Not long ago, a well-targeted application to a role that fit your experience stood a good chance of a prompt reply and an invitation to a first interview. But that has changed in the past few years. A marketing coordinator role in Amsterdam can collect two hundred applications in the first 48 hours. A French-speaking customer success position can attract candidates from all over Europe, any of whom can apply in under two minutes from their phone. Employers, meanwhile, have grown more cautious. Job requirements have become stricter, processes have more stages and roles sit open longer while teams decide whether they really need the headcount.
This doesn’t mean that job applications don’t work at all anymore. People are still hired through direct applications every day. But applying has become the most crowded route into a job, and if it is the only route you are using, the search can become a discouraging one. In this article, we’ll look at the other ways you can increase your chances of landing a role.
The importance of networking
A meaningful share of roles never reach a job board. They are filled by internal moves, by referrals, by a hiring manager remembering someone they met at a conference, or by an agency putting forward two people they already know well. Hiring is expensive and slow, and the risk of getting it wrong is high, so many companies prefer to reach first for the people who carry the least uncertainty.
Networking is the process of becoming one of those people: making sure that someone who might hear about relevant work knows who you are, what you do and what you are looking for.
Start with people you already know
The most productive conversations in a job search are with former colleagues, old managers, clients, suppliers, people you studied with, people who left your last company two years ago. These contacts are warm enough that a message isn’t intrusive, but distant enough that they move in circles you don’t. That combination is where most useful introductions come from.
Start by making a list of people you have worked with or met in the past five years. Write them a direct and short message to make the ask small and specific, something along these lines: “Hi Jane, hope things are good at Bol. I’ve left Amazon and I’m looking for a senior CRM role, ideally in retail or e-commerce in the Amsterdam area. If you hear of anything or know someone worth a conversation, I’d appreciate the recommendation.”
Approach companies directly, but narrowly
Make a list of twenty organisations you would genuinely want to work for, then research them properly. Find the person who would manage the role rather than a generic HR address. Reference something specific: a product launch, a market they’ve just entered, a problem you can see they have. Speculative approaches fail when they are generic and succeed surprisingly often when they are not. A cold message that works usually has four elements:
- Who you are, in one line
- Why them specifically: their company, their team, something they wrote or built
- One clear ask: fifteen or twenty minutes, on a call or over coffee
- An easy exit, so they’re free to decline
Most people cannot give you a job right away, but almost everyone can offer you twenty minutes of their time and share what they know about their market, their team’s plans, which companies are growing, and who else you should speak to. Go in genuinely curious, because that is what makes the conversation worth having for them too. Be clear that you are looking, then let the conversation be about their world rather than your CV.
Write a thank-you message after the conversation and follow up a month later, saying what you have been up to and what you are still looking for. This will increase your chances of them remembering you at the moment a suitable opportunity might open up.
Where to make professional connections in the Netherlands
If you’ve recently moved to the Netherlands, developing a network takes effort. Fortunately, there are numerous opportunities here to meet new people, partly because the country is small enough that many industries function as a single network, and partly because many events and communities are free.
- Meetups and professional associations. Meetup groups are active in Amsterdam, Utrecht, Rotterdam and Eindhoven across tech, marketing, data and design, among many others, and they are free to join. Professional associations are the paid equivalent and worth the fee only if you attend their events.
- Industry events and conferences. A day pass to the right conference puts you in front of more relevant people than a week of applications. If the ticket is beyond your budget while you’re between roles, ask about a day rate or volunteer options. The evening borrel afterwards is usually where the real conversations happen, and it’s often open to more people than the conference itself.
- Volunteering. Volunteering with an NGO or a foundation takes longer to pay off, but you build a network and gain current, verifiable experience to point to during a career gap. Dutch foundations also routinely appoint volunteer board members, which is a genuine route to responsibility that would take years to reach in a paid role.
- International and language communities. Organisations serving the international community in the Netherlands run events, courses and support networks, and many are themselves staffed by volunteers. Language exchange groups, national community associations and expat networks all put you in a room with people who have faced the same problems you’re facing.
- Alumni networks. Large consultancies and multinationals often run formal alumni networks, and people who once worked at the same place tend to help each other.
Other useful approaches for your job search
Work properly with a small number of recruiters
Sending your CV to twenty agencies achieves less than having two in-depth conversations with recruitment consultants who specialise in your field and your languages. Be honest about salary expectations, notice period, work authorisation and how far you are willing to commute. A recruiter who has had a conversation with you and understands your situation can put you forward for an opportunity the moment it comes in, often before it is advertised anywhere.
Make yourself findable and be visible in your field
Recruiters search LinkedIn by keywords, location and languages. If your headline says “Seeking new opportunities” rather than what you do, you disappear from those searches. List your skills and language levels properly, because a striking number of candidates leave those sections outdated. Use the recruiter-visible “open to work” setting or the public banner.
Posting occasionally on LinkedIn about something you have learned, or leaving a useful comment on someone else’s post, keeps your name in circulation among people in your industry as well as recruiters visiting your profile. Over a few months, this quietly changes how many people recognise your name.
Consider interim, contract and temporary work
Temporary and interim routes are well established in the Netherlands and they could open doors to permanent opportunities. A three- or six-month assignment gives you Dutch market experience, local references and a network you would not have if you were only looking for a permanent role.
Dutch employment law limits how many consecutive fixed-term contracts an employer can offer, and for how long, before the arrangement converts to permanent. That structure means employers often use temporary contracts as a way of testing a hire they intend to keep.
The honest part
These strategies can feel slower and less productive at first. Twenty applications in an evening give you the satisfying sense of having done something. Five conversations in a week do not, and three of them will probably lead nowhere. But conversations will compound over time. The person who couldn’t help you in March remembers you in June when their team gets a hiring budget, or the former colleague you caught up with forwards your name to someone you have never met.
If you are looking for work in the Netherlands, browse our current vacancies or submit an open application, and we’ll get in touch to arrange a conversation if a suitable opportunity opens up.
