You've been here three months. Or three years. Either way, you've sent out — what, 50 applications? 80? And you're getting nothing. Not rejections, not feedback. Just the void.
I know the feeling. I spent weeks convinced my CV was fine. It wasn't. It was a perfectly good CV — for a different country.
The Dutch job market has its own format, its own expectations, its own unwritten rules. None of it is hard to fix once someone tells you what they actually want. That's what this is.
Your CV looks foreign (and not in a good way)
If you wrote your CV in the US, UK, India, Brazil — basically anywhere that isn't the Netherlands — it probably looks off to a Dutch recruiter. Not wrong, exactly. Just... not from here.
| International / US | Dutch | |
|---|---|---|
| Photo | Never | Common (increasingly optional) |
| Personal details | Name + contact only | Nationality, city, work permit status |
| Length | 1 page (US) / 2+ pages (UK) | 1-2 pages, never more |
| Cover letter | Optional / generic | Expected (motivatiebrief) |
| Languages | Rarely included | Always, with CEFR levels |
| Profile statement | Sometimes | Expected — 2-3 lines at the top |
A recruiter scanning 200 CVs before lunch isn't going to stop and figure out your American resume format. They'll just move on. It's not malicious — your CV just doesn't pattern-match to what they're used to reading.
The good news: reformatting takes an afternoon. Here's what to change.
What Dutch recruiters actually want to see
A photo. Yes, really. This shocks people from the US and UK where it's basically illegal to ask for one. In the Netherlands, a professional headshot on your CV is still common — though it's shifting. International companies and tech startups mostly don't care. Traditional Dutch companies, agencies, SMEs? Many still expect it. Quick gut check: look at employees' LinkedIn profiles at the company you're applying to. If everyone has a photo, include one.
Your nationality, city, and work permit status. Right there on page one. This feels invasive if you're American or British, but it's completely standard here. Recruiters aren't being nosy — they need to know if you can legally work in the Netherlands before they invest time in your application. "EU citizen," "Partner visa," "Highly skilled migrant (kennismigrant)" — whatever applies. (Not sure which route you're on? Our work permit guide breaks them all down.) Putting it up front saves everyone two rounds of emails.
Just the city, by the way. Not your full address. Nobody needs your postcode.
A profile statement that actually says something. Two to three lines, right under your name. This is what recruiters read first and — honestly — sometimes it's all they read. "Motivated professional seeking new challenges" goes straight in the bin. Something like "Operations manager, 5 years in logistics, moved to NL in 2025. Led warehouse automation projects across 3 European markets" — that gets them to keep scrolling.
One to two pages. Period. Under 5 years of experience? One page. More than that? Two. Three-page CVs don't get read here. The Dutch value being direct and concise — this applies to your CV too. Give your recent roles the detail they deserve, and trim the older stuff. That internship from 2016 does not need four bullet points.
The motivatiebrief — the thing you're probably skipping
Most expats skip this entirely. Big mistake.
A motivatiebrief is a motivation letter — not a cover letter in the American sense. Dutch employers don't want "Dear Hiring Manager, please find my CV attached." They want to know why this company and why this role. Specifically. What did you see in the job post that made you think "that's me"? (We wrote a full guide to writing a motivatiebrief with examples — worth reading if you've never written one.)
Keep it to half a page. Address the hiring manager by name if you can find them on LinkedIn (you usually can). If the job post mentions "stakeholder management," your letter should describe a time you actually managed stakeholders. Mirror their language back to them.
When a posting says "send your CV and motivatiebrief to..." — they mean it. I've talked to Dutch recruiters who told me they automatically skip applicants who don't include one when it's explicitly requested. That's not a maybe. That's a rule.
Languages: more important here than anywhere else
In most countries, the languages section on your CV is filler. In the Netherlands, recruiters actually read it.
Use CEFR levels — that's the European standard, and it's what Dutch employers know. Quick translation for everyone who didn't grow up with this system:
- A1-A2 — You can order a broodje and survive your gemeente appointment.
- B1-B2 — You can follow a meeting in this language. Mostly.
- C1-C2 — You can work in this language professionally.
- Native — Self-explanatory.
Put Dutch on there even if you're A1. Seriously. It signals that you're trying, and that matters here more than in most places. The Netherlands has this thing where they really appreciate the effort, even if your Dutch is terrible. "I'm taking classes at the Taalhuis" is a perfectly fine thing to mention.
One warning: don't lie about your level. Writing "Dutch: B2" and then panicking when the recruiter casually switches to Dutch mid-interview — that's worse than just writing A1. They'll respect the honesty. They won't respect the bluff.
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The mistakes that keep coming up
After seeing a lot of expat CVs, the same things come up over and over. Not all of these will apply to you, but at least one probably does.
Sending your CV in the wrong format. Not "wrong" as in .docx vs .pdf (though: always PDF, always CV-Firstname-Lastname.pdf, never resume-final-v3-UPDATED.docx). Wrong as in it's clearly an American resume or a British CV. The layout, the sections, the information included — it all screams "I didn't look up how this works here." A two-column Dutch layout with a sidebar for personal details and languages, and a main column for experience and education — that's the standard. Use it.
Vague bullet points. The Dutch are direct people. They like directness on CVs too. "Responsible for sales" — okay, and? What happened? "Grew B2B revenue by 25% in 6 months by restructuring the outbound process" — now we're talking. Numbers. Percentages. Team sizes. Timelines. Be specific or don't bother.
Ignoring LinkedIn. The Netherlands has one of the highest LinkedIn penetration rates on the planet. Dutch recruiters live on LinkedIn. Many of them will find your profile before they ever see your CV. If your LinkedIn doesn't match your CV, that's a red flag. If you don't have a LinkedIn profile — you're invisible to probably half the market. (We wrote a full guide on optimizing your LinkedIn for the Dutch market.)
Set your location to the Netherlands. Update your headline. Turn on "Open to Work" (you can make it visible to recruiters only). This isn't optional here the way it might be in other countries.
Not localizing the small stuff. Call it a "CV," not a "resume." List your current Dutch city, not your hometown abroad. Use European date formats (Jan 2024, not 01/2024). Mention your Dutch level even if it's beginner. These are tiny changes, but they add up to a CV that looks like it belongs here.
About those "Dutch required" job posts
You already know the frustration. You open a job post, you're perfect for it, and then — "Nederlands vereist." Or the gentler version: "Dutch is a strong plus."
Sometimes they mean it. Customer-facing roles where you'd be speaking Dutch all day — sales to Dutch SMEs, healthcare, government, education, legal — yeah, you need Dutch for those. That's real.
But a lot of the time? It's copy-paste. HR wrote the job description once, added "Dutch required" as a default, and nobody questioned it. I've seen companies post "Dutch required" while having entire teams that run in English. I've seen hiring managers say "ignore that line, we just need someone good."
Here's how to tell the difference: look at the company's careers page. Is it in English? Do they have international employees on LinkedIn? Do their Glassdoor reviews mention English as the working language? If yes — just apply. The worst that happens is they say no. Often they don't. (We go much deeper on this in our guide to finding English-speaking jobs in the Netherlands.)
Go fix your CV
We made a free Dutch CV template that has all of this built in — the right layout, photo section, personal details sidebar, languages with CEFR levels, the whole thing. You can edit it right in your browser and save it as a PDF.
Grab it below. Takes 2 minutes.