Sisu & Slay: Specialists fit roles. Generalists build them with Öykü Kural

A recap of Episode 2 of Sisu & Slay by Herizon, featuring Öykü Kural, Project Manager at Supercell.

Here's a number worth sitting with: 300 applicants. That's how many people applied for a community manager role at Rovio when Öykü Kural threw her name in. She had zero formal community management experience. No social media background. Nothing on her CV that screamed "hire me for this."

She still got the job.

How on Earth did that happen, you might ask.

Not by faking it. Not by luck. But by doing something most candidates skip entirely: actually understanding the role beneath the role.

Öykü joined us for Episode 4 of Sisu & Slay, and if you're an international professional navigating the Finnish job market, especially as a generalist, this one is for you.

Finnish job ads are wish lists, not truth

Öykü's first reaction to Finnish job postings when she arrived? "This is impossible." The ads read like they want one person who has done the exact same role for a decade, speaks five languages, and still brings "fresh thinking." Sound familiar? But here's the reframe that changed everything for her: those lists aren't the actual requirements. They're wish lists. What companies actually care about is the impact you can deliver in the first six to twelve months.

Once Öykü stopped reading job ads as hard requirements and started reading them as clues to what the business actually needs, everything shifted.

Being an international isn't a disadvantage. It's your edge.

There's a story Öykü tells that stays with you. She was in Karlsruhe, Germany, in the middle of the night. No internet connection (getting online required a German ID, and getting a German ID meant waiting through bureaucracy). She was lost, alone, and couldn't even open a map on her phone — let alone knock on a door in a language she didn't speak.

It was terrifying. And it turned out to be one of the most useful experiences of her career.

Because internationals have had to do something most locals never have to: stay functional when everything is unfamiliar. Navigate ambiguity under pressure. Rebuild from scratch without the safety net of a recognizable name on a CV. Those skills: fast learning, calm under stress, and adaptability, are exactly what high-growth companies need. The problem is that most internationals apologize for them instead of leading with them.

Öykü's message is clear: stop apologizing. Start translating.

The one rule she never breaks

"I never claim experience I don't have."

That's it. That's the foundation of Öykü's entire approach to job searching. Instead of pretending to be a perfect fit, she goes into every application knowing what she brings and what she doesn't — and she names both. She frames it as a professional strategy: here's what success looks like in this role, here are two examples from my past that prove I can get you there, and here's the gap I'm aware of and my plan to close it.

Hiring managers, it turns out, love this. Clarity is rare. Honesty paired with a plan is rarer still.

Read the financials, not just the landing page

Most candidates read a company's mission statement and call it research. Öykü reads the financials.

The fancy landing page tells you what a company wants to become. The business side: headcount changes, open roles, growth trajectory, tells you where they actually are. And the gap between those two things? That's where your pitch lives. Is the company in growth mode? Are they protecting margins? Are they dealing with tech debt? The answers change how you talk about your experience, what outcomes you emphasize, and where you position yourself as most useful.

You don't need to be a financial analyst. For startups, the reading is simple: they want to grow. For larger companies, LinkedIn alone can tell you a lot — which teams are expanding, which roles keep appearing, where the gaps are.

This is exactly how Öykü's husband landed a role that didn't exist yet. He messaged the hiring manager directly, explained the gap he saw in their team structure, and turns out they hadn’t realized he had a skillset that the company really needed, so they created a new position around it.

Generalists are glue. Nothing ships without glue.

One of the best lines of the episode came in the rapid-fire round: "What's one thing generalists should stop apologizing for?"

Öykü didn't hesitate: having a wide skill set. Generalists, she said, are glue. And nothing ships without glue.

At Supercell, she moved from community manager to project manager on the UI Pipeline — a role that touches every live game the studio ships, with no technical background in game engines, rendering, or C++. She got there by showing up as the person who could bridge communication between technical teams and the wider business. She became the person who made sure nothing fell through the cracks.

She became indispensable not by pretending to know everything, but by becoming the clearest person in the room.

The three things to take with you

Öykü wrapped the episode with three takeaways she wants listeners to hold onto: Being international is leverage: if you translate your skills into outcomes rather than apologizing for where you came from.

There is no interview hack: there is only understanding the business, showing what you can do, and naming the gaps honestly with a plan to fill them. Growth comes from trust, clarity, and delivery: not titles.

Want to hear the full conversation? Listen to Episode 4 of Sisu & Slay by Herizon on YouTube, Spotify, or Apple Music.