Do I lack candidate market fit?

Do I lack candidate market fit?

Sometimes I get the impression I’m an undesirable hire in Norway.

Here are my thoughts 💡

I’m an operational generalist. At this stage of my career, it means I possess an exceptional breadth AND depth of skill sets gained working across industries in B2B tech. The range of my life experiences is, likewise, greater than most.

I’m an immigrant, a founder and I’ve lived, studied and worked in 4 countries. I’ve worked as everything from an EA in luxury real estate, a server in Michelin restaurants, and have built a tech career outside of my original field of study.

In the United States, my value as a candidate is HIGH and KNOWN to startups.

In Norway, operational generalists are referred to as potatoes, and this term generally comes with a negative “master of none” connotation. In addition, the startup culture here values specificity over range, almost without exception 🥔

This means that my perceived value is LOW and UNKNOWN. Ambiguous.

My perfect role is as the Chief of Staff based on my combined personal experiences + talents + motivations. This is not to say that I couldn’t thrive in adjacent roles that are cross-functional and grounded in operational discipline.

In the US, startups are desperate for 3-5 operational generalists in the first 10-15 hires. In Norway, startups want a Head of X, Y and Z before their first sale. The Chief of Staff (or similar operations role) is comparatively non-existent.

In addition, Norwegian companies just don’t yet understand how company building has changed in Silicon Valley. They’re still treating go-to-market product development like they’re preparing for the moon landing… 🚀

Want to know a secret? 🤫  If you want to raise less money and build a lean team that outperforms the larger ones 👉 you need more operational generalists.

Am I missing something? This may be an over-simplication for LinkedIn, but if my experience from the past year is any indication, I am an undesirable hire.

Prove me wrong, make an introduction to a company you admire, whether in Norway or anywhere else they’d like to hire a rockstar! 👨‍🎤

Happy Friday 🌻

Hey there LinkedIn! 🥟

I’m searching for an ambitious, cross-functional ops role at a Seed — Series A+ startup. To learn more, visit my about page — https://yum.butterystack.com/about/

Want to learn about amazing SaaS tools to build leverage and scale from startup to Series A and beyond? Check out the Buttery Stack directory 🥞 — https://yum.butterystack.com/home/

#huntatscale #jobhunt #startups #chiefofstaff #operations #generalist