Searching for a job in IT: train station, courses and reality

Yesterday, during a visit to the hairdresser, I had a conversation with the barber. I usually rarely talk to barbers, but this time we had a natural conversation.
He asked what I do for a living. I replied that I was currently working on a project to help people find jobs in IT and choose the job that they could be successful in.
I told him that I believe in one simple thing: everyone should be in their place. And in any profession – be it a cleaner, a confectioner or a nuclear physicist – you can achieve success, accumulate wealth and generally become a happy and fulfilled person. The main thing is to be in your place.
These words touched him. He said that at one time he decided to start looking for a job in IT and during the year he saved up 70,000 hryvnias to buy a laptop.
According to him, it took him a year and more than 2,000 dollars that he spent on education to understand that IT was not for him.
While working as a barber, he decided to change his profession and start looking for a job in IT. I started looking for schools, reading reviews, making my own rating. At one of the career guidance courses, he was shown that he could become a good business analyst. But the very word “business analyst” frightened him, and he decided to go into UX/UI design.
He chose one of the popular Kyiv schools. I will not name her, but she is well known and has many positive reviews. He liked learning: it was interesting, structured, useful. He really enjoyed studying.
The study lasted a year. At that time, he and his wife lived on her salary. To pay for the courses, he turned to his relatives for help — and they helped.
After completing his studies and receiving his diploma, he went freelance, trying to find IT jobs. The first order is a landing for $150. Then a “regular client” appeared – a 21-year-old guy who planned to create his own IT company.
This guy was looking for orders and offered clients, for example, to make 10 pictures for 250 hryvnias or design dies for Facebook or Instagram for pennies. The prices were meager.
For a while, the barber again lived at the expense of his wife. And at some point he realized: in order to really earn in this field the way others earn, you need a large amount of knowledge, English, connections and luck.
And today he is ready to “spit in the face” of anyone who says that in IT they get money “for nothing”.
It is interesting that I hear such stories not for the first time. And they almost always develop according to the same job search scenario.
At first, there is a desire for a high salary. Then – search for a job in IT, which is considered highly paid. Then there are courses that are financially difficult to afford. Then – spending time and money on education. After that, either a job with a salary much lower than expected, or a complete lack of IT vacancies. Six months of fruitless job hunting followed. Disappointment. And in the end — a return to where it all started.
The worst thing here is not even money. The worst thing is that these people are being sold hope. Hope for “clean work”, “big money” and quick happiness through IT vacancies.
Courses take money, but hardly talk about anything else: how to find a job in IT, how to sell yourself, what to do if there are no IT vacancies in Ukraine, and what to do if reality does not match the promises.
More than once I asked people who finished the courses: how many of your classmates were actually able to find a job in IT? The answer is almost always the same – almost no one.
There was another demonstrative case – with a very famous academy that has been working in Ukraine for many years and has offices abroad. They are probably the only ones who tell the truth without realizing it.
They promise jobs in foreign companies and salaries in foreign currency — and in the end they are right. Almost everyone with whom I spoke and who has their diplomas, find a job abroad, not through IT vacancies in Ukraine.
Poland, Netherlands, Switzerland, Germany. Some work in poultry farms, some in greenhouses with flowers, some on farms, some in construction. All of them share the same diploma of this “IT Academy”.
Many went abroad because they paid for their studies with loans. Either they took loans themselves, or their parents sold their cars to buy a ticket to a “happy life through IT education.”
All these stories reminded me of a case from 2012. Then I had to go from Zaporizhia to Mykolaiv to meet with investors who wanted to invest in my business idea. We were traveling with a friend – he caught the train, I didn’t.
I ran out of the station and started thinking about how to get to Mykolaiv as quickly as possible. A taxi driver approached me and offered to take me to the next station, where the train would stop, for $100.I understood that I had no real chance of making it to the train that had left, with the taxi driver.
Having turned on critical thinking, I realized: I could hand in the ticket, take the bus for $50, be four hours late – and it wouldn’t change anything, because the meeting was scheduled for the next day anyway.
The train station is the IT industry. Trains are trends in the IT labor market (technology). Taxi drivers are experts and courses that promise you that you will get on the same train.
In 2008, I boarded a car called “web design”. At that time, the IT market was not yet about salaries – we traveled because it was interesting to us, and we were simply researching it.
In 2010, in Kyiv, I met the same people as me. Those who did what they were interested in and changed reality with their ideas in the IT industry.
In 2012-2015, a train called “social networks” arrived. I was also in it for a while, but not for long. I figured it out, drew my conclusions and moved on.
In 2017-2019, the “cryptocurrency” train appeared. It has been standing on a distant track since 2010, invisible, new and incomprehensible even to me, but it became massively interesting later. As always, courses, experts and sellers of hope appeared.
In 2023, a train called AI arrived at the Ukrainian IT station. A bunch of companies, a bunch of people, a bunch of experts and solutions. And again, everyone is trying to be the first, to climb in, to buy a ticket.
There will be those who will sell their services promising mountains of gold. And those who will sell cars or take loans to buy a ticket from AI jobs.
But the truth is that you can’t just get on this train. This requires a previous route. It is necessary to live with information technologies for years, not months, in order to really create something that will be in demand on the market.
To sum up, I will say a simple thing. Everyone has their own way. You need to do what is close to your heart, not what “pays more” in IT vacancies. This is the only way to be happy.
Do not spend your last money on courses in which you do not understand anything, if you do not have a base, professional education, connections and people who are ready to teach you for a long time and honestly.
There are many professions. There are many ways. Look for yours.
And don’t pay the last thing to the taxi drivers who promise to take you to the next station – to the train, where most of the passengers have not sat in their seats for a long time.