Looking for a new job can be considered a job in itself. Whether you are employed or currently unemployed. It involves time, energy, focus, perseverance, and a lot of patience to search for a new job. In this blog, we delve into 10 steps to help you find your dream job in the Netherlands. Be sure to read the content till the end as I’ll be sharing with you very important points that will make the job search process easier and more rewarding. Let’s get into it.
10 Steps to Help You Find Your Dream Job in the Netherlands.
Carry out your research
Research is an important step in your job search. Take note of the skills that are being asked for. Have a spreadsheet where you list out the job title, the skills being asked, the qualification, the experience, the industry and the company. Spend some time in doing this. By the time you have covered 20 to 50 different job roles and different companies, you can see the trend, you can identify the skills and the experiences that are being asked for in different organizations. You can see the skills that are reoccurring and repeating themselves in different roles. Now with this information, you take inventory of your own skills. What are your own skills? What experiences do you have? What qualifications and IT skills that you have, what kind of certifications do you have and match them against these requirements that the organizations are asking for? This way you are able to come up with specific skills that match your own competencies and then it helps you to position yourself better when searching for a job.
Update your LinkedIn Profile
So in this day and age, the LinkedIn profile is a huge professional asset for any professional out there who is looking to change job, and so your LinkedIn profile must be updated in such a manner that it makes you stand out when recruiters are looking for people in a specific field. When it comes to your own field, you want to be discoverable and this is where you make use of the information you got from the research you conducted. In step one, your about us page of the LinkedIn profile should be loaded with what you stand to contribute to an organization from your experiences, certifications, and special skills that you have gathered over the years or currently gathering. You want to highlight this, but it has to be in the keyword that is relevant to the industries you are looking to hire. For example, I have an accounting background, so I want to highlight keywords such as reporting, cash flow analysis, accounts payable, accounts receivables, and business intelligence. You really want to identify the keywords that are unique to your industry and make use of them on your LinkedIn profile. Also, your previous job and current job, you have to also edit them in such a way that the most important points are standing out, not just the date of starting and the job description that you have on your appointment letter. No, but you want to write out that job title in a way that matches what the general market is identifying it as. So you don’t just call it, you don’t just say Team lead, define your job titles to match the things that the general market is looking for so that it’s not just what your current company is calling that job title. Find out based on the kind of functions and activities you carry out, find a more appropriate job title for that role that you have currently and present it that way both on your CV and your LinkedIn profile.
Updating your CV again
The third one is updating your cv again with the same information you gathered from the research. At the top, you highlight what makes you stand out, what you’re bringing to the table, to any organization that is hiring you, not just a hardworking individual, no. What skills, specific skills are you bringing to the table and then your job experience, your academic qualification. Arrange it from the current one have to be on top and the oldest one have to be last. Make sure that your CV does not exceed two pages. If possible, make it a one pager but maximum not more than two pages. In the Netherlands, work-life balance is a big issue, so you must highlight your hobbies. In fact, in every interview, you are expected to talk about yourself and mentioning your hobbies is an important aspect of your introduction. Also, ensure to have a separate section where you highlight your skills, leadership skills, IT skills, communication skills, and the skills that you have identified to be in high demand for the kind of jobs you are asking for. As long as you have these skills, please highlight them. English proficiency, if you’re looking for a job, English speaking job, you want to highlight that also and if you know any other language, you want to also highlight it.
Apply for Jobs
Now that you have prepared your CV, your LinkedIn profile is ready. The next is to start applying for jobs. Don’t just go and apply for every job you come across. Take time to apply for for jobs that really meet your area of skill, competence and also interest. Apply for jobs that you know when if given a chance you will contribute positively to the job and to the organization. Take time to do this and for every job you apply for, make some changes to your CV to tailor your CV to that specific job, unless you are submitting an unsolicited application, other than that, you want to tailor your CV to specific things mentioned in the job posting. Don’t use one CV to apply to five different jobs. Every job is unique and looking for certain things. You want to ensure that you edit your CV to meet the expectation of the recruiter for a specific job. You also need to accompany every job application with a cover letter which is a standard in the Netherlands and your cover letter is an opportunity for you to explain your motivation for applying for this job. What makes you unique? What would you be bringing to this job? Why should the employer hire you above all other applicants for this job? Again, don’t fail to make use of keywords that stand you out. Keywords that are mentioned in the job posting, and the skills that are important for this job posting. Highlight how you have these skills and how you have used these skills in the past and will be using them to make a difference in this organization. In fact, your motivation letter should make the employer feel that they are missing something by not hiring you.
Network
So it is one thing to apply for a job, but networking takes it a step further. For every job you apply for, make an effort to know who the contact person is for that job. Take some steps to find out who the hiring manager is. Go onto LinkedIn and try to connect with the hiring manager. You can say something like, I applied for the data analyst role that was posted and thought to connect with you to discuss the job role further and also to know about other opportunities in your company that might fit my background. A short message like this can open the door to connection with the hiring manager apart from connecting on LinkedIn. Also, take advantage of professional events. Use apps like Eventbrite Meetup to find events that are happening in your industry because in this event you have the opportunity to connect with different professionals. Some of them are hiring managers, some of them are employees in the industry that you are interested in, and by enriching your network you can open more opportunities onto yourself for landing your dream job much faster. Networking really helps in positioning you better for a job and employers like people who are proactive in their job search, so taking that extra step to connect and strike off some interesting discussions with people in that industry or in the specific company can really present you as an ideal candidate to be considered for interview and eventually a job offer.
Track Your Application
You don’t want to lose sight of the different job applications that you have submitted, so you want to have a spreadsheet where you are recording your job applications, the date that you applied for the job, the job title, the contact person name, the email address or the LinkedIn link for the contact person, the skills that were asked for in this job application. Also, you wanna save a copy of the CV you used to apply for this job so that if you are invited for an interview, you are not going with a different copy of your CV, so you want to make sure that you also match your CV with the job that you applied with. It’s the same thing for the cover letter and if there are deadlines for the application, also indicate the deadline so that you can also do follow-up and record all of this so that will you have track of what is happening with your job application. If you attend interview, you also record what happened at the interview, your takeaway points and all of that. This way you have a pool of resources you can refer to and you use it to reiterate also for that job search exercise.
Prepare for Interview
Yes, you need to do your homework very well. When you are given the opportunity for an interview, you want to come to the interview very prepared and you need to prepare in different areas.
- Number one, you want to research the interviewer. Who would you be meeting at the interview? Find out a bit more about them on LinkedIn. Use LinkedIn to know about their hobbies, their interests, about the things that they talk about on LinkedIn so that you can find a common ground to strike off a conversation during the interview to have a deeper connection with the interviewer.
- Second, take time to study the job description and prepare in advance to explain how your skills and experiences will satisfy the expectation of this job description. How exactly do you meet the requirement of this job?
- Thirdly, research the company find about their mission statement, their corporate culture, their values, and the like so that in your responses during the interview you are using words that really make a lot of meaning to the organization. You are using their own words. If the company has been recently been in the news for positive reasons, you highlight that also in your interview to show that you’re really interested in working for this company and that you are following the activities of the company and that you have taken your time to know a bit more about the organization, maybe about their products or about their employee engagement and or their social responsibility policies. Just take time to study the company and what makes that company stand out and utilize this during your interview process.
- And fourthly, you want to rehearse general interview questions. There are certain interview questions that are general and common in almost every interview. Take time to rehearse your answers to a lot of these questions, 10 to 20 of them memorize answers if you will, and have yourself well prepared for the interview. I’ll leave a link to a resource in the description. Note where you can see a list of questions that you can practice with and when looking to work in the Netherlands as a foreigner, also be prepared to answer certain questions that you will not be asked if you were applying in your home country. Questions like Why do you want to come to the Netherlands? Why Netherlands and not Germany for instance? You want to already prepare for these questions and please avoid using political reasons or purely economic reasons. Say for instance, poverty in your country or corruption in your country and things like that. But you want to give professional answers. The world is a global village and internationalization is good and positive for your career as a professional and you find Netherland a location of choice for X, y, z reasons You want to prepare yourself in advance for questions like this. You may also be asked, how long do you want to stay in the Netherlands or how long are you looking to stay in the Netherlands?
- Lastly, do not forget to be there on time. 15 minutes before time is ideal, but not later than 10 minutes before time and appear at the interview professionally dressed either via video call or in person first impression matters a lot and be sure to put a positive attitude throughout the interview so that when you leave the interview room, you are leaving a lasting positive impression in the minds of the interviewers.
Follow Up
Step number eight is follow-up. Though the job hiring process can be slow and involves a lot of waiting, there are ways you can do effective follow up after an interview. First at the end of the interview, you want to ask right there at the interview venue what to expect next, how soon will you be hearing from them and what the next steps for this application process? So here you’ll be getting vital information to give you an idea if it’s going to be within seven days or within two weeks, so you have an idea of how soon you expect to get feedback. Then a day after the interview, you want to send a thank you note to all the people present in the interview and tell them thank you for their time. Highlight something that you really enjoyed about the interview. Keep it short and straight to the point.
The follow-up will be if you did not get feedback from them after the time they promised to get back to you. You don’t want to contact them immediately. You want to give them three days to one week without hearing from them. Then you can follow up and just say you are following up just to know how the interview process is going and how soon you can hear from them. You are really excited about moving to the next stages of the interview with the organization because you are really excited about an opportunity to work with this organization and so you are really looking forward to hearing from them soon. And yeah, keep it as simple and as straightforward as possible. Lastly, if you don’t get the job and you think this interview went well but you didn’t get the job, it’s time to again, ask for feedback from the recruiter, and find out from them what you could do better in your next interviews and let them know you really appreciate their feedback as this will help you professionally and to also help you in preparing for future interviews and to make your future interviews a lot better. Thank them in advance for obliging you with this request.
Seek Professional Guidance
Step number nine is to seek professional guidance. Sometimes it can be very overwhelming and tiring to keep applying for jobs and not get the desired outcome. It might be time for you to seek professional guidance. You might consider hiring a career coach or a job search consultant. I have a list of 10 recruitment agencies in the Netherlands here on my channel. A link will be on the screen and I will also leave a link in the description of the video. You can start with these recruitment agencies. They will help you in fine-tuning your cv, check your cover letter formats, see your LinkedIn profile and help you position yourself better and to improve your job search strategy to make it more effective.
Positive and Persevere Through the Entire Process
It can be a long waiting game when you are looking for a job. This waiting game can last for a few days, few weeks, and in some cases months. And some organizations may not even get back to you after an interview. If this happens, don’t take it too personally. Stay positive, persevere and continue to submit your job applications. Don’t give in to panic. Be patient. Patience is a virtue when you’re looking for a job, you would eventually find your dream job. You just need to stay resilient, persevere through the process, learn from the interviews you attend, pick up points and improve on your presentation of yourself, on your application materials. Improve on them. Seek counsel. Seek guidance from professionals. Stay positive through the process and continue to apply. Don’t stop applying for jobs. It is a numbers game. The more you apply, the more chances you have to landing your dream job until you have signed a job contract. Do not stop applying, not even when you are very sure that you are going to land a job.
If you have not signed a job contract, you have to keep on interviewing, keep on applying, and you will eventually land your dream job. If you follow these steps and take the time to fine-tune your cv, fine-tune your LinkedIn profile, and study the industry and your professional sector, you will definitely get your dream job sooner than later. So here you have it. 10 steps that can help you land your dream job in the Netherlands in 2023 as a foreign professional. If you found this video content useful and you have learned two or three from the video, please smash the like button and subscribe. Share it also with a friend or a family member. They might find it useful also, unless click on the screen and you’ll be taken to the video on 25 best companies to work for in the Netherlands, this is the right place for you to start your research from and I’ll see you in the next blog. Stab blessed.
Interview Guide for the Netherlands 👇🏽 https://www.iamexpat.nl/career/employ…