Semen Makhlin

Semen Makhlin - veteran of the Russian-Ukrainian war, served as a rifleman in the 4th border guard detachment of the State Border Guard Service of Ukraine. He is one of the first graduates of ‘Professional Adaptation of Veterans Specialist’ course in the UNIT 6.0 programme by Reskilling Ukraine. Soon after a famous Transcarpathian employer - “Flextronics International Ltd.” offered Semen a position of veteran-officer ant their plant.

Before the full scale invasion Semen worked in one of the big companies as a teacher of English. Earlier he was a branch leader in the banking sector. Semen humbly mentions his service in the infantry as an ordinary rifleman. He shares how his service had started: “For me the war started when I was sitting in a bus towards the Kharkiv region without any military experience or previous service. I was admitted to the 4th border guard detachment. It is the border guard detachment of Kharkiv and the Kharkiv region. We were inclosed to the 92nd separate brigade “Ivan Sirko”.

After Semen was discharged from his military service he joined volunteering work: helped at a hospital, taught English to combatants. He confesses that he could not return to his former job as a teacher after what he saw and experienced at the frontline. Later on he joined the humanitarian mission ‘Prolisok’ and was the leader of an evacuation project which included social transportation of citizens from the border line, frontline and deoccupied territories.

In Semen’s opinion, career consultants need to have foundational psychological knowledge to define if a person is ready to start the adaptation process according to specific markers . After accomplishing the UNIT 6.0 programme, Semen realised that there is no typical format of consultation but there is always a goal:

“ I start my session with establishing contact. I tell of my personal journey, share my own concerns or feelings and a veteran shares his own. Consequently, we move to technics that help the person to look at themselves from a different perspective, analyse individual strengths, weaknesses and evaluate their own capabilities.

All of the above leads to shaping a direction of further development and opportunities. A career consultant does not have the right to encourage a person to change. The technics are applied in the way that a veteran could reflect and wish for improvement themselves.”

“Everyone has their own journey of military service. The main aspect veterans are facing is that many of them reevaluate their lives and strive to drastically change it. I had a case of a multigenerational electrician who realised he wanted to work with wood. I have helped him with objective self-reflection and he works with wood now. Such cases need a person from outside who gives opportunity to look at oneself from a new perspective.”