Iwan Gulenko

Swiss IT Recruitment Agency Owner | Ex-Software Engineer | Placing tech talent across CH since 2016 | Book:

[Iwan Gulenko @iwangulenko]

If you don't know me, hi, get to know me. Here some of my published works:

📹 https://t.co/fUCQYECvex 2024 summer congress panel in front of 1000s:

https://t.co/COtlZXnrxt

📹 Summer 2023 - speaker in front of 100s at Swiss Life .NET User Group Event in Zürich "AI in software engineering good or bad?" https://t.co/zGQiSWYdl1

⭐"Why software engineers don’t get jobs: Four horror stories"

https://t.co/7KM2knHa7D

📗 Long guide: Coderfit - All you need to know for your programming career:

https://t.co/tUvJyILlta

📗 Short guide: "5 salary negotiation hacks that can save you CHF10’000 in two minutes"

https://t.co/jpqHNmbTPZ

⭐"Five years after moving to Switzerland. Why I am still here."

https://t.co/xNJsAlCKqg

⭐Eight reasons why I moved to Switzerland to work in IT:

https://t.co/hO6GEMfTF5

⭐Switzerland: How buying real-estate can kill you financially and two reasons to go for stocks instead:

https://t.co/8X23MgFTVE

⭐"Making technical recruiting suck less" at Europython 2016:

https://t.co/V1hgImEus5

[Iwan Gulenko @iwangulenko]

"Hey Ivan! It feels a bit surreal to hear from you! I always see your LinkedIn posts, and I never expected to see you "in person"!"

Am I Now FAMOUS? 😂😂😂😂

[Iwan Gulenko @iwangulenko]

Who else got a ping from me via email , sms AND SNAIL MAIL recently? 🙈

Finally! - Cold Mails + Social Media pays off.

I hope I can make the mails smarter though!

[Iwan Gulenko @iwangulenko]

Sorry that I have to ask this: Do politicians think the average Urs, Reto, and Remo are dumb? If you enable 500M EU citizens plus the rest of the world to compete with local Swiss workers, salaries DO NOT GROW. Yet house prices do bc more ppl 1+1 = 2 etc. :D

Also: Can one of you 9000 IQ politicians explain Japan to me? No immigration and everything functions perfectly.

Yes I am an immigrant myself and I see no problem having this opinion.🌈 Peace.

[Iwan Gulenko @iwangulenko]

I understand the SVP initiative, even if it's controversial. My target audience, tech talent earning 100k-200k CHF see their quality of life declining:
• Train delays
• Longer wait times for doctors (esp. for kids...)
• Housing prices the upper middle class can no longer afford

In my recruitment agency, I've focused on Swiss talent for 10 years because that's what the market demands. Swiss SMEs never liked relocating people. They want local talent who understand the culture, the language, the way things work in CH without having to teach this.

However Switzerland is turning into a place where life is only WORRYFREE if you're either very poor (relying on social benefits) or very rich (10M+ CHF net worth). Sad. Very sad.

To be fair: The middle class is getting squeezed, everywhere.

[Iwan Gulenko @iwangulenko]

why. is . your. business. admin. site SO BAD.

always loading screen. swisscom.

who else thinks this? : (

[Iwan Gulenko @iwangulenko]

New study: People who use AI for writing show weaker brain connectivity. AI users also had the lowest sense of ownership over their own work.

Clean Coding Jesus Martin Fowler calls this "cognitive debt." When you delegate everything you forget who did what and where is what. This was always the case but AI acdelerates this.

Do you notice this?

[Iwan Gulenko @iwangulenko]

Candidates write CVs with AI that no one reads. Companies write job descriptions with AI that no one reads.

Then we wonder why hiring is broken. 🙈

Meanwhile the actual hires? No CV and no job texts, just personal intros lol

Do i have followers from Schaffhausn btw? :D

[Iwan Gulenko @iwangulenko]

Everyone's timeline is spammed with the Ferrari Luce.

A properly maintained 50+ year old car has ALSO a very low environmental impact - ok?

Drive less, but if you drive, drive with STYLE.

I compiled some cool car pics to get your sanity back.

[Iwan Gulenko @iwangulenko]

Posted a task on Upwork for some data entry and coding work. Every single one of the 500 reply is AI-generated slop.

"Hello sir, you mentioned X, I will deliver Y with excellence and attention to detail..." - They flooded Upwork, WhatsApp, email, LinkedIn.

I'd rather spend 50 hours debugging with AI than 5 minutes reading "proposals" and deal wiht people who wrote them 🤮 How does one separate now good suppliers from bad if everything now sounds exactly the SAME???😭

[Iwan Gulenko @iwangulenko]

How to win at your job without working:

Point out a broken link, help fix someone's site. support people. This screenshot of me writing to a semi-warm lead before we even had any relationship, apart from a phone call where he rejected me politely.

He will come back and I will report here about it or free beer is on me.

[Iwan Gulenko @iwangulenko]

@dayani_yash Vash you're expected to code much more now than before however

[Iwan Gulenko @iwangulenko]

Everyone's worried AI will replace developers. That's the wrong fear.

AI will replace companies that need meetings to prepare for meetings, 39 versions of the same document (all marked "final"), and three-page emails just to write "approved."

I work with companies on both ends of this spectrum:
Some make hiring decisions with 2 people in 5 min. Others need a committee to approve changing a comma in the job posting.

With all due respect Swiss work culture sometimes errs on the side of the latter: Throwing this electroscooter was not approved in Zug's central recycling center and I was asked to drive to Sihlbrugg :D

[Iwan Gulenko @iwangulenko]

LinkedIn in 2026: "Successfully collected all receivables without the use of intimidation or violence."

Everyone deserves a second chance.

This person knows how to write resumes and visually describe what they did!! DO YOU???? :D

[Iwan Gulenko @iwangulenko]

I got more viewers on this post than St. Gallen has citizens!!!

😅We're actually naming files now 0001-CANDIDATE-NAME.pdf

[Iwan Gulenko @iwangulenko]

candidate: "hardcore how efficiently you communiate -- thanks a lot"

yes, bc i am not paid for hours but mostly for results, aka placements :D

if you 're a recruiter and ppl don't tell you you are fast, you have to improve , sign up for my free course on how to become ....

no lol i keep doing real work and won't share my secrets,..., for now.

[Iwan Gulenko @iwangulenko]

@AeccORG thx Alessandro

[Iwan Gulenko @iwangulenko]

"We decided to move forward with other candidates."

Imagine this modern art figure at Zürich HB applied for a job that clearly stated: "ONLY classical art figures will be considered."

Why are rejection emails mostly useless, generic templates nowadays?

1 out of 100 rejected candidates will go nuts when you tell them THE ACTUAL rejection reason; angry emails; bad (kununu) reviews, legal threats. Swiss SMEs have no time for this lol.

The worst is: the other 99 candidates who actually want real feedback to improve get PUNISHED with meaningless templates.

My advice to jobseekers:

CALL the recruiter or hiring manager after a rejection.

If you seemed like a reasonable person during the interview, you WILL get the actual reason on the phone.

People SAY way more than they'll ever WRITE. You might hear:

• "Your CV had no measurable results."
• "You asked about remote work in the first 5 minutes."
• "Your salary expectations are 40% above market and our budget."
• "The hiring manager just didn't think you fit the team."

Can you handle this?

Most candidates can't. They're too scared or too proud to call.

Which means if YOU call, you already stand out, and you might get the job afterall. I am in recruitment for +10 years and placed hundreds of engineers across Swiss SMEs. ✌️

[Iwan Gulenko @iwangulenko]

Nvidia always wins. But you don't have to lose.

Companies are done with developers who just prompt and pray.

They want people who:
• Actually read the AI-generated code + fix when it's garbage before deploying
• Know when to stop prompting and just write the function
• Adapt AI so that it does NOT generate trash

[Iwan Gulenko @iwangulenko]

Swiss tap water is already excellent but I met Swiss grandmas who still prefer well water. They swear it tastes better. :D

Zürich has 100s of public wells scattered across the city: emergency backup system; if the main water supply fails, the city still has drinking water.

Today, companies don't just hire for specific needs. They hire for resilience, you must:

• Handle legacy systems AND new tech
• Work independently when things break
• etc pp

When I place candidates, the ones who get offers aren't just good at React or Python.

They can do 10 other things, it always has been this way, but now especially in times of AI help.

[Iwan Gulenko @iwangulenko]

SWITZERLAND CHECK - CAN YOU NAME ALL THESE ANTONS WITHOUT LOOKING IT UP? :D