The First Quarter
Your search, run every week, on the hours you actually have.
A 3-month partnership for capital-projects professionals in Europe and MENA. You report on Friday, a plan sized to your hours lands on Monday, and I’m on Telegram in between.
how it started
Why I built it
I used to end strategy work with a dated 4-week calendar for the search. None of my clients ran one to the end. The calendar assumed weeks they didn’t have.
You’ve had advice. What stalls is the search itself, on the weeks nobody carries it with you.
So The First Quarter carries the weeks with you. You tell me on Friday what happened and how many hours you have. On Monday you get a plan that fits them, for 90 days.
if this sounds familiar
Still delivering, and the search keeps losing to the day job.
- A search plan that held for 2 weeks, then lost to a project milestone
- Applications, tailoring and chasing contacts, squeezed into a few hours a week
- Contacts saved for later, and later doesn’t come
- Advice you agree with and haven’t had the hours to run
- Nobody checking which leads deserve this week’s hours
Project managers, project directors, engineering and construction managers, commercial leads in EPC and EPCM. Oil and gas, chemicals, mining, energy transition, infrastructure, data centres. Usually 10 to 25 years in.
A search at this level usually runs 6 to 12 months. The first quarter is where it gets built and starts to show what’s working.
how it works
A weekly rhythm, sized to your hours
What you did, what came back, and how many hours you have next week.
Sized to exactly those hours, and adjusted to what the market told us last week.
On Telegram. Replies within 24 to 48 hours on business days.
3 months, 3 different jobs
Systems on. First mock interview, with an assessment and prep materials.
Follow-up mock interview. We sharpen what the market is telling us.
Interview prep for every live process, then offer and negotiation support.
what you get
What’s included
Curated roles
Matched to your strategy, not pulled from job-board noise.
50 new contacts
Relevant people from your target companies.
My AI suite
The tools I use for CV adaptation, cover letters and interview prep, for the length of the partnership.
2 mock interviews
With a written assessment after each.
Interview and offer support
Prep for every live process, then the offer and the negotiation.
Written feedback
What worked, what didn’t, where to push, and where not to panic.
clients
In their words
I came to Vitalii when my job search was challenging and nothing was moving forward. Then came the day I had 3 unexpected interviews: Gazprom, a role in Australia, and a Cost Manager position at NEOM.
The NEOM call came through an agency in Bahrain. The line was poor and dropped before I could catch the recruiter's name. A year earlier, I would have written it off. Instead, I traced the company from the phone number, worked my way through 57 people on LinkedIn, and messaged 2 of them. Both replied.
Today, I'm a Quantity Surveyor with Webuild on Snowy 2.0 in Australia. He turned my job search from something I dreaded into a process I genuinely enjoyed.
Senior Quantity Surveyor, major infrastructure projects, Webuild, Australia.
I was Vitalii's first client, back in June 2022. I'd been applying for 3 or 4 months by then and it had produced nothing.
We started with goals, which sounds obvious and isn't. Until you can say what you actually want from the next job, what you expect from it, and which of your criteria outrank the others, you're just reacting to whatever job ads appear.
I resigned that November. 2 former colleagues called within a day of each other. I ended up choosing between 3 offers, took the third, and that led to 2 international projects and then a senior role with a top-tier EPCM in the UAE.
Instrumentation and Control Systems Manager, EPC, oil and gas, mining and energy, Jacobs, UAE.
He helped me see 2 things clearly: what this platform can actually do for me, and how I can be really useful to others on it.
Since then, I started writing and discovered that my everyday work in EPC mega-projects was actually valuable to a community. Posts started landing. The right people started seeing my name.
For anyone serious about their professional positioning, I recommend Vitaliy without hesitation.
Project Manager and Deputy PM, EPC mega-projects, oil and gas, chemicals and mining, EuroChem, Central Asia.
My LinkedIn profile changed for the better. I like it now, it looks competitive, and someone has already written to me about a Project Manager position after seeing it.
I could have read up on this myself, but the effort it takes to understand these things is real. I preferred to go to someone who knows it well and works in the same industry.
The way you extracted the full picture from me and shaped it into a coherent narrative was brilliant. It brought out key professional highlights I had been taking for granted.
You helped me assess my current landscape objectively and align my expectations within real-world constraints without losing momentum. The deliverable isn't just theory; it's an actionable, bespoke roadmap I can refer back to whenever needed.
the investment
then month to month, same full service, cancel any time
A systematic search needs the full runway to show what it’s doing. If you start within 30 days of a Career Strategy session with me, your 500 EUR counts toward the quarter.
The guarantee: if after 9 months of working together you don’t have a written offer inside the target we set in month 1, I keep working with you at no charge until you do. The condition is that you show up: the Friday report every week, the Monday plan executed, the changes we agree made. Full conditions.
I’m Vitalii Lavelin.
Career advisor · 15 years in capital projects · Stockholm
I’ve worked on the operator side of capital projects for 15 years, and today I’m on a 6.5 billion EUR programme in Sweden. I’ve hired for these roles, so the advice comes from the hiring seat, and I’m reading the same market you are, this quarter.
- Written from the hiring seat. 600+ interviews run, 10,000+ CVs read.
- Done by hand, by me. Every plan, every contact list and every piece of feedback.
- 3 places a quarter. The number where that stays true.
- A guarantee with conditions. 9 months, then I keep working for free until the offer comes.
questions
Before you apply
How much of my time does this take?
3 to 5 hours a week is the working assumption, and the Monday plan is sized to whatever you report on Friday. A week with 2 hours gets a 2-hour plan.
What’s your skin in the game?
9 months. Nobody can promise the date an offer arrives, so I carry the cost if it takes longer than it should. If we’ve worked together for 9 months and you don’t have a written offer inside the target we set in month 1, I keep working with you for free until you do.
That holds as long as you hold up your side: the Friday report every week, the Monday plan executed, the changes we agree made. The full conditions are in the terms.
What happens after I apply?
9 short questions, 3 to 4 minutes. I read them and your LinkedIn profile, and if it looks like a fit, I’ll reach out to book a call. You pay only after we’ve talked.
I’m not sure I’m ready for a full quarter.
Start with the Career Strategy session instead. It’s a single 500 EUR engagement that locks your target market and role, and if you continue into The First Quarter within 30 days of your session, the 500 is credited.
Why only 3 places?
Because every plan, every contact list and every piece of feedback is done by hand, by me. 3 a quarter is the number where that stays true. When it’s full, the next intake is the following quarter.