 7 · Scale. A second order for developers, a designer and a project manager, widened as the plans grew to iOS, web and social media. Job ads, about fifty candidates, interviews every week, six starts in six weeks.
The client came back for its second round without a new tender. For a first office abroad, that is the reference that counts.
In a new hire’s words
“She feels the employer and the candidates very well, keeps the close communication with both sides to provide the best fit of their needs and demands.”
The first person we placed with the client, about our recruiter, after his first week in the job.
How we work
We do not show you another company’s name
The client, its owners and its people are not named here, and they will not be named in a meeting either. We are glad to talk this project through in detail. What we will not do is discuss the last client that way with you, or you with the next one.
Next step
Opening an office in Ukraine?
Whether you need your first two people or your first twenty, thirty minutes is usually enough to tell you what they will cost and how long it will take.
