Henri Heikkinen

You don’t build a Death Star with love. You build it by selling millions of headphones. And how do you sell headphones? By marketing them.

A lot of people ask how many people work in Valco’s much-praised, multi-million-euro marketing team. The answer: one. Henri.

Conquering the galaxy is too big a job for one man, even if he has a black cape and breathing problems. That’s why we’re now setting up our own unbelievably vicious marketing team, Valco’s Avengers, and to get it started we’re looking for a couple of minions right away.

We need a pair of eyes, a pair of hands, and someone else who does everything the others don’t.

We’re primarily looking for junior-level people we can train, shape, and exploit. We also accept internship applications. Interns are especially nice to exploit.

But we don’t discriminate. More experienced people are also welcome to apply if they too wish to be exploited. 

We’re looking for the following kinds of heroes, whose future workplace would be in Oulu or Kajaani. Remote work won’t do, because we want to witness our minions’ suffering with our own eyes. 

1. A PAIR OF EYES. VISUAL PERSON

  • You’ve got a natural sense for what looks good and what doesn’t. We can’t teach that, because we can’t do it ourselves.
  • You know how to make things look good. Pictures, ads, social posts, maybe even videos. Also without AI.
  • You’re comfortable using Photoshop, Illustrator, Canva, TikTok, a pencil, or whatever the hell these tools are supposed to be.
  • Video skills are a plus, but phone videos are enough to get started. As long as content gets made. You don’t have to be Spielberg. Penttilä will do too.

2. AN EXTRA PAIR OF HANDS. COMPUTER BUTTON MASHER

  • You’re organized, proactive, and able to keep all the strings in your hands even when everyone else has forgotten the whole project exists.
  • You know your way around online tools like Shopify, Mailchimp and Google Ads, and you’re not afraid to learn more.
  • Excel doesn’t disgust you, SEO doesn’t scare you, and you can even do a bit of coding, or at least understand it. With ChatGPT’s help, anyway.
  • You’re into social media, content, interaction, and figuring out why one thing works and another doesn’t.

3. SOMEONE ELSE 

  • When nobody else has the time, the will, or the energy, all eyes turn to you.
  • You might not be the best at anything, but for some reason everyone assumes you’ll handle everything. Still, you do have at least one marketable skill. You can read and write.
  • You get things over the finish line and do them with obsessive precision. The boring stuff. Lists, spreadsheets, notes, summaries, Excel files, etc.
  • When someone sighs, “couldn't someone else handle this?”, you know that someone is you.
  • You don't need praise or a high salary. And neither one is coming.

WHAT WE EXPECT FROM EVERYONE

What matters here is that you can work independently, take responsibility, and stay organized, because our management is hopeless.

You don't have to be that annoyingly energetic person who wakes up on top of an exercise bike tweeting " Good coffee. Good raw porridge. Good energy levels. Gonna be a good day. Good morning".

It's enough if you're a person we can say to, "this should get done" and then it happens. Not right away, but at some point.

We hope you'll stick around for a long time. If you're planning to join a circus caravan or go on a pilgrimage, do it in the 2040s. We're planning to conquer the galaxy and subjugate humankind, and that won't happen without loyal henchmen.

IN PRACTICE, THE JOB INCLUDES

Implementing Valco's ever-changing, badly planned marketing strategy, dreamed up by the entrepreneurs while drunk at the cottage or on a boat. Plus all the other work, depending on what you can do, what's needed, and whatever someone has come up with this time. 

Before anything else, you'll spend a while in customer service so you understand what we actually do. Customer service teaches a suitable amount of humility and misanthropy, both of which you need in this company.

At the end of the day, one pair of eyes makes visual material, and one pair of hands shoves it out into the world and wonders why nobody likes it. Then someone else does something else.

A workday in Valco's marketing team could go something like this:

You wake up, scratch yourself, and head to the office through sleet. You make coffee and open a computer that's as frozen as your career. Nobody else is there, so you undo your pants button because you're bloated. Teams starts. Working remotely is forbidden, but Henri himself is apparently in Málaga.

In a video meeting, you stand up and your pants fall down right as the late coworker walks into the office. Henri announces the campaign isn't working. Nobody clicks, nobody likes it. You don't know if he means the ad or you as a human being.

You grab a sandwich from the fridge that's been there since the day before yesterday. It tastes like life: dry and shitty. You watch a coworker fine-tuning a pixel with their face glued to the screen. You make a list of things you won't have time to do anyway. Excel crashes.

At the end of the day, a coworker asks: “Anything new?” You answer: “No.” You both know there never is. It's raining on the way home, and you don't have an umbrella. At least being wet feels like something.

WHAT WE OFFER

  • A salary similar to what you'd get in some limp digital agency for kissing clients' asses. The pay depends on how experienced and capable you are, so the range is probably somewhere between €2000 and €4500 / month.
  • A genuine chance to do marketing so bad you'd get fired immediately anywhere else, and you won't have to deal with customers directly.
  • Access to a key spot, at a key moment, in a company that will become the most beautiful and best in the universe.
  • Plenty of Valco products. We don't really have employee benefits to speak of. Maybe a warm handshake.
  • A computer terminal and some kind of office where you can sit with a couple of other people. The work community isn't dynamic or fun at all, unlike in every other job ad.
  • If your talents extend beyond turning rye bread into sh*t, you could theoretically move on to other roles as the company grows. We promise nothing.

APPLICATION INSTRUCTIONS

We don't dare answer the phone. If you have anything to ask, send an email.

Applications and CVs WITH YOUR SALARY EXPECTATION should be sent to hr(at)valco.fi.

In the subject line of your message, depending on what you're applying for, put EYES, HANDS or SOMETHING ELSE. 

Please send all attachments in PDF format if possible.

NOTE! Applications had to be in by Sun 22.6.2025. WE ARE NO LONGER ACCEPTING APPLICATIONS!

PS: Right now we're looking for marketing people. If you're just otherwise annoyingly talented, you can always send us an open application too. Especially in the near future, we're interested in engineer-type people who understand the inner life of wireless devices. There's also always demand for competent B2B salespeople.  

Our goal is to hire between two and five million people over the next few years. So at least two people, at most five million.