Know the ground you're standing on.

Hundreds of applicants per role, sometimes thousands

This is the number to absorb before anything else, because it explains almost every other frustration in a search. An ordinary Dutch vacancy draws hundreds of applications. One written broadly, or at a company people want to work for, goes past a thousand. And it happens fast: the great majority arrive in the first days after the posting goes up, so a role opened two weeks ago is already being worked.

• The first conclusion, and the uncomfortable one: a CV sent through the form was not read by a person. A screening system saw it first, and it looks for textual match, not potential
• The second: applying more does not improve your odds, it dilutes them. A hundred average applications are worth less than five precise ones, because breadth cannot be verified and specificity can
• The third, and the one the whole method follows from: if the queue at the front door runs to hundreds, the work is to find a different door. An approach that arrives through a person, before the role is posted or somewhere it will never be posted at all, is not standing in that queue
• And a rejection with no reply is not a judgement on you. At these volumes an employer who does not answer is the rule rather than the exception. Read nothing into it

These numbers are an estimate from the field, not a figure quoted from a report. They come from what I see at the employers and recruiters I work with, and they move by industry and by season. The order of magnitude is the point here, not a precise number.

Innovation here is pointed somewhere else

Wherever you are arriving from, the industries that are strong there are probably not the industries that are strong here. Dutch innovation concentrates on infrastructure systems, financial systems and banking, energy and life sciences, and smart and sustainable city solutions. Startups in the sense most people mean the word exist here, but they are the minority.

• Match the vocabulary in your CV to the industries that are genuinely strong here, rather than the ones you are used to writing for
• There are international companies operating in the Netherlands that break this pattern entirely. They are worth mapping in their own right
• If the pull is really the move to the Netherlands rather than the work being in the Netherlands, remote is worth examining, though the field has been contracting since the pandemic

Work culture: what feels like a disadvantage is usually the opposite

In front of you is a market with a real shortage of local people, a genuine reliance on workers from abroad, very high English, and a strong emphasis on the balance between work and the rest of life. What you bring to it is a strong technical background, a faster pace, and a bias to act. That gap frightens people, and it should not.

• Being someone who gets things done is a dramatic advantage in the eyes of a Dutch employer. Make it visible in the CV and through the process
• A military background, where it is relevant to the role, is not a problem here
• Dutch is not required at most employers, but it is a real advantage in non technical roles and at more traditional companies
• The Dutch pace can frustrate someone used to working faster. It is also the opportunity to put more into the life outside the job

The Dutch calendar, and this is the part nobody tells you

Hiring here has seasons, and they are fixed and nationally synchronised. Anyone who does not count backwards from them finds out too late that a whole quarter is gone.

• A senior hiring process takes six to ten weeks, several rounds and sometimes a take home assignment
• Signing is not starting: under Dutch law a resignation takes effect on the first of the following month, and for senior people the notice period is usually two months
• On 31 August the entire country comes back to the desk at once, and September is the busiest month of the year for applications
• From 19 December the country is off, it returns slowly in mid January, and hiring processes only really start moving again in February

Look for companies, not for jobs

This is the practical conclusion from everything above, and it is also the method I work by. When you fire in every direction the resource you burn is attention, and every effort comes at the cost of another one.

• Be stingy in a CV. Its job is to clear the first hurdle, not to tell the story of your life
• Do not be a nice to have. A role that can be given up is the first one that gets given up
• Build relationships with headhunters and agencies, and keep them warm over time rather than only when you need something
• Follow the companies that have just raised, the meetups, and the communities where people actually talk