[purplepatrick]

Yeah, I have personally made that experience and received the same feedback directly from hiring companies and headhunters.

A close friend of mine had to emigrate to another country after successfully exiting his startup with tens of millions in the bank. Top recruiting firms in the US didn’t know what to do with him and considered him not “specialized enough” for the US market.

Other markets such as Europe hire very differently. There, employers aren’t necessarily looking to fill narrow roles with “bandaid employees”, but want people to have breadth and grow within the business across future roles.

In fact, this is precisely the feedback I also got from a top headhunting firm where I worked with the head of US tech recruiting and the EU counterparts.

Put differently, the “founder penalty” isn’t as much of an issue overseas.

I’m still baffled by it…