Business Management Overview: Mathilde Øllgaard-Ussing

My first job has close to nothing to do with what I do now. I studied business at university—and to be completely honest, I didn’t enjoy it. I felt like I was learning theories on how businesses are run, rather than just going out there and learning it firsthand. However, I had immense respect for the number of doors a university degree would open for me, so I worked hard to achieve good results. But, to say the least, I was very excited to get a job and start working.

I completed two internships during the summers leading up to my graduation—one at the UN and one for a tech startup. Neither of them made my choice of career any clearer. I had ZERO idea what I wanted to do. Everyone around me dreamed of becoming a consultant or an investment banker—which I could never understand. In hindsight, it’s such a gift to not know what you want to do because it means anything is possible. But at the time, it felt like the end of the world to not have clarity, especially when it seemed like everyone else around me did.

I began applying for jobs about six months before my graduation. Because I had no idea what I wanted to do, I applied to everything—and I mean everything! Everything on LinkedIn, which, in my opinion, is the worst place to try to get a job. You apply to hundreds of jobs where you meet the qualifications, get excited about them, and never hear back.

As I said, I didn’t know which industry or area of work I was interested in, so I decided to focus on the things I did have preferences for—like the work environment. I wanted a fun work environment with a great culture, where it felt like you could go for a beer with your colleagues after work. I graduated during COVID-19, and my biggest nightmare was for my first job to be online, so I started researching which cities around the world allowed in-office work. I landed on Stockholm, Sweden. Sweden is home to a lot of global companies and is incredibly entrepreneurial. Companies like Spotify, IKEA, H&M Group, and Netflix have very large offices in Stockholm.

After being rejected from all of those after a few interviews, I received an email from a company I had forgotten I applied to—EF Education First, the largest provider of language education globally. I participated in an online assessment day during my interview process, and it was so clear to me that the people working there were having the time of their lives. About two months later, I signed the contract to become a sales trainee—an incredibly underpaid role... but I was just happy to be employed.

All this to say, finding my first job was not easy—and not knowing what you want to do doesn’t make it easier.

I learned an incredible amount in my first job and ended up spending two years there. After feeling like I had achieved all I had hoped to in that company, I decided it was time for a new challenge. So, I walked into my boss’s office and told him I quit. I had no idea what I would do, but I had a gut feeling I shouldn’t be there anymore.

I chose not to stress myself out about finding a new job but instead to challenge myself in a different way—traveling on my own, which felt really scary to me. After three months of travel, I decided to go home and get my life together again. I spent two weeks applying for jobs when a friend of mine called me, saying he might have a job for me at BeReal. We had previously worked together in university planning events. I jumped at the opportunity and fell in love with a fast-paced, high-impact workplace.

After BeReal got acquired by Voodoo, I got the boot. I started researching jobs and companies that seemed interesting and did cold outreach to them via LinkedIn and email when I could find their contact info. To me, this is the most efficient way of getting in touch with people you care about. Most people I have hired have come from them reaching out to me—it shows excitement and dedication. I got some offers, but nothing that got me excited enough. Thankfully, I was in a position where I could be picky and say no to contracts—my achievements from EF and BeReal had been enough to prove I was worth investing in.

Shortly after, I got a message from the ex-head of marketing at BeReal, who wanted to introduce me to the CEO of a data company. Two calls later, I was on a plane to London to expand their consumer app in the UK.

Three months passed, and they offered me a role on their founding team as the first marketing hire—and that’s the job I’m in now.

Anxiety, pressure, doubt, and luck are how I’d describe job searching. The pieces tend to fall into place by themselves, but you need to do the outreach, the networking, and loudmouth your results to be noticed.

I’m a big believer in learning by doing – as much as I can tell you about mistakes I’ve made and things I wish I’d known, I wouldn’t change anything about the way I’ve approached my career, so there’s likely not much I’d like to tell my younger self.

However, here’s what I’ll tell you.

Something I tell everyone on my team is to always have arrogance of imagination. What I mean by that is that you should remain arrogant when you approach your abilities ie. Imagine you are able to do anything – we're often much more capable than we think. I’ve surprised myself more times than I can count and have achieved things my younger self would never believe. A lot of it has come from ‘acting as if’ I was capable and just jumping in the deep end with both feet. I will never catch myself saying no to something because I don’t believe I can do it – I think that’s a very dangerous mentality.  You learn by doing - if you do nothing, you never learn.