Papers that hold up: how we checked Turkish deboners' certificates before the permits

01 / The request

A certificate from the sideboard drawer and twelve places at a meat plant

Şükrü Özdemir kept his master's certificate in the sideboard drawer, between his marriage certificate and the warranty card for the fridge. Almost thirty years ago it was typed at a vocational education centre in Aksaray, on a typewriter that had no Turkish letters: the certificate reads SUKRU OZDEMIR, with no tail under the S and no dots over the U and O. Late one evening Şükrü's son photographed it on the kitchen table and sent it to our partner in Konya. Şükrü is 48 and has been deboning beef for twenty-six years; the small meat plant where he had worked for sixteen of them had cut its staff that year.

The next morning Emre, our Worker Relations Manager for Turkey, put the photo next to the passport scan. The passport said ŞÜKRÜ ÖZDEMİR. To any person it is obviously the same name. To the HR department of a Ukrainian plant that requires a qualification document in every deboner's personnel file, these are two different spellings, and the old certificate does not even carry the Turkish identity number that could link them.

The plant itself had come to WORKIN a month before that evening. It processes beef and had two months to staff its deboning section. The head of HR brought a task with one firm condition: twelve experienced deboners, and the post is open only to people with a document confirming their professional qualification, as the plant's job description states. She did not name a country. Where to find the people was for us to advise.

Who is needed

12 experienced beef deboners

The plant's condition

A qualification document in every personnel file

Deadline

Two months to staff the section

Route

Visa-free, four to seven weeks

02 / Choosing the country

Why a requirement for paperwork led us to Turkey

A deboner's experience comes through in the way they talk about the work. A qualification document exists only if someone issued it at some point.

We compared the countries we recruit from on three points. First, experience specifically in industrial beef deboning, not in a small butcher's shop. Second, documents: whether experienced people hold state certificates or diplomas in the trade. Third, time: two months leaves room for the visa-free route, which takes four to seven weeks, with a small margin for the paperwork.

Our partners in Central Asia had plenty of experienced people, but some of them had learnt the trade at small businesses that issued no trade certificates, and finding twelve people with documents in two months would have been hard. In Turkey it is a different story. Central Anatolia, including Konya and Kayseri, has large meat plants, and the vocational education system issues journeyman's and master's certificates, kalfalık and ustalık belgesi in Turkish, to people who have completed training and passed an exam. An experienced deboner with such a certificate is nothing unusual in Turkey. Turkish citizens enter Ukraine without a visa, and the route fitted into two months. More about it on the visa-free entry page.

We proposed Turkey and explained from the outset where most of the work would lie: not in finding people but in their papers. A Turkish document has to be verified, prepared for use in Ukraine, translated and matched to the passport so that HR is left with no questions at all. The head of HR agreed and asked for one thing: file for permits only for people whose documents had already been checked.

03 / Selection

Interviews in Konya, with the certificate photo sent alongside the application

Our licensed partner in Konya advertised the vacancy across Konya, Kayseri, Aksaray and Karaman. We asked for one change to the usual order: together with the application, the candidate sends a photo of the qualification document and of the passport page. People without a document could still apply, but they knew from day one that the plant hires only with one. So the candidates who reached the interviews already had their papers at home.

Emre interviewed them in Turkish over video, and the plant's chief technologist joined the second part, with Emre interpreting word for word. The technologist asked about what separates an experienced deboner from someone who has only stood next to one: which plant, what raw material, how many years, how their work was assessed. Seventeen candidates got through the conversation with the technologist. Then came the part for which the plant had agreed to Turkey in the first place.

Among the seventeen was Mehmet Emin Aydın from Kayseri, 34, twelve of those years at a large meat plant, with a journeyman's certificate from 2011 and a master's certificate from 2016. At home everyone calls him Emin, and on both certificates his first name is shortened to a single letter. There was Hakan Çelik from Konya, 29, six years in deboning, but with a cook's diploma instead of a trade certificate. And there was Şükrü with his certificate from 1998.

04 / The check

Five questions for every qualification document

First, Nataliia, Head of Documents at WORKIN, explained to the head of HR the line drawn by the law. For a hired worker's work permit, the employment law lists the application, copies of the passport pages with a certified translation, a photo, a draft employment contract and proof of payment, and requiring anything beyond that list is prohibited. A qualification document does not go into the permit application. It is the plant's own requirement for the post, and that is exactly why it has to be checked before a state fee is paid for each permit.

We asked the same five questions of each of the seventeen documents. The answers went into the candidate's card, and a document that failed even one question went no further until we either found a solution or explained to the person why there was none.

• who issued the document: a state vocational education centre, a vocational high school or a private course;
• for which trade: meat processing or another occupation;
• whether it is genuine: the partner confirms it with the institution that issued it;
• whether the name matches the passport, and if not, what can prove it is the same person;
• whether it can be prepared for use in Ukraine: original in hand, apostille, translation.

Fourteen documents passed all five questions, and the plant approved twelve people with two in reserve. Emre called Hakan himself. Hakan does have the experience, and the technologist noted it, but under the plant's rule a cook's diploma does not confirm a deboner's qualification. Hakan understood and asked us to keep him on file in case he obtains a certificate. What documents candidates collect and why is set out on the documents for candidates page.

05 / Names

SUKRU without Turkish letters and Mehmet shortened to M.

Two names in our story needed different solutions. Mehmet Emin's passport and both certificates were issued after Turkey introduced its citizen identity number: eleven digits that appear both in the passport and in modern education documents. The certificates say M. EMİN AYDIN, the passport says MEHMET EMİN AYDIN, but the number is identical down to the last digit. The translator carried that number into both the passport translation and the certificate translation, so the personnel file holds two Ukrainian documents that show for themselves that they belong to one person.

Şükrü's certificate could not be handled that way: in 1998 it carried no identity number, and the name was typed without Turkish letters. Matching it to the passport would have taken explanatory notes, and notes in a personnel file were exactly what the plant did not want. So the partner helped Şükrü apply to the vocational education centre in Aksaray for a duplicate. The centre issued a new copy with his name as recorded in the population register, in Turkish letters and with his identity number. It took nine days, and Şükrü stayed in the group throughout.

All the other names went through the same register we use on every Turkish project: the name in Turkish letters, in plain Latin from the passport's machine-readable line and in one Ukrainian spelling for all translations. How we build such a register and why translators render Turkish letters differently is covered in detail in the scenario about a bilingual contract for an industrial laundry.

06 / Apostille and translation

A certificate's journey: from the original in Aksaray to a personnel file in the Cherkasy region

For documents issued abroad, the employment law sets a simple rule: they are legalised unless an international treaty provides otherwise, and documents in a foreign language are translated into Ukrainian with the translator's signature certified by a notary. A qualification document does not go into the permit application, but we prepare it under the same rule. That way the personnel file holds a paper prepared in the same way as the permit documents, and nobody has to come back to it.

For Turkish documents, in our practice this means an apostille placed on the original in Turkey. The partner in Konya set out for each candidate where to go and what to bring, and checked every apostille from a photo before the original left for Kyiv by courier: was it on the original rather than a photocopy, did the document title and the holder's name match.

In Kyiv the originals went to our translator. He translated every document together with its apostille, because the apostille is part of the document and would otherwise remain in Turkish. The translations were bound to notarised copies, the notary certified the translator's signature, and Nataliia checked every translation against the name register. The originals waited for their owners in envelopes with their names on. For HR we also set out this journey step by step, so they knew where every paper in the file had come from.

07 / Filing

Eleven permit applications, and the twelfth a week later

Nataliia gathered the plant's documents for filing using the company checklist and built each candidate's application for a work permit from what the law requires, without a single diploma. The post was written the same way in the application and in the draft employment contract: meat deboner. If the job title changes later, the law requires an amendment to the permit to be filed within 30 days, so the title was agreed with HR once, before filing. What happens when a company names a post differently in different documents is covered in the scenario about job titles at a plumbing contractor.

In week four we filed eleven applications. The twelfth, for Şükrü, was deliberately held back until the duplicate arrived: the plant had asked us to file only for people with checked documents, and we kept our word. The law requires a decision on issuing a permit within seven working days; the eleven permits were issued in six. The duplicate arrived in week five, the apostille and translation took three days, and Şükrü's application followed. His permit was issued in four working days.

The group waited for Şükrü so they could travel together. There was room for that: the law allows the employment contract to be signed within 90 calendar days of the permit being issued, so a week's gap between the first eleven permits and the twelfth put nothing at risk. During that week Emre held a video call with the group in Turkish and went through the information sheet: the addresses of the plant and the hostel, the post and conditions from the contract, which original documents to carry, what to say at the border and whom to call.

08 / Arrival

Twelve envelopes of originals and twelve files in HR

In week seven the group set off via Moldova and crossed the land border. Everyone carried a folder with their passport, a copy of the permit, the hostel address and Emre's phone number. The group arrived on a Saturday, and Emre met them and took them to the plant's hostel, whose documents we had checked for residence registration before the permits were filed.

On Monday HR signed employment contracts with all twelve, and each worker received an envelope with their original certificate and apostille. On the head of HR's desk lay twelve personnel files, each with a copy of the qualification document, its translation and the translator's certified signature. Şükrü held his duplicate with the correct letters for a long time; the old 1998 certificate, he said, would stay in the sideboard as a keepsake.

We filed copies of the employment contracts with the employment centre within the 10-day period. Tax numbers, bank accounts and applications for temporary residence permits were completed in the first weeks, in two groups of six. We continue to handle the group's documents through migration support, and what remains with the plant as the employer is described on the employer duties page. Training and assigning people to sections is up to the plant.

1. Week 1

   Request, choice of country, the partner in Konya collects applications with document photos.

2. Week 2

   Interviews in Turkish, the plant's technologist, 17 candidates pass the conversation.

3. Week 3

   Five questions for every document, 12 candidates and 2 in reserve, a duplicate for Şükrü.

4. Week 3-4

   Apostilles in Turkey, courier to Kyiv, translations, notary.

5. Week 4

   11 permit applications filed.

6. Week 5-6

   11 permits, the duplicate, apostille and translation, the 12th application and permit.

7. Week 7

   Group entry, contracts, originals returned, personnel files handed over.

09 / Summary

Twelve deboners and not one paper anyone had to go back to

Documents

17 checked, 14 passed all five questions

Names

Identity number in both translations, one duplicate

Preparation

Apostille on the original, translation of the document with its apostille

Permits

11 applications in week four, the twelfth after the duplicate

Arrival

The whole group together, 12 personnel files on day one

When a company sets a requirement that has to be proven with a paper from another country, we do not leave that paper until after arrival. We ask for it in the application, check it before the interview with the technologist, prepare it before filing for permits and hand it to HR along with the person. That is how a Turkish certificate typed almost thirty years ago becomes a Ukrainian document in a personnel file without a single note in the margin. The WORKIN replacement guarantee runs for at least 6 months from the worker's first shift, provided the agreed working, pay and housing conditions are met: recruiting a replacement is not charged again, while state fees, the migration partner's services, the new worker's flight and living costs are paid by the company. How skills are tested in the candidate's country before the permit is covered in the scenario about a welders' trial, and how to sort a list of documents into needed and unnecessary in the scenario about foreign documents at a machinery plant. The whole route is on the How it works page, selection on the recruitment page. More on the pages about workers for agriculture and food processing and production workers from abroad.

10 / FAQ

Questions and answers