Lyte presents “Womxn at Lyte,” a series of conversations highlighting the voices of our womxn.
Q: As a child what did you think you wanted to be and how do you think you came to that decision?
Natasha: I didn't have a dream job in my childhood. I had interests in absolutely different areas. For example, I have always liked to draw, but on the other hand, I was interested in exact sciences. At a university, I studied journalistics and law at the same time, and it was equally exciting for me to write or shoot a story or investigate different laws to find a solution in some complex legal case. So I had a lot of different interests. But what was common about the professions I considered - they all have a high level of independence, flexibility, and process ownership.
Q: What would your younger self be most surprised about how you live your life today?
Natasha: This is a complicated question because being younger I had no clear vision or expectations about my life, so I can’t say really any big surprises. There were mostly other people’s expectations of me. As a girl who grew up in Eastern Europe, I was expected to realize myself within a family rather than to have a career. And I’m pretty happy that I didn’t match these expectations (and maybe surprised someone with this) - I’m happy to have a career, to have some kind of independence, the right to choose my way, and to postpone any family plans if I want to.
Q: What do you think is the hardest part of what you do for a living?
Natasha: The first thought is about a balance. I have a diverse work experience with different workloads, but the same problem to solve – sometimes I just lose the sense of time and just work until night or even wake up in the night and think about some tasks.
Speaking about recruitment in general which is very close to sales at least in our market (you sell the opportunity to the candidates) - I think the hardest part is to sell something you don’t believe in or a product you don't like. It's awesome that this is not about me at Lyte. And I think one of the reasons for the results we show in the recruitment team is the fact that we believe in the product, we love the team and we are inspired to work on that.
But when it doesn’t look like that, you always need to find in every company and every project you work for something inspiring in order to inspire all people you reach out to. And sometimes it’s the hardest part.
Q: What do you love about working at Lyte?
Natasha: I worked as an external recruiter with a lot of companies at the same time. And when I decided to start working in-house, my first thought was about Lyte because of Lyte’s values. I love being on the same page with the company values. I like that we make an impact, and I can make an impact with the community I have at Lyte. It matters to me. Antiracism, feminism, diversity, inclusion, and equity – are the things I personally care about. You know that considering cases in different companies and even some training courses there is always a question like, “How to explain to your CEO why diversity hiring matters,” and at Lyte, I'm happy that I don't need to explain to the Lyte CEO and major part of Lyters why it matters. This is what I love about Lyte, this is one of the reasons I'm here now.
Q: What lesson took you the longest to unlearn?
Natasha: That's a really good question. Now I read a book written by Helen Lewis, it’s called “Difficult womxn.” And I think the lesson I had for a long time since childhood is not to be a so-called difficult womxn. I’m still trying to unlearn it. I try to be a difficult womxn because difficult womxn make changes.
Q: What have you accomplished recently that would have shocked you a year ago?
Natasha: This one is serious. I think absolutely everything I have accomplished recently since February 24th would shock me a year ago and this is not because of high performance. It's about working and performing in this “shock” mode after this terrible war broke out. Awareness of the fact that Belarus was involved in this horror as an aggressor's ally (against Belarusian’s will as usual) makes it even harder to deal with.
Q: What are you most afraid of, failure or success, and why? And what does success means to you?
Natasha: I think it depends on life context and resources of what to overcome. If it's failure overcoming you need to have the resources to stand up, reflect on mistakes and try a second chance if you decide to. The good thing is that you already know the context. If it’s a success you need to have resources to take the next challenge before resting on laurels turns into a comfort zone. Today I feel that I have fewer resources to overcome failure and I’d prefer to succeed even if it brings new challenges after.
It’s not easy to define success itself (like the meaning of life and other terms). I believe when your knowledge and hard effort bring something good to this world and making living out of it is a big part of success. Having loved ones around is the other part. A sense of belonging to some valuable processes is important. Care about mental and physical health is crucial. A good balance of different activities is indispensable.
Q: What's non-negotiable in your life?
Natasha: Freedom. Considering the context I have been living in for the last years, I see the value of freedom even more than before. I realize it very clearly now and I can say for sure that it's non-negotiable.
Q: What can womxn create together?
Natasha: In general I think womxn can do everything, womxn can make the world safer, and womxn can stop or prevent some horrible things. Womxn have more chances to find win-win solutions without an ego getting underfoot. We have a beautiful example of such a solution in Belarus: For dozens of years people have been trying to change things here, and the leaders of changes used to be men. They had the same goal, quite common programs of how to achieve it, but there were a lot of disagreements on little things, and in important moments when they were expected to unite from a strategic point, they could not as they all wanted to be a leader.
Two years ago for the first time, three womxn took the lead in a way of making changes. And they could agree on every aspect literally in five minutes and besides agreed on one leader! They understood they wanted the same things and they didn’t care so much who would be a face of change. The main thing was to achieve a goal, to make a better country to live in.
Q: What's the most exciting improvement for womxn in the industry or in general from your eyes?
Natasha: That's a sad question. I'm super excited to see more womxn in tech. But the picture of womxn in decision-making roles is still sad. We have more womxn in engineering, but they are not decision-makers, we still have pay gaps, and we still experience a sticky floor and a glass ceiling. A lot of improvements to do!
Q: What title would you give this chapter in your life?
Natasha: Trying to live in (and get out from) dystopia. It's crazy to feel but life can change with a doorbell any day. Recently I had one in the night, it might be a doorbell made by someone’s mistake. And it was thrilling. Just a doorbell. It should not be as scary as it was, but this is a dystopia. In dystopia, you think about what socks to wear, because sometimes colors can lead to jail. Living in such circumstances teaches me to appreciate basic needs - the opportunity to speak freely, to feel safe, to feel good about tomorrow, for my family, my parents, and my sister. A good day is a day when everybody is safe.
Womxn at Lyte featuring Natasha Bykouskaya, Recruiter at Lyte