Darya Chorna, Junior HR Recruiter, shared a rejection story that quickly went viral on LinkedIn. During the selection process for the position of recruiter, she was offered to switch to Russian — the manager was from Kazakhstan, «so it would be more convenient for the team.»
Darya Chorna, Junior HR Recruiter, shared a rejection story that quickly went viral on LinkedIn. During the selection process for the position of recruiter, she was offered to switch to Russian — the manager was from Kazakhstan, «so it would be more convenient for the team.»
Darya replied that she was more comfortable working in Ukrainian. In response, she received a refusal with the wording: «there is a risk that you will be uncomfortable communicating with the team.»
«The question is not in my skills, not in my potential, not in my motivation. The question is in the language. 2026. Ukraine. And the candidate must adapt to the Russian-speaking environment in order to get a job,» she wrote.
Daria did not disclose the name of the company.
The post garnered a lot of comments — and the opinions of community members were divided.
Most IT workers supported Daria. HR manager Anna Luchyna wrote bluntly: «In a Ukrainian company, communication should be either in Ukrainian or English — regardless of where the manager is from.»
Head of Marketing Yulia Terikhova added from personal experience: «It’s much worse when you go through an interview in Ukrainian, and then it turns out that you’re the only one who speaks Ukrainian.»
A comment from Head of Partnerships Lyubov Khilchyshyna resonated separately: «Most often, HR sincerely believes that the phrase „you will be uncomfortable“ is a concern for the candidate, and not a public warning about the culture inside. Such refusals are more useful than an offer — they save the candidate half a year of work in a place that he would have had to leave anyway.»
There were those who saw the situation differently. HRBP Nadiya Bidun wrote that the company made a «logical decision»: if it works with CIS markets and the communication there is Russian, it is better to detect a mismatch of values at the start than after the exit.
Front-end developer Alexander Sanin ironically says: «The problem isn’t even that they refused, but that they had the audacity to offer.»
