Clan mentality in Russia is strong, and for good reason — in hard times, people have always helped each other out. But, in today’s workplace, relying solely on connections to find employees or get hired is not advisable.

It is enough to look at the current presidential administration’s personnel policy: The overriding principle is a connection to President Vladimir Putin, which ensures an appointee’s loyalty to the Kremlin. A more insidious example is the top personnel at Russia’s Railways Ministry, most of whom either share the same surname as Minister Nikolai Aksyonenko or are related to him in some other way. Things are similar in big business. For example, the Chernomyrdin and Vyakhirev families and their loyalists dominated the gas giant Gazprom throughout the 1990s.

Although this tradition remains extremely strong, in some companies skills are replacing loyalty as the key job requirement.

"To hire employees solely on the basis of knowing them and trusting them — irrespective of whether they can actually do the job — is an Eastern way of thinking based on clan mentality," said Leonid Zabezhinsky, vice president and human-resources director at Information Business Systems (IBS), a major software-development company. "To hire someone because of their professional skills is the Western way, and we are moving towards that in management."

But IBS does not completely discount the value of hiring staff through connections. Zabezhinsky says that, given its size, IBS uses a variety of techniques to find the right staff, including human-resources companies, the Internet and an unusual method of harnessing connections.

"We have a program we call ‘Give a Friend a Chance,’" he explained. "Any of our staff members can bring a person they know to fill a vacancy in the company. If the person lasts successfully for a month, then the staff member that brought him or her to the company receives a bonus.

"That said, only about 10 percent of our staff have been hired through this program."
Natalya Nesnanova, head of human resources and social policy at Tyumen Oil Company (TNK), Russia’s third-largest oil producer, which is widely recognized for its Western-style personnel policy, said increasing numbers of Russian companies are moving away from hiring through connections simply because of the fundamental changes in Russia’s economic system.

"[Hiring through connections] is not a merit-based system and it is simply not efficient in a capitalist economy," Nesnanova said. "In the Soviet era [if a friend or relative was hired], you could cover for them [if they made mistakes]. But now, an employee must deliver results. It doesn’t mean anything if they’re ‘good people’ or ‘nice friends.’ We are operating according to market laws these days, and hiring through connections is a luxury we cannot afford.

"It’s not like in the Soviet era when you only paid a salary of 100-150 rubles and it did not matter if some employees did not deliver results," she added. "Now we have a structure whereby a certain salary requires a certain result."

TNK operates an advanced system of hiring employees, mainly in response to the competitive pressures of the cash-rich Russian oil industry, where five or six major companies are chasing after top personnel. TNK begins its search for staff in high schools, providing scholarships to universities for students in Moscow and the regions in fields like chemistry, which are highly desirable for the oil industry.

"We do this to try to find extraordinary people for the company," Nesnanova explained. " We take note of the the most talented school students and try to get them into universities in our specific departments."

In relation to senior management, TNK tends to hire a lot of Western experts, which is done through headhunting agencies operating out of London and New York.

But TNK does not completely ignore connections when it comes to vacancies. There are some positions, such as a chief of a construction department or a chief engineer, that are extremely difficult to fill, and that is where using connections can be useful, she said.
"And generally speaking, if someone’s friend has great skills, why shouldn’t they work — the main thing is that they accept the corporate culture, are motivated and want to advance in the company," she said. "But the negative side is when someone employed through connections has no such desires — when his or her advancement comes not on merit but as a result of a relative or friend helping them. That hurts the company."

As to the preferable or most common method of finding a job, a straw poll conducted by The Leader found that connections still played an important role when it came to finding a job with a Russian company while, in foreign companies, people tended to find out about jobs through friends and then apply through official channels.

"Of my last three jobs, I heard of two of them through friends, who recommended me to their employers, and I then applied through the standard channels," said Dmitry, who asked that his last name not be given and today works at one of the Big 5 international accounting firms, reflecting the experiences of many of those questioned. "I think it’s quite rare to actually know the people who make the decision on employing a person. In fact, I think that if you are hired directly by someone you know then it creates a real conflict. You are completely beholden to them."

But, he added, it is well-known that Russian firms traditionally "hire people through relatives, employ relatives directly, or employ friends or the friends of friends. This partly reflects the fact that Russian business is built on trust and loyalty."

Irina Filatova, head of the human-resources department at Comincon-Combellga Group, a telecommunications company, said that Western management skills and the pressures of operating in highly competitive industries have prompted a movement away from finding staff through connections.

"We do have people who join the company through someone’s recommendation, and I cannot say that it is a bad thing, provided the person is a professional and satisfies our demands," she said. "But, on the other hand, there is always a risk that these people will not have the level of skill required and are only there through connections, and one must be careful of that."

Filatova said the company tends to find its employees through newspaper advertisements or the Internet, which she says is a useful medium because it is cheap and is a good way to find engineers and programmers, which are a large component of Combellga’s operation.
"I had a situation at Procter&Gamble, where I used to work, where we had to find 50 engineers, all of whom had to speak English, have a higher education and be prepared to move to Turkey, Poland, or the Czech Republic some time in the future. Then we had to go to agencies, run newspaper advertisements and go to universities. It was a real effort," she explained.

Zabezhinsky of IBS also said he tends to hire mid- and top-level management through human-resources agencies because IBS does not have the resources to find such personnel itself. "The remainder of our staff we find through our own site on the Internet," he said.

"All aspects of hiring have their advantages and disadvantages," he added. "But hiring through connections cannot be the main method in a large company — our staff simply cannot know as many experts as we need."
Indeed, people hunting for jobs agree that, while useful, connections are not a solution in themselves.

Irina Gomzyakova, a translator, said she left her job recently in order to find something more interesting.

"I have pretty good connections but I’m trying to find something I really want to do, and connections are not some sort of panacea [for unemployment]," she said. "So you just try all your options — and I think you need a bit of luck as well."