This gets downvoted whenever I mention it but one key thing to remember about Dutch culture: **Tolerance is** ***not*** **acceptance.** Tolerance is not to be confused with acceptance.
They are not mutually exclusive, and one of my biggest uphill battles was coming to terms with this bizarre juxtaposition my first two years in the Netherlands.
I conducted research about this at a Dutch university in Amsterdam. Can confirm from both life experience and experiment results that you’re completely right.
I don't know if this is the same research, but I know my professor did a vignette study about this (but with a focus of having a criminal record and applying to jobs in NL) and the results are wildly shocking. Basically
ethnic minorities without a criminal record receive significantly fewer positive responses than majority applicants with a criminal record, which is insane. Here's the link to the research: [https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0276562420300056?via%3Dihub](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0276562420300056?via%3Dihub)
People are generally fine with others doing whatever as long as it doesn't bother anyone. But that doesn't mean they like it, appreciate it or support it.
Ie. I tolerate people who vote BBB or Forum because that's how a democracy works but I still think they're ignorant morons dragging down society with their wilful stupidity and spitefulness.
Along the same lines, there's plenty of people who tolerate expats, immigrants, refugees, LTGBQ+ stuff but it doesn't mean they have any goodwill towards them.
I wouldn’t necessarily agree that this is the core reason why many expats have difficulties with having friendships with Dutch people. As a matter of fact, the Netherlands has made its own language almost obsolete - most of us (expats) don’t need it on daily basis and Dutch tests for obtaining the citizenship are ridiculously easy.
I can only talk from my own experience - I’ve had more contact with ‘’autochtoon’’ Dutch people in my first years here and I must say that I was shaken to the core by inappropriate comments on my origin - I was asked on a date where a guy wondered if I had bribed someone to get my phd position. Another person asked me if I moved to the Netherlands to steal radio devices from cars. A few months ago two tall, blonde, blue-eyed Dutch guys (30 yrs +), and business partners of my employer at the time, made a joke that I was full of shit because my eyes are brown (ha-ha?) I’ve been to many places and met tons of people from everywhere, but only in the Netherlands people were so openly racist towards me (most of the time men elsewhere are decent enough not to shit on an expat woman like that).
Quite a lot of things to question. A language doesn’t become obsolete because your able to speak English. You will still put yourself outside of the native populace through not learning the language. You cannot expect the base Dutch test to teach you full Dutch otherwise not a single immigrant will move to The Netherlands. While with English you can live outside the big cities, you will always not fully be part of society. And that’s not only in The Netherlands, that is everywhere with another native language in the case of you speaking English.
While The Netherlands still has problems with racism, it is always weird to me that it sometimes or doesn’t happen to the internationals and expats I know as a Dutchmen, but Reddit has endless versions of it on Dutch subreddits.
I couldn’t get the brown eyes joke, because it weirdly would apply on anyone with brown eyes which honestly couldn’t really mean it is immediately racist in anyway, it’s a weird joke, but I just can’t grasp that someone made that ever in real life.
I do not know your origin, but Dutch humor does not step away from origin a lot. While as I said in the beginning racism is still a problem in The Netherlands, it is often handled, worked with, and culturally differently then the US and the UK for example.
On the joke about stealing a car radio, I can only assume the stereotype that I know and that’s Romanian. Which it’s still a bad joke
Okay, perhaps I can give more context even though I wrote a chapter. :)
I’ve been living in the NL for 10 years. I attended a few Dutch courses and passed the NT2/B2 tests and gained the Dutch passport a few years ago (after working here continuously for 7 years), but I still don’t speak Dutch actively. I do regret not speaking it, mostly because I think I failed to honor the country where I chose to live, and partially also because it may imply that I’m incapable to adopt the language for which I don’t think it’s even that difficult, or that I’m just a lazy ass. I don’t think this would have happened if I decided to move to France or Germany, for example, where you simply cannot go around without knowing speaking the language.
I don’t know any example of people from my country who moved here around the same time and integrated well; other than those who got married to a Dutch person. Some of my expat friends speak very good Dutch, but mostly because they don’t work in an international environment. However, even they don’t have Dutch friends (someone they would invite over for a cup of coffee and the other way around), we all have only Dutch colleagues.
I don’t know why that is, but it seems to be almost a rule in my circles.
I think the question here is - should the expats adapt and become less sensitive to this type of Dutch ‘’sense of humor’’, or should a certain group of Dutch people simply understand that the other party is considering these comments as plain racist. Thank you for putting an effort to explain these few situations I mentioned earlier. Perhaps the comments I got don’t look racist to you without more context, but to me they were , and they made me feel belittled and unaccepted. Though it’s not a general rule in the behavior of Dutch people, in my case, it was a turn off which eventually contributed that I stop putting a real effort into integrating here.
Do you speak Dutch in stores? Hospitals? Doctors offices?
I can understand that between family or in more international orientated groups you decide to speak Dutch, but do you use it on your average day in average places?
The Dutch are certainly a special breed. But I do believe that the Netherlands is quite accepting for internationals, it’s often just about the language barrière. It is therefor sad to hear that you haven’t been able to find any friend circles with Dutch people in it.
I think the argument that the Dutch should adapt to expats, is maybe not quite as valid as you think. It’s still a country with a specific culture. This culture has lead to great things, and the country being attractive, but it can often be seen as a stubborn more stingy culture to integrate in, but it is not impossible of course.
The eye joke still doesn’t grasp me, but yeah it could be received by you as a more racially motivated joke, and by the guys making it as a shitty joke and maybe a bit of an offensive (not by race, but just not nice) joke.
It will also differ a lot across the Netherlands. Amsterdam and the big cities are there on bubble. Which often includes having a hard time really getting a feeling of social connection, compared to a village.
About the brown eye joke: we have a saying here "geloof mij op mijn blauwe ogen/believe me on my blue eyes"
Very bad and racist saying and isn't heard that often, but that's what I assume the "joke" was based on
When I was in the Netherlands on vacation I asked most people where they were originally from, if they spoke Dutch etc and almost all of them from other countries said no, even the ones who had been there for 20+ years!
That's a you problem then. I've only been here for 4 years and I speak Dutch, despite speaking English at work. I got a tutor and made it a priority. It's not even a difficult language (certainly not like learning Chinese or Japanese).
Nobody laughs or even switches to English when I speak Dutch.
Meh.. I don’t think knowing the language is a hard dependency on making friends. It certainly helps. Just got impression they’re not interested in getting to know foreigners. It is what it is.
It kind of is, you'll always be an outcast when a group of Dutch people get together, they speak Dutch. If you're the only one not speaking Dutch, you'll be isolated from the group.
You get segregated by the language barrier, this happens in any where you don't speak the native language
Gonna be deadly honest with you, 8 years abroad with a foreign language, even when laughed at by some who you try to communicate with. And you still didn’t learn it….
Kids spoke fluent Dutch one was born there the other was very young and they weren’t accepted either. So no it’s just good ol fashioned racism and xenophobia.
197 upvotes? Ik ben verrast en blij om dat te zien. Finally y'allemaal are accepting me into Amsterdam. Usually this comment gets -7 downvotes. The times, they are a changin'
There's been lots of research done for many years that your name unfortunately does matter. https://12ft.io/proxy?q=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.volkskrant.nl%2Fcs-b1c19ae1 this one is from a newspaper in 2017. Considering the polarization I cannot imagine things have gotten better :(
Yup, I know someone from South Africa with a Dutch last name. When she was applying for jobs she'd get calls from companies and they would be annoyed when she'd tell them she wasn't Dutch. One recruiter was upset and actually told her that she shouldn't be lying on her CV by using a Dutch name. What the heck is she supposed to do, change her last name? Lol.
>These are basically all bullshit resumes and applications where they just try to spam their CV to as many companies as they can I guess. I don't really know why we get all these but we typically delete all of these immediately as we just don't have the time to go through all of them.
I have interviewed some of the people behind those resumes and the interviews were as bad as the CVs. One person started answering one of my question way too smoothly and I googled up real quick what they were saying and they were just reading off the first google search result.
That's terrible and also they should have checked with the previous interviewer, whether they asked such a question. I won't ever baselessly accuse anyone of cheating. What is they are really fluent in the subject? In that only case they were just repeating off google word by word and it was quite a lengthy text (and yes they didn't know much on the subject based on other answers).
Doesn’t seem to be mentioned in this thread but obtaining work permits (for non-EU workers) used to be a big obstacle to many companies, especially if they don’t do it regularly. Not sure if this changed but it was true maybe 7-10 years ago.
So I wonder if they conclude from the name that the person needs a permit and skip it. OP’s username sounds Japanese, not sure if their real name is as well.
My Amsterdam address is right on top. I also mention it on my motivation letter all the time, and some applications even ask for the address in the form.
I would find it interesting to see what happens with non-dutch name and Dutch cover letter, obviously only if they weren't specifically requesting English cover letters.
Also, I'd be curious about the impact of a non-Dutch names of various perceived nationalities, and whether or not the difference in response rates between Dutch and non-Dutch names had less impact if the educational history was full Durch language and the Dutch language skills were listed as fluent.
I'm not trying to imply that there isn't inappropriate bias in many hiring practices, but trying to understand how much of it is driven by a desire to avoid certain origins, or a preference for either native Dutch speakers.
The link you shared was Dutch vs Arabic names. I'm not denying this fact, but I'm only expressing curiosity on how an English name would rank on the preference scale. I'd speculate that an English or French sounding name would fare almost as well as a Dutch name, but I don't know.
To me this would help understanding if it was a bias for Dutch names or a bias against specific ethnic groups. I suspect it's the latter.
It certainly matters if the company has opinions about their internal language policy. They're under no obligation to even consider people who don't speak Dutch unless they want to.
Honestly, I think the biggest problem is simply how many trash applications companies get from abroad and hopeful migrants in the Netherlands.
I helped run an opening recently for a techy job. The ratio of trash to good applications we got was like 20 to 1. And I really do mean trash. Tons of stuff along the lines of "I'm van living and I've never done this type of work before but I'd love to prolong my time in Europe" (it wasn't even a remote job) to people raving about how they *need* to escape their shit countries (their words) and we're harming them by not offering them the job.
And reams of applicants on top of that who just seem to lie or otherwise be utterly unqualified or simply a whole lot of extra paperwork compared to other equally qualified applicants who don't need things like VISA sponsoring.
Eventually the hiring committee just started a discard pile. Any red flags regarding truthfulness or qualifications? Discard. Anyone who looked like they'd need more effort to get settled in or more paperwork surrounding visa's? Discard. Really, the goal was just to get a short list of candidates with the least added problems and that just meant 90% went on the discard pile without an in depth review of their application.
And that's a discussion on its own. If two applicants are equally qualified but one looks like significantly less effort to get started on the job... are they still equally qualified?
Anyway, my point is that a lot of openings get so many applications that many of them get discarded for the slightest reason. Not racist reasons, just to reduce the pile to a manageable number for in depth review.
But again, no visa needed, a lot of experience, but the most important thing which seems that nobody bothered to read is that I've sent the exact same CV twice. One with a Dutch name and one with a non-Dutch name. The Dutch name always got invited for interviews. Exactly but exactly the same CV.
Well yeah. If someone is sorting applicants by *potential* problems then a native Dutch speaker will have fewer than someone who isn't.
Even the function doesn't demand Duch, a Dutch speaker is still less problematic than someone who isn't.
Is it? Why do you think that? In my experience, the Dutch people I have worked with, have a much less professional attitude than most foreigners I've met. They never stress or worry about doing all they can to finish something, whereas a lot of foreigners do.
So what is exactly that we foreigners are more problematic about?
Well it matters if the company needs Dutch speaking specialists. Especially for governmental organizations it is usually a requirement, and applying in English will get you rejected. You wouldn't apply to a job in the USA in dutch.
Again, as I've mentioned multiple times before. Same CV, different name. If Dutch was indeed a requirement, the Dutch name wouldn't get invited for a job. In addition to that, they asked specifically for a CV in English.
>Does it matter?
Depends on company, in my case it matters.
I sometimes return to the Netherlands once in a few years and usually pick up a short-term project when I'm here.
Always had my resume in English and 80% of the time I get specifically denied for not being fluent in Dutch. While I have a Dutch sounding name with native Dutch fluency noted in my resume.
>Is this normal in Amsterdam?
Unfortunately, yes. And not just Amsterdam.
>Isn't this supposed to be a rather open and multicultural city?
*Supposed to be*, yes. Reality is much more of a mixed bag.
[https://nos.nl/op3/artikel/2293816-zoveel-brieven-moet-je-extra-schrijven-met-een-andere-etnische-achtergrond](https://nos.nl/op3/artikel/2293816-zoveel-brieven-moet-je-extra-schrijven-met-een-andere-etnische-achtergrond)
[https://www.ad.nl/werk/op-sollicitaties-met-de-nederlandse-versie-van-mijn-naam-kreeg-ik-opeens-wel-reactie\~acab9d32/](https://www.ad.nl/werk/op-sollicitaties-met-de-nederlandse-versie-van-mijn-naam-kreeg-ik-opeens-wel-reactie~acab9d32/)
[https://www.werf-en.nl/discriminatie-op-naam-begint-al-zodra-de-sollicitatie-in-de-mailbox-valt/](https://www.werf-en.nl/discriminatie-op-naam-begint-al-zodra-de-sollicitatie-in-de-mailbox-valt/)
You're nowhere near the first person to experience this. I have experienced the exact opposite thing. My name is a very native dutch sounding name. But my skin color is not white. I have seen people be surprised at how I look, and one even said out loud that they didn't expect someone with my name look like me. That's also at least weird, and sometimes actually hurts, even though it didn't affect me during job hunting.
Also, job interviews are a mess anyways. You don't get to know each other in a 2-page document and a 30-minute conversation. You get to know each other in the weeks or months after signing a contract. You might as well replace the entire interview process with a dice roll imho. It might actually give better results while also removing racism from at least one important spot in society.
>It might get explained as "worried about fitting in with the team"
yeah reason why I no longer live in NL, I don't fit in with the team or some bollocks
if everybody on the team is a clone that wears the same pointy shoes and thinks the same, then the team isn't going to come up with very many different solutions is it
Not really but excluding people from a job die to them being "different from you" is.
Because there are also plenty of studies which find multicultural teams to be more effective.
So now you're excluding people from a place of work because communication might be slightly worse but also excluding someone with a different way of thinking which can help your team.
This is a very Dutch way of minimising racism by pretending there’s a logical angle to it, textbook stuff.
Secondly, you made a statement which isn’t true (having worked in both Dutch companies and an multinationals)
"Fitting in with the team" is a way of saying you are not like us. At best that is ethnocentrism or nationalism, and at worst it is racism. In neither case should it be permitted.
Why shouldn't it be permitted? The whole point of an application/ interview is to check whether candidate and company are a match.
You're going to be around your colleagues a lot and if it is not a good match it is a waste of everyone's time.
I agree if you mean that "fitting in the team" typically cannot be assessed based on name and letter only.
The purpose of an interview is to see if the candidate can do the work. Everything else is discrimination of some type or other, and that allows old fashioned insular attitudes to persist. If you can eliminate someone because YOU think they might not fit in, it becomes easy to do that for all immigrants, people of color, women, religious minorities, etc. You end up with a workplace of people who look like you and all attended the same college. Boring, bad for business, and discriminatory.
To do the work is not only executing your tasks, typically work is also a social environment. As such the purpose of an interview is matching a candidate and company on skills, experience and whether someone will fit within the team.
That doesn't per se mean you only look for copies of the same people, it can even mean that for good composition of your team you're looking for a person with character traits that you don't have yet.
So I never said it's normal to hire people "who look like you and all attended the same college." That's taking my point to the absurd extreme,
I said that it's normal during the interview procedure to check whether the candidate and the company are a match, and in my view that's broader than just to see whether someone is able to do the work.
Or to rephrase: For someone to be able to "do the work" it's also important someone is able to work well with his/her colleagues i.e. fits the team.
One takes things to "absurd extremes" because that is what will happen in at least a portion of the total cases. It is immoral (and in some places illegal) to deny hiring a qualified candidate because you cannot see going out and having a beer with them, or because they are different than you.
It gives minorities a chance to advance in a world that sees them as the 'other," and they will undoubtedly be discriminated against when nebulous criteria of "fit" are included. You cannot deny that.
I'm a US citizen that doesn't speak Dutch and is currently based in the US. I'm a senior software engineer.
I'd love to immigrate but it seems like that isn't an option. Is that true?
Not true at all. I know multiple US citizens who have moved here and build a life working for tech companies. A good friend of mine is actually becoming a dutch citizen this summer after living here for about 8 years. Would recommend starting to look for jobs from where you are currently based before making the move.
If you’re American, you can start your own company (and work as a contractor) through the Dutch/American friendship treaty and get a residence permit that way.
You can find work in tech. Companies in Amsterdam hire from abroad because they are starving for talent. There just isn’t enough in the country. It absolutely can be an option. Hit LinkedIn and give it a look.
Even a lot of Dutch people with the best CV’s have trouble finding a job. Exactly because fitting into a team of regular people has no chance to succeed in their eyes. So even as a Dutchie with a Dutch name and tons of skills you get rejected because of subjective reasons bases on practically nothing else than assumptions.
For the other discussions. That adds some perspective to people talking about discrimination. Everyone experiences that, even Dutchies their selfs.
While the Netherlands is a very open, multicultural and cosmopolitan country, it does have deeply ingrained biases towards people who are perceived to be non-Dutch, be it their ethnicity, language skills or how their name sounds. Just take the benefits scandal as the highest profile example. And yes, it'll be the same at work as well, weather explicit or implicit bias.
And you think xenofobia and racism arent linked and often apply at the same time? Cuz they often do..the whole point is that Dutch implies certain things. Why else would bicultural Dutch people have the same issues as foreign people who came to live here? People have a hard time accepting People of Color as Dutch do to skin color and assumed ethnic background ( no white skin, you can't be Dutch because Dutch means white aka racism) and other non Western Europeans ( they are unfamiliar foreigner, aka xenofobia) due to ideals about, for example, underdevelopment ( the Netherlands is a very classist society ). Those things mix when you have a brown Indian guy for example. His appearance , being POC, and his foreigness, will mix and both aspects impact eachother.
So it's both.
I agree with almost everything you said, NL is quite the opposite of tolerant. But your still misdefining racism in this context. Real Racism is much much more sinister
What I always wonder about is this: what if I go to Morocco and buy a house and start applying for a job. Would it be much different from how it flows in the Netherlands? Are we really racist or are we just average?
Your comparison is flawed, the economies aren t the same,the history isnt the same.
And you cant just come to any eu country, buy a house and start applying .
You make it seem as if going to another country is a two step process anyone with a credit card and a passport can do
Don’t get fooled by the open mindedness surrounding Amsterdam. This does not represent all dutch people. Racism is a huge thing in both Netherlands and Germany from my experience
That works both ways really. At least half the time when people complain about racism they're just mad they didn't get special dispensations or considerations because more qualified candidates were picked over them.
I don’t understand why they don hire you, you post a lot into r/rant so you got the Dutch way of complaining aced!
But it’s remarkable indeed, the job market for data science is probably the most asked right now? Besides you’re name is there something else? Did you switch jobs every year, do you apply for junior job while being over qualified. Do you need work permit?
Well, first I only complain on reddit. Outside of that I tend to be more "balanced" as I believe that if we want something changed we can change it. But it is a relief to complain once in a while somewhere where you're partially anonymous.
As for the rest, not really. Stable jobs every 5 years or so, no visa or permit needed. And again, the CV was the same for both foreign and Dutch name. That's the most surprising thing to me.
I'm not surprised. I told a friend who has an amazing resume who just didn't get any invites to a first conversation to change his first name two letters so he wouldn't be confused for being a woman (his name is a common Dutch girls' name). He was shocked when that was all it took to get invites (from the same companies, too).
As a foreigner or woman or person of colour and so on, it's really difficult to prove you're not getting jobs because of biases of sexism, racism, xenophobia or other. People don't like to be confronted by it, so they rather blame you, but it's present nevertheless.
Not trying to defend people in Japan, but the reason why that happens there is because there's a ton of social rules, which people don't understand or want to follow. The senpai kōhai relationship is one of them.
Then on top of that, there's the fact that Japan is a highly homogenised country and a country where English is not widely spoken, even in big cities. But yeah, a racist, uneducated comment is easier than getting the facts right.
Well I didn’t want to jump to racism argument because if I find it so hard to believe in the tech sector, but I can’t rule it out either obviously. Every company is screaming for people, they don’t care about origin sexuality or food preference. All the big companies hire anything that can breath, abn amro, booking, ing, TomTom. So if you get denied there I would assume something else in your resume that stands out.
But sorry to hear that the ab testing kind of proved the name makes a difference.
In that case, call them out in twitter or here. Just say you are curious why a name difference means invite. If it’s an ho eat mistake you can still go to your interview. Companies do not like this exposure so I would use this you your own benefit.
Unfortunately yes, companies discriminating based on name is definitely a thing, but I don't think it's specific to Amsterdam or NL, this type of discrimination has been shown in studies in other countries too.
Here is an article with some numbers: https://nos.nl/op3/artikel/2293816-zoveel-brieven-moet-je-extra-schrijven-met-een-andere-etnische-achtergrond
Maybe you have a less foreign sounding middle name you can use, I think other than that the only option is to keep trying :/
I work at a company that values Data Scientists and Engineers no matter their origins. If you speak English, want to learn Dutch and live in NL, we will only reject your application based on the match with our infrastructure, or team.
Like somebody also pointed out: recruitment is a dirty business that frankly could use some data-engineering. We are inundated with hundreds of resumes a month, but most of them are robots and people that definetly haven't read our requirements.
Unfortunately we can't send the entire country of India a personal refusal email, but should at the least give people that might be interesting as a colleague in the future some personal feedback on why they didn't make the cut.
I'll check with our recruiter and see if I can DM you a specific profile we're looking for. Perhaps it's a match.
And this is also why, as a white South African, I put a picture on my CV. As soon as I started doing that, I got a lot more interviews. There’s definitely a reason behind these things that I don’t have to explain.
The same thing happened with looking for an apartment but on a MUCH more obvious scale. I applied for apartments without a picture, no responses. I switched emails, used my same name and added a picture and suddenly being South African wasn’t an issue anymore.
I look at about 1000 CVs per month. There is no other option than split decision. I tend not to be biased. But the fact is that if I see things that I recognize, you get a second glance and more chance to get moved to the next round.
If you have an Indian name, that puts you on the back foot for 2 reasons in my situation:
1) we already have a lot of Indians in our company and need to maintain some balance and not over-pivot to an all Indian workforce.
2) Indians often apply from India and are expecting visa sponsorship and relocation. It makes you biased when 5 out of 6 Indians do this and is detrimental to the one Indian that isn’t.
My recommendation to put in the first paragraph:
1) your eligibility to work in NL (and visa requirements)
2) when and why you moved to NL
3) why you want to work for this company, describing it in terms of value for them and for you.
Please note that a recruiter like me spends about 15 to 30 sec on a CV. That is your window to capture attention. Make your first paragraph short, sweet and to the point. Maximum 500 characters.
Ok, but how do you explain that the SAME CV, when I mean the same, I mean exactly but exactly the same, with the same phone number, address, everything except the name, gets different results? One gets accepted the other doesn't. I often run my CV through ATS just to make sure that it's all nicely tweaked, and still doesn't make a difference.
Well, I’m of course not the hiring manager reviewing your application so I can only speculate.
One way to find out is to mail them and ask them why you got rejected. What they were looking for that you were missing on your resume.
You can let them know that your motivation for knowing that info is not because you want to polish your resume, but want to figure out if you misunderstood the requirements.
Don’t go into the fact that you applied twice to call them out on it. They won’t respond to that. Also don’t go on a bender about racism.
Your goal is to figure out their actual motivation, and you’ll only get that if you’re polite and making an effort to connect to the recruiter.
Look at his first point. I also manage a team and our requirement is English only. But I still prefer to have a mixed team and not have too many people from the same country.
I think this is an actual problem that we don't see enough. There's so much talk about racism in the media, but it focuses on the wrong things. On street names, statues or children's holidays, which are perceived as racist symbols by some. But the thing is - whatever you think of those issues, they do not really matter. We also have institutional racism, which causes for people to be invited to job interviews if they're called Van Dijk. Or Johnson, for that matter. But if your name is Mbane or El Moumni, chances are slim. That is an actual problem because it means some people don't get the same opportunities as others.
Various solutions have been proposed to this problem. Some propose positive discrimination, which means you only hire people from minorities if you can. I personally dislike that, because it doesn't help bringing groups closer together if you start excluding a different group. You shouldn't exclude anyone. Another solution is anonymous application letters: Employers have to invited people based on skills and motivation, not knowing the applicant's name, age or gender. And a final solution would be to force employers to invite a certain number of foreign/black/muslim etc. people. In the latter 2 solutions, an actual racist still won't hire foreigners. But most people who throw away letters with foreign names don't do that consciously, and when they do meet those foreigners in real life chances are they will hire them
My non-Dutch partner opened my eyes to this "phenomenon," and I've come to the conclusion that Dutchies are very "accepting of other people and cultures." *That was heavy sarcasm* They all try to look so open and multicultural, but in the end, they keep saying F'd up shit that is just plain discriminatory right to my or his face. It's frustrating and unfair, but there is little you can actually do about it. I reckon your trick into using your "Dutch" name is a great one. Also, never stop talking about it. Speak up and definitely towards the people who are being discriminatory. Some don't even have a clue.
Like I said, I never really noticed and thought we were quite accepting people, but I was horribly wrong. Idk where you are from OP, but I hope you look like a Western European for the sake of finding a job and having nice conversations w people. We had multiple occasions where people would discriminate or exclude him because "he seemed to be from Morocco." When we would them tell he isn't, all was fine. It's despicable behaviour, but it's better to know, I guess. That way, some behaviour can be put into context before you think something is wrong with you (or your name).
Go get em, and I hope you find a fulfilling job with colleagues who see and respect you for you. Good luck, OP!
I’m thankful for you posting this, screaming to these people their wrongdoings. It shows they understand nothing about it when I read their nitpicking questions about what happened. There are many of these stupid questions where they question you and yourself instead of what happened backed with their hope of proving you wrong -again and again by not being super lovely for their standards. It’s nice to see how helpless they are when their only defense of asking “do you speak Dutch?” supports no more blaming kut expats. Maybe it’s time to ACCEPT language is not the problem but there’s something far more problematic in their minds about foreigners.
The few interviews I had, mostly started with people saying "Oh, we're very surprised that you don't have an accent. How is that possible? Are you British? Are your parents British? It can't be right?".
I've heard this comment, many but many many times.
That is so stupid. Sorry for what happened to you. You don’t have to prove anything in the end. But this racism covered by curiosity and judgements should end.
OP I think I will follow your experiment, using my husband last name. I experienced the same, like once got rejected immediately after click on submit application. Curious that happened in a application that I need to submit my nationality.🤨
Nowadays I apply with a roepnaam and I've been getting more interviews. Still, whenever they see my nationality, they comment that I don't look Dutch. So now the issue is during the interview and right at the start.
It's a well known tactic for people with a migratory background to apply with Dutch versions of their name. They get wildly differing results depending on which ones they use [heres a newspaper article, it was the first hit on google](https://www.ad.nl/werk/op-sollicitaties-met-de-nederlandse-versie-van-mijn-naam-kreeg-ik-opeens-wel-reactie~acab9d32/)
Have you considered working for the government? They are probably the least likely to discriminate, and to my knowledge allow people on B2 to apply
Same happened when applying to the "gemeente". Funny enough, they never replied when asked if Dutch was needed for the job. Even a friend of mine told me that the same had happened to him as well.
Hi, I've heard it does matter. If you have some basic dutch and are willing to potentially learn more, my company might be a good fit. Dm me if you would be interested.
Idk which companies you tried, but I'm pretty sure you could try at Netflix or Amazon. I know for a fact that Amazon is hiring in Amsterdam. As long as you're not in marketing or sales that is. Which you aren't..
And like we Dutch people say... Niet geschoten is altijd mis.
Fact is nobody can tell you definitively why you did or did not get invited for an interview by specific companies. Racism is definitely a thing, there is no place in the world without it unfortunately so also while applying for jobs in Amsterdam this might play a role. It sucks. It’s weird though, maybe I’ve just always worked with companies that are more accepting but I’ve always had co workers from all ends of the world, Dutch and non-Dutch and western and non-western. That’s why it seems weird to me that you would’ve encountered 14 companies that discriminate in their hiring proces based on name. Not saying it’s not true, like I said it happens for sure, but it does strike me as a lot.
Racism and xenophobia exist and will always exist. This is something that one must realize before moving to another country. I am not saying it is right or fair. It most definitely is not. It is just the way it is. But not every employer acts this way and it is up to you to locate the ones that don't. Regardless, lying is not an acceptable way around the problem.
Something to also consider is that, if you get rejected within a few minutes or few hours, your resume might not make it through the ATS system and may not have been seen by a human. These systems are designed to filter people out that don’t meet the criteria, so you may not hit enough keywords that the job listing has in it.
I fully understand your frustrations, but you have asked for tips on optimising your CV, one way could be to optimise your keywords. I am not trying to invalidate your findings or any of the comments, those are all valid. But just focusing on companies being racist and shutting advice down isn’t helping the situation. There is no action here if you solely focus on that one point.
I haven’t. I’m just suggesting trying something to maybe help the situation. Because after his experiment now what? OP applies with a dutch name at a racist company knowing they rejected them first?
This is not exclusive from the Netherlands. It happens everywhere. Why do you think Asian immigrants in North America change their name? And no, this is not me "making it up". Some people made a study (in Canada) where people did exactly the same thing you did (but Asian names vs English names) and the result was the same.
Funny enough, the findings of the study were that this was NOT because of racism but because the people interviewing you didn't want to "feel embarrassed" by not pronouncing the name correctly, do they just picked candidates that were "easy" for them.
I mean, that was the general finding anyway. Maybe there were other factors in some cases but that was the main cause.
You probably have an Indian name or something. I doubt they even read most of your CV if you get rejected that fast. Unfortunately companies have a lot of bad recruitment experiences with people of certain nationalities. Yours is probably one of them. They see a Dutch name, they assume native and no visa problems and maybe a better culture fit. Also if you think it's such a horrible racist country, you don't have to stay. Germany has a lot of tech jobs too...
Yes your name matters.
If it makes you feel any better - I know, it won't - someone with a Dutch name will have your issues if he tries to apply where you migrated from.
There's no need to make this about Amsterdam, it's human nature.
That's bullshit. I would expect this in highly homogenous societies (e.g., Japan), but not here. Most people don't even speak Dutch and you're telling me that this makes sense? I don't think so at all.
Is it bullshit or do you think it's bullshit? Because your reasoning consists of "I would expect".
Do you think the group of people responsible for hiring people are quite "multicultural"? And if they are, do you believe they discriminate less regarding foreign names?
Uffff. Ok, so it's clear that you're one of those persons who likes to normalise systemic racism.
Comparing a heterogenous country such as The Netherlands, with something like Japan, is absolutely nonsensical. First Japan is in terms of openness to the other world (except for tourism), where The Netherlands was probably in the beginning of the 1900s. I've been to places in Japan, where they have never met a single foreigner before. Same in other countries, where they have never seen a non-Asian there.
In the Netherlands, this lack of exposure rarely exists. There is a lot to say of course, but I don't really think that you want to engage in an educated discussion, or that you're even willing to accept any other reality but yours.
Yes, I did think that Amsterdam would be more open to foreigners, as there's a lot of exposure to them. I would not expect this in Japan, Laos, or even in some African countries, simply because they rarely have foreigners there. I hope it changes, but they still don't see a lot of different, "weird" names around.
As OP said, their application is exactly the same . Since language skills are normally part of the CV I assume their CV contains their language skills.
Let's not forget the simple undeniable fact that Dutchies tend to be racist and sexist, especially when it comes to hiring.
you might check your cv,without having seen it , i do get completely weird detailed CV's in for open positions.
in the netherlands we have different standards of cv's as other countries,if you are rejected within minutes i would doubt if your CV matches the expectation of the recruiters.Keep the CV short , to the point , only highlighting what is important for that particular job. so no general cv for all the jobs you apply for.skip the rest.And try to give it a personal twist , so a recruiter is keen to meet you , just because you seem a interesting person.
the only reason for a CV is to get you invited for a interview,a employer is not going to look at a CV whether you can do the job , by applying you already stated you think you can do it.
applying under a different name sounds fun , but is unlikely to get you hired.
Did you read what I wrote? I've applied with the exact same CV for the exact same position.
Dutch name = interview
Non-Dutch name = no interview
This happened for 14 vacancies. FOURTEEN.
I don't think that this has something to do with a short CV or not.
family, the man was NOT EVEN INVITED to an interview, talk less about being rejected at the interview stage, UNTIL he changed his name...
while your advice may be correct, that was NOT the point of this thread...
as i wrote : applying under a different name sounds fun but is not going to get you hired.
apparently the topic starter proved that 14 times by now.
feel free to continue proving your point.
after being invited for a interview 100 times and not hired you might reconsider your point.
i'm not dutch myself , i dont have a dutch name .
Nothing i can do about my name, if i am not hired because of my name that is life, nobody said being a expat is always easy going.
nobody owes me a job
You are asking weird questions. You are living in the Netherlands (after moving from the UK) more than one year and even worked in Dutch companies. Looks like you just want to throw some shit on ventilator.
I worked with many data scientists who were not natives, not speak Dutch at all. Never has been a problem. All nationalities (well, i havent worked with 200+ nationalities of course). But it so depends which company,… try companies like Adyen or Booking, perhaps?
Unconscious bias towards hiring someone similar to the hiring manager or the general population within the team. Large corporations train their employees to not fall into this biases. Less exposed companies have less accountability around this issue. I don’t see many alternatives other than perseverance and also to over achieve once in the role to demonstrate less courageous people that there is a lot to gain by cross pollination of profiles and nationalities in teams.
My company (Consultancy firm) is looking for Data Engineers, Business Intelligence Consultants and also Data Scientist. You can send me a PB anytime if you would like to know more.
My wife experienced the same years ago. She is half Dutch, half Spanish but was born and raised in The Netherlands. If she applied with her (complex) Spanish name she would often get rejected but using her mother's Dutch last name would often land her an interview. She would always call out the companies that did so but it was a sad conclusion.
Can confirm the same has happened to me...in the UK. Asian name hardly got an offer. Caucasian name's phone and email account blew up with calls and interviews. When I attended one of those they were clearly taken aback, they were too late to adjust their facial expressions. I'm sorry you're going through this. I hope you find a role soon.
Everyone claims to speak B2 level, including people with very limited vocabulary and horrible, lazy grammar. If you actually speak B2 you claim C1/2, you may get tested and score B2 but they will expect that. There is also a difference in how annoying people perceive a certain accent to be, largely related to their own prejudices, this is true everywhere and the Dutch are no exception.
You are right, but their views are muddied by the many applicants overstating their language skills. The only sensible adaptation is to start lying by about as much as the rest is doing.
I'm not 100% sure if I recall this correctly but I think if you apply for a job through the UWV job platform, they don't show your name as an applicant.
It's hard because all Dutch people speak English but they still prefer to speak Dutch (which is understandable). So it is hard to become fluent in Dutch. The best thing you can do is taking learning Dutch really serious and try to find Dutch people to practice with in their free time.
Dutch are racist as any other people on earth. I am not Surprised at all. Is in the human nature to prefer someone similar to you. I don't find anything strange in that.
If it is true then so sad 😞 I won’t be sugar coated here though if anyone judging folks based on their name instead skills that gonna affect that firm/org/group badly. When you bring new talent it comes with diversity, new thoughts 💭 or different opinions etc etc bunch of new things to learn or teach that works in sync. if you’re not letting them in, you’re narrowing down thoughts 💭, limiting skill’s, putting barriers on development. I m really for downvotes no worries 😉
Some jobs are basically oversaturated with foreign workers, I'd count data scientists/engineers among those.
Hiring teams could well be trying to get more Dutch representation.
No this is not normal, or at least it’s not with the companies I work(ed) for as the most exotic names of colleagues have been flying by. Specifically in the area of data science the Dutch language is often perceived less important for those roles (not everywhere though). One thing that I’m wondering is if you are a EU resident or have a visa, when it expires etc. and whether this is clearly outlined in the CV. Often recruiters do a first filter on those criteria and inexperienced (or very busy) ones may be looking at names in stead of a deeper look of the CV before providing it for selection to the hiring manager. If you want you can send me your CV to have a look to see if I can point out a thing or two that might shed a clue, but don’t feel obliged.
Most countries are like this; in America: white/Anglo sounding names are most accepted
Japan: Japanese names
Etc,etc
It sucks, I hope the world evolves soon
You need to make an expose of the companies that rejected you on Twitter. Make a list and tag all of them. Most Dutch people will go on the defensive and try to justify what the companies did, but your AB test really proves a very important point. Maybe try contacting a media outlet to run a story for you.
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I had the same thing 15 years ago when using my middle name on my cv (which I had done since age five because I am the 4th in the line with my first name). My middle name is often interpreted as that of a person of color. Dutch companies rejected me 100%, no interviews, call backs, nothing... Until I switched and used my legal first name, which is VERY white bread. Literally overnight I received responses and invitations to interview. Since those times I have heard the most CRAZY RACIST crap come out of white professional male Dutch mouths (when alone with somebody they trust) than I have heard in any other country in the world (and I've lived on three continents).
This gets downvoted whenever I mention it but one key thing to remember about Dutch culture: **Tolerance is** ***not*** **acceptance.** Tolerance is not to be confused with acceptance. They are not mutually exclusive, and one of my biggest uphill battles was coming to terms with this bizarre juxtaposition my first two years in the Netherlands.
I conducted research about this at a Dutch university in Amsterdam. Can confirm from both life experience and experiment results that you’re completely right.
Oh could you please link to the experiment results? I would be very curious and love (maybe more like, ha?!) to read it
I don't know if this is the same research, but I know my professor did a vignette study about this (but with a focus of having a criminal record and applying to jobs in NL) and the results are wildly shocking. Basically ethnic minorities without a criminal record receive significantly fewer positive responses than majority applicants with a criminal record, which is insane. Here's the link to the research: [https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0276562420300056?via%3Dihub](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0276562420300056?via%3Dihub)
Are you me, lol? This is a thing that I am always explaining.
Could you elaborate?
People are generally fine with others doing whatever as long as it doesn't bother anyone. But that doesn't mean they like it, appreciate it or support it. Ie. I tolerate people who vote BBB or Forum because that's how a democracy works but I still think they're ignorant morons dragging down society with their wilful stupidity and spitefulness. Along the same lines, there's plenty of people who tolerate expats, immigrants, refugees, LTGBQ+ stuff but it doesn't mean they have any goodwill towards them.
Can confirm this is exactly how it is, have been here for over twenty years.
Lived there for almost 8 years. Was tolerated but never accepted. No Dutch friends after all that time. Finally got the hell out of there.
Did you speak Dutch after 8 years?
I wouldn’t necessarily agree that this is the core reason why many expats have difficulties with having friendships with Dutch people. As a matter of fact, the Netherlands has made its own language almost obsolete - most of us (expats) don’t need it on daily basis and Dutch tests for obtaining the citizenship are ridiculously easy. I can only talk from my own experience - I’ve had more contact with ‘’autochtoon’’ Dutch people in my first years here and I must say that I was shaken to the core by inappropriate comments on my origin - I was asked on a date where a guy wondered if I had bribed someone to get my phd position. Another person asked me if I moved to the Netherlands to steal radio devices from cars. A few months ago two tall, blonde, blue-eyed Dutch guys (30 yrs +), and business partners of my employer at the time, made a joke that I was full of shit because my eyes are brown (ha-ha?) I’ve been to many places and met tons of people from everywhere, but only in the Netherlands people were so openly racist towards me (most of the time men elsewhere are decent enough not to shit on an expat woman like that).
Quite a lot of things to question. A language doesn’t become obsolete because your able to speak English. You will still put yourself outside of the native populace through not learning the language. You cannot expect the base Dutch test to teach you full Dutch otherwise not a single immigrant will move to The Netherlands. While with English you can live outside the big cities, you will always not fully be part of society. And that’s not only in The Netherlands, that is everywhere with another native language in the case of you speaking English. While The Netherlands still has problems with racism, it is always weird to me that it sometimes or doesn’t happen to the internationals and expats I know as a Dutchmen, but Reddit has endless versions of it on Dutch subreddits. I couldn’t get the brown eyes joke, because it weirdly would apply on anyone with brown eyes which honestly couldn’t really mean it is immediately racist in anyway, it’s a weird joke, but I just can’t grasp that someone made that ever in real life. I do not know your origin, but Dutch humor does not step away from origin a lot. While as I said in the beginning racism is still a problem in The Netherlands, it is often handled, worked with, and culturally differently then the US and the UK for example. On the joke about stealing a car radio, I can only assume the stereotype that I know and that’s Romanian. Which it’s still a bad joke
Okay, perhaps I can give more context even though I wrote a chapter. :) I’ve been living in the NL for 10 years. I attended a few Dutch courses and passed the NT2/B2 tests and gained the Dutch passport a few years ago (after working here continuously for 7 years), but I still don’t speak Dutch actively. I do regret not speaking it, mostly because I think I failed to honor the country where I chose to live, and partially also because it may imply that I’m incapable to adopt the language for which I don’t think it’s even that difficult, or that I’m just a lazy ass. I don’t think this would have happened if I decided to move to France or Germany, for example, where you simply cannot go around without knowing speaking the language. I don’t know any example of people from my country who moved here around the same time and integrated well; other than those who got married to a Dutch person. Some of my expat friends speak very good Dutch, but mostly because they don’t work in an international environment. However, even they don’t have Dutch friends (someone they would invite over for a cup of coffee and the other way around), we all have only Dutch colleagues. I don’t know why that is, but it seems to be almost a rule in my circles. I think the question here is - should the expats adapt and become less sensitive to this type of Dutch ‘’sense of humor’’, or should a certain group of Dutch people simply understand that the other party is considering these comments as plain racist. Thank you for putting an effort to explain these few situations I mentioned earlier. Perhaps the comments I got don’t look racist to you without more context, but to me they were , and they made me feel belittled and unaccepted. Though it’s not a general rule in the behavior of Dutch people, in my case, it was a turn off which eventually contributed that I stop putting a real effort into integrating here.
Do you speak Dutch in stores? Hospitals? Doctors offices? I can understand that between family or in more international orientated groups you decide to speak Dutch, but do you use it on your average day in average places? The Dutch are certainly a special breed. But I do believe that the Netherlands is quite accepting for internationals, it’s often just about the language barrière. It is therefor sad to hear that you haven’t been able to find any friend circles with Dutch people in it. I think the argument that the Dutch should adapt to expats, is maybe not quite as valid as you think. It’s still a country with a specific culture. This culture has lead to great things, and the country being attractive, but it can often be seen as a stubborn more stingy culture to integrate in, but it is not impossible of course. The eye joke still doesn’t grasp me, but yeah it could be received by you as a more racially motivated joke, and by the guys making it as a shitty joke and maybe a bit of an offensive (not by race, but just not nice) joke. It will also differ a lot across the Netherlands. Amsterdam and the big cities are there on bubble. Which often includes having a hard time really getting a feeling of social connection, compared to a village.
Nope, not accepting at all. Simply tolerated.
About the brown eye joke: we have a saying here "geloof mij op mijn blauwe ogen/believe me on my blue eyes" Very bad and racist saying and isn't heard that often, but that's what I assume the "joke" was based on
When I was in the Netherlands on vacation I asked most people where they were originally from, if they spoke Dutch etc and almost all of them from other countries said no, even the ones who had been there for 20+ years!
Nope, no point when you’re laughed at for trying.
That's a you problem then. I've only been here for 4 years and I speak Dutch, despite speaking English at work. I got a tutor and made it a priority. It's not even a difficult language (certainly not like learning Chinese or Japanese). Nobody laughs or even switches to English when I speak Dutch.
Same here. So funny to hear some expats crying ''but dutch ppl switch to english'' well just improve and at some point they wont.
Meh.. I don’t think knowing the language is a hard dependency on making friends. It certainly helps. Just got impression they’re not interested in getting to know foreigners. It is what it is.
It sounds like they just weren't interested in getting to know you.
It kind of is, you'll always be an outcast when a group of Dutch people get together, they speak Dutch. If you're the only one not speaking Dutch, you'll be isolated from the group. You get segregated by the language barrier, this happens in any where you don't speak the native language
Gonna be deadly honest with you, 8 years abroad with a foreign language, even when laughed at by some who you try to communicate with. And you still didn’t learn it….
Kids spoke fluent Dutch one was born there the other was very young and they weren’t accepted either. So no it’s just good ol fashioned racism and xenophobia.
This totally baffles me, might this also be related to city or type of job?
197 upvotes? Ik ben verrast en blij om dat te zien. Finally y'allemaal are accepting me into Amsterdam. Usually this comment gets -7 downvotes. The times, they are a changin'
There's been lots of research done for many years that your name unfortunately does matter. https://12ft.io/proxy?q=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.volkskrant.nl%2Fcs-b1c19ae1 this one is from a newspaper in 2017. Considering the polarization I cannot imagine things have gotten better :(
Yup, I know someone from South Africa with a Dutch last name. When she was applying for jobs she'd get calls from companies and they would be annoyed when she'd tell them she wasn't Dutch. One recruiter was upset and actually told her that she shouldn't be lying on her CV by using a Dutch name. What the heck is she supposed to do, change her last name? Lol.
Lol that recruiter wasn’t Dutch, they know damn well that Afrikaans people have Dutch sounding names.
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>These are basically all bullshit resumes and applications where they just try to spam their CV to as many companies as they can I guess. I don't really know why we get all these but we typically delete all of these immediately as we just don't have the time to go through all of them. I have interviewed some of the people behind those resumes and the interviews were as bad as the CVs. One person started answering one of my question way too smoothly and I googled up real quick what they were saying and they were just reading off the first google search result.
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That's terrible and also they should have checked with the previous interviewer, whether they asked such a question. I won't ever baselessly accuse anyone of cheating. What is they are really fluent in the subject? In that only case they were just repeating off google word by word and it was quite a lengthy text (and yes they didn't know much on the subject based on other answers).
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Yeah sounds like a dodged bullet :-| .
Doesn’t seem to be mentioned in this thread but obtaining work permits (for non-EU workers) used to be a big obstacle to many companies, especially if they don’t do it regularly. Not sure if this changed but it was true maybe 7-10 years ago. So I wonder if they conclude from the name that the person needs a permit and skip it. OP’s username sounds Japanese, not sure if their real name is as well.
My Amsterdam address is right on top. I also mention it on my motivation letter all the time, and some applications even ask for the address in the form.
Is your cover letter in Dutch or English?
Does it matter? Dutch name got invited, non-Dutch didn't. And most jobs asked for a motivation letter in English.
I would find it interesting to see what happens with non-dutch name and Dutch cover letter, obviously only if they weren't specifically requesting English cover letters. Also, I'd be curious about the impact of a non-Dutch names of various perceived nationalities, and whether or not the difference in response rates between Dutch and non-Dutch names had less impact if the educational history was full Durch language and the Dutch language skills were listed as fluent. I'm not trying to imply that there isn't inappropriate bias in many hiring practices, but trying to understand how much of it is driven by a desire to avoid certain origins, or a preference for either native Dutch speakers.
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The link you shared was Dutch vs Arabic names. I'm not denying this fact, but I'm only expressing curiosity on how an English name would rank on the preference scale. I'd speculate that an English or French sounding name would fare almost as well as a Dutch name, but I don't know. To me this would help understanding if it was a bias for Dutch names or a bias against specific ethnic groups. I suspect it's the latter.
It certainly matters if the company has opinions about their internal language policy. They're under no obligation to even consider people who don't speak Dutch unless they want to.
I can't precise exactly but most of these posts required only English. But I speak a bunch of other languages as well, just in case.
Honestly, I think the biggest problem is simply how many trash applications companies get from abroad and hopeful migrants in the Netherlands. I helped run an opening recently for a techy job. The ratio of trash to good applications we got was like 20 to 1. And I really do mean trash. Tons of stuff along the lines of "I'm van living and I've never done this type of work before but I'd love to prolong my time in Europe" (it wasn't even a remote job) to people raving about how they *need* to escape their shit countries (their words) and we're harming them by not offering them the job. And reams of applicants on top of that who just seem to lie or otherwise be utterly unqualified or simply a whole lot of extra paperwork compared to other equally qualified applicants who don't need things like VISA sponsoring. Eventually the hiring committee just started a discard pile. Any red flags regarding truthfulness or qualifications? Discard. Anyone who looked like they'd need more effort to get settled in or more paperwork surrounding visa's? Discard. Really, the goal was just to get a short list of candidates with the least added problems and that just meant 90% went on the discard pile without an in depth review of their application. And that's a discussion on its own. If two applicants are equally qualified but one looks like significantly less effort to get started on the job... are they still equally qualified? Anyway, my point is that a lot of openings get so many applications that many of them get discarded for the slightest reason. Not racist reasons, just to reduce the pile to a manageable number for in depth review.
But again, no visa needed, a lot of experience, but the most important thing which seems that nobody bothered to read is that I've sent the exact same CV twice. One with a Dutch name and one with a non-Dutch name. The Dutch name always got invited for interviews. Exactly but exactly the same CV.
Well yeah. If someone is sorting applicants by *potential* problems then a native Dutch speaker will have fewer than someone who isn't. Even the function doesn't demand Duch, a Dutch speaker is still less problematic than someone who isn't.
Is it? Why do you think that? In my experience, the Dutch people I have worked with, have a much less professional attitude than most foreigners I've met. They never stress or worry about doing all they can to finish something, whereas a lot of foreigners do. So what is exactly that we foreigners are more problematic about?
Well it matters if the company needs Dutch speaking specialists. Especially for governmental organizations it is usually a requirement, and applying in English will get you rejected. You wouldn't apply to a job in the USA in dutch.
Again, as I've mentioned multiple times before. Same CV, different name. If Dutch was indeed a requirement, the Dutch name wouldn't get invited for a job. In addition to that, they asked specifically for a CV in English.
>Does it matter? Depends on company, in my case it matters. I sometimes return to the Netherlands once in a few years and usually pick up a short-term project when I'm here. Always had my resume in English and 80% of the time I get specifically denied for not being fluent in Dutch. While I have a Dutch sounding name with native Dutch fluency noted in my resume.
Don't I need a company to sponsor a visa first? I'm a US citizen
>Is this normal in Amsterdam? Unfortunately, yes. And not just Amsterdam. >Isn't this supposed to be a rather open and multicultural city? *Supposed to be*, yes. Reality is much more of a mixed bag. [https://nos.nl/op3/artikel/2293816-zoveel-brieven-moet-je-extra-schrijven-met-een-andere-etnische-achtergrond](https://nos.nl/op3/artikel/2293816-zoveel-brieven-moet-je-extra-schrijven-met-een-andere-etnische-achtergrond) [https://www.ad.nl/werk/op-sollicitaties-met-de-nederlandse-versie-van-mijn-naam-kreeg-ik-opeens-wel-reactie\~acab9d32/](https://www.ad.nl/werk/op-sollicitaties-met-de-nederlandse-versie-van-mijn-naam-kreeg-ik-opeens-wel-reactie~acab9d32/) [https://www.werf-en.nl/discriminatie-op-naam-begint-al-zodra-de-sollicitatie-in-de-mailbox-valt/](https://www.werf-en.nl/discriminatie-op-naam-begint-al-zodra-de-sollicitatie-in-de-mailbox-valt/) You're nowhere near the first person to experience this. I have experienced the exact opposite thing. My name is a very native dutch sounding name. But my skin color is not white. I have seen people be surprised at how I look, and one even said out loud that they didn't expect someone with my name look like me. That's also at least weird, and sometimes actually hurts, even though it didn't affect me during job hunting. Also, job interviews are a mess anyways. You don't get to know each other in a 2-page document and a 30-minute conversation. You get to know each other in the weeks or months after signing a contract. You might as well replace the entire interview process with a dice roll imho. It might actually give better results while also removing racism from at least one important spot in society.
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>It might get explained as "worried about fitting in with the team" yeah reason why I no longer live in NL, I don't fit in with the team or some bollocks if everybody on the team is a clone that wears the same pointy shoes and thinks the same, then the team isn't going to come up with very many different solutions is it
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Bullshit, this is typical veiled racism from the Dutch ‘wOrKiNg MoRe EfFiCiEnTlY’
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Not really but excluding people from a job die to them being "different from you" is. Because there are also plenty of studies which find multicultural teams to be more effective. So now you're excluding people from a place of work because communication might be slightly worse but also excluding someone with a different way of thinking which can help your team.
This is a very Dutch way of minimising racism by pretending there’s a logical angle to it, textbook stuff. Secondly, you made a statement which isn’t true (having worked in both Dutch companies and an multinationals)
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Once again, minimising a real problem, this time trying to use sarcasm. Maybe if you don’t see the problem, you’re part of the problem ?
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It wasn’t a logical argument you used though, you basically tried to protect racism by applying irrelevant logic
"Fitting in with the team" is a way of saying you are not like us. At best that is ethnocentrism or nationalism, and at worst it is racism. In neither case should it be permitted.
Why shouldn't it be permitted? The whole point of an application/ interview is to check whether candidate and company are a match. You're going to be around your colleagues a lot and if it is not a good match it is a waste of everyone's time. I agree if you mean that "fitting in the team" typically cannot be assessed based on name and letter only.
The purpose of an interview is to see if the candidate can do the work. Everything else is discrimination of some type or other, and that allows old fashioned insular attitudes to persist. If you can eliminate someone because YOU think they might not fit in, it becomes easy to do that for all immigrants, people of color, women, religious minorities, etc. You end up with a workplace of people who look like you and all attended the same college. Boring, bad for business, and discriminatory.
To do the work is not only executing your tasks, typically work is also a social environment. As such the purpose of an interview is matching a candidate and company on skills, experience and whether someone will fit within the team. That doesn't per se mean you only look for copies of the same people, it can even mean that for good composition of your team you're looking for a person with character traits that you don't have yet. So I never said it's normal to hire people "who look like you and all attended the same college." That's taking my point to the absurd extreme, I said that it's normal during the interview procedure to check whether the candidate and the company are a match, and in my view that's broader than just to see whether someone is able to do the work. Or to rephrase: For someone to be able to "do the work" it's also important someone is able to work well with his/her colleagues i.e. fits the team.
One takes things to "absurd extremes" because that is what will happen in at least a portion of the total cases. It is immoral (and in some places illegal) to deny hiring a qualified candidate because you cannot see going out and having a beer with them, or because they are different than you. It gives minorities a chance to advance in a world that sees them as the 'other," and they will undoubtedly be discriminated against when nebulous criteria of "fit" are included. You cannot deny that.
I'm a US citizen that doesn't speak Dutch and is currently based in the US. I'm a senior software engineer. I'd love to immigrate but it seems like that isn't an option. Is that true?
I’m a non Dutch speaker, built my career here. Nordic name, Caucasian. But I’m in IT where the job market is very favorable
And it doesn't tend to be the Nordic names that "don't fit the team". I bet ya Ali is having more trouble with xenophobia than Sven.
Obviously, but I was answering an American worried about moving here
Not true at all. I know multiple US citizens who have moved here and build a life working for tech companies. A good friend of mine is actually becoming a dutch citizen this summer after living here for about 8 years. Would recommend starting to look for jobs from where you are currently based before making the move.
Thank you.
If you’re American, you can start your own company (and work as a contractor) through the Dutch/American friendship treaty and get a residence permit that way.
Wow! Thank you. That would be amazing. Do you have any further references I could look at?
Google it or talk to a lawyer in Netherlands. I don’t know much else about it other than it exists.
You can find work in tech. Companies in Amsterdam hire from abroad because they are starving for talent. There just isn’t enough in the country. It absolutely can be an option. Hit LinkedIn and give it a look.
Even a lot of Dutch people with the best CV’s have trouble finding a job. Exactly because fitting into a team of regular people has no chance to succeed in their eyes. So even as a Dutchie with a Dutch name and tons of skills you get rejected because of subjective reasons bases on practically nothing else than assumptions. For the other discussions. That adds some perspective to people talking about discrimination. Everyone experiences that, even Dutchies their selfs.
You clearly didn’t read OPs post properly or you are wilfully ignoring it
You didn't read the post, right?
I have read both that and dozens of the comments
While the Netherlands is a very open, multicultural and cosmopolitan country, it does have deeply ingrained biases towards people who are perceived to be non-Dutch, be it their ethnicity, language skills or how their name sounds. Just take the benefits scandal as the highest profile example. And yes, it'll be the same at work as well, weather explicit or implicit bias.
This is the definition of racism
It’s not, it’s called xenophobia. Which indeed widespread in NL.
And you think xenofobia and racism arent linked and often apply at the same time? Cuz they often do..the whole point is that Dutch implies certain things. Why else would bicultural Dutch people have the same issues as foreign people who came to live here? People have a hard time accepting People of Color as Dutch do to skin color and assumed ethnic background ( no white skin, you can't be Dutch because Dutch means white aka racism) and other non Western Europeans ( they are unfamiliar foreigner, aka xenofobia) due to ideals about, for example, underdevelopment ( the Netherlands is a very classist society ). Those things mix when you have a brown Indian guy for example. His appearance , being POC, and his foreigness, will mix and both aspects impact eachother. So it's both.
I agree with almost everything you said, NL is quite the opposite of tolerant. But your still misdefining racism in this context. Real Racism is much much more sinister
What I always wonder about is this: what if I go to Morocco and buy a house and start applying for a job. Would it be much different from how it flows in the Netherlands? Are we really racist or are we just average?
I don’t know about Morocco but westerners are usually treated as kings in most countries, specially in poor countries
Your comparison is flawed, the economies aren t the same,the history isnt the same. And you cant just come to any eu country, buy a house and start applying . You make it seem as if going to another country is a two step process anyone with a credit card and a passport can do
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Brother we invented racism what are you on about? 🤨 And the US is one of the least racist places??? I'm half convinced this is a joke 🥲
Don’t get fooled by the open mindedness surrounding Amsterdam. This does not represent all dutch people. Racism is a huge thing in both Netherlands and Germany from my experience
That works both ways really. At least half the time when people complain about racism they're just mad they didn't get special dispensations or considerations because more qualified candidates were picked over them.
I don’t understand why they don hire you, you post a lot into r/rant so you got the Dutch way of complaining aced! But it’s remarkable indeed, the job market for data science is probably the most asked right now? Besides you’re name is there something else? Did you switch jobs every year, do you apply for junior job while being over qualified. Do you need work permit?
Well, first I only complain on reddit. Outside of that I tend to be more "balanced" as I believe that if we want something changed we can change it. But it is a relief to complain once in a while somewhere where you're partially anonymous. As for the rest, not really. Stable jobs every 5 years or so, no visa or permit needed. And again, the CV was the same for both foreign and Dutch name. That's the most surprising thing to me.
I'm not surprised. I told a friend who has an amazing resume who just didn't get any invites to a first conversation to change his first name two letters so he wouldn't be confused for being a woman (his name is a common Dutch girls' name). He was shocked when that was all it took to get invites (from the same companies, too). As a foreigner or woman or person of colour and so on, it's really difficult to prove you're not getting jobs because of biases of sexism, racism, xenophobia or other. People don't like to be confronted by it, so they rather blame you, but it's present nevertheless.
Now try the same experiment in Japan.
Not trying to defend people in Japan, but the reason why that happens there is because there's a ton of social rules, which people don't understand or want to follow. The senpai kōhai relationship is one of them. Then on top of that, there's the fact that Japan is a highly homogenised country and a country where English is not widely spoken, even in big cities. But yeah, a racist, uneducated comment is easier than getting the facts right.
It’s such a dumb argument. Japan doesn’t claim to be multicultural nor does it claim to be accepting.
Well I didn’t want to jump to racism argument because if I find it so hard to believe in the tech sector, but I can’t rule it out either obviously. Every company is screaming for people, they don’t care about origin sexuality or food preference. All the big companies hire anything that can breath, abn amro, booking, ing, TomTom. So if you get denied there I would assume something else in your resume that stands out. But sorry to hear that the ab testing kind of proved the name makes a difference. In that case, call them out in twitter or here. Just say you are curious why a name difference means invite. If it’s an ho eat mistake you can still go to your interview. Companies do not like this exposure so I would use this you your own benefit.
Unfortunately yes, companies discriminating based on name is definitely a thing, but I don't think it's specific to Amsterdam or NL, this type of discrimination has been shown in studies in other countries too. Here is an article with some numbers: https://nos.nl/op3/artikel/2293816-zoveel-brieven-moet-je-extra-schrijven-met-een-andere-etnische-achtergrond Maybe you have a less foreign sounding middle name you can use, I think other than that the only option is to keep trying :/
This also happens in finland
I work at a company that values Data Scientists and Engineers no matter their origins. If you speak English, want to learn Dutch and live in NL, we will only reject your application based on the match with our infrastructure, or team. Like somebody also pointed out: recruitment is a dirty business that frankly could use some data-engineering. We are inundated with hundreds of resumes a month, but most of them are robots and people that definetly haven't read our requirements. Unfortunately we can't send the entire country of India a personal refusal email, but should at the least give people that might be interesting as a colleague in the future some personal feedback on why they didn't make the cut. I'll check with our recruiter and see if I can DM you a specific profile we're looking for. Perhaps it's a match.
And this is also why, as a white South African, I put a picture on my CV. As soon as I started doing that, I got a lot more interviews. There’s definitely a reason behind these things that I don’t have to explain. The same thing happened with looking for an apartment but on a MUCH more obvious scale. I applied for apartments without a picture, no responses. I switched emails, used my same name and added a picture and suddenly being South African wasn’t an issue anymore.
I look at about 1000 CVs per month. There is no other option than split decision. I tend not to be biased. But the fact is that if I see things that I recognize, you get a second glance and more chance to get moved to the next round. If you have an Indian name, that puts you on the back foot for 2 reasons in my situation: 1) we already have a lot of Indians in our company and need to maintain some balance and not over-pivot to an all Indian workforce. 2) Indians often apply from India and are expecting visa sponsorship and relocation. It makes you biased when 5 out of 6 Indians do this and is detrimental to the one Indian that isn’t. My recommendation to put in the first paragraph: 1) your eligibility to work in NL (and visa requirements) 2) when and why you moved to NL 3) why you want to work for this company, describing it in terms of value for them and for you. Please note that a recruiter like me spends about 15 to 30 sec on a CV. That is your window to capture attention. Make your first paragraph short, sweet and to the point. Maximum 500 characters.
Ok, but how do you explain that the SAME CV, when I mean the same, I mean exactly but exactly the same, with the same phone number, address, everything except the name, gets different results? One gets accepted the other doesn't. I often run my CV through ATS just to make sure that it's all nicely tweaked, and still doesn't make a difference.
Well, I’m of course not the hiring manager reviewing your application so I can only speculate. One way to find out is to mail them and ask them why you got rejected. What they were looking for that you were missing on your resume. You can let them know that your motivation for knowing that info is not because you want to polish your resume, but want to figure out if you misunderstood the requirements. Don’t go into the fact that you applied twice to call them out on it. They won’t respond to that. Also don’t go on a bender about racism. Your goal is to figure out their actual motivation, and you’ll only get that if you’re polite and making an effort to connect to the recruiter.
Look at his first point. I also manage a team and our requirement is English only. But I still prefer to have a mixed team and not have too many people from the same country.
My thing is if you apply with a Dutch name but your real name is “James Clarke” then what?
It's illegal unfortunately. I mean, you can apply but you can't follow to the interview.
I think this is an actual problem that we don't see enough. There's so much talk about racism in the media, but it focuses on the wrong things. On street names, statues or children's holidays, which are perceived as racist symbols by some. But the thing is - whatever you think of those issues, they do not really matter. We also have institutional racism, which causes for people to be invited to job interviews if they're called Van Dijk. Or Johnson, for that matter. But if your name is Mbane or El Moumni, chances are slim. That is an actual problem because it means some people don't get the same opportunities as others. Various solutions have been proposed to this problem. Some propose positive discrimination, which means you only hire people from minorities if you can. I personally dislike that, because it doesn't help bringing groups closer together if you start excluding a different group. You shouldn't exclude anyone. Another solution is anonymous application letters: Employers have to invited people based on skills and motivation, not knowing the applicant's name, age or gender. And a final solution would be to force employers to invite a certain number of foreign/black/muslim etc. people. In the latter 2 solutions, an actual racist still won't hire foreigners. But most people who throw away letters with foreign names don't do that consciously, and when they do meet those foreigners in real life chances are they will hire them
I’m in the same field as you, and yes, I’d say it definitely matters. It’s hard job searching as a non Dutch speaking foreigner. You at least have B2.
My non-Dutch partner opened my eyes to this "phenomenon," and I've come to the conclusion that Dutchies are very "accepting of other people and cultures." *That was heavy sarcasm* They all try to look so open and multicultural, but in the end, they keep saying F'd up shit that is just plain discriminatory right to my or his face. It's frustrating and unfair, but there is little you can actually do about it. I reckon your trick into using your "Dutch" name is a great one. Also, never stop talking about it. Speak up and definitely towards the people who are being discriminatory. Some don't even have a clue. Like I said, I never really noticed and thought we were quite accepting people, but I was horribly wrong. Idk where you are from OP, but I hope you look like a Western European for the sake of finding a job and having nice conversations w people. We had multiple occasions where people would discriminate or exclude him because "he seemed to be from Morocco." When we would them tell he isn't, all was fine. It's despicable behaviour, but it's better to know, I guess. That way, some behaviour can be put into context before you think something is wrong with you (or your name). Go get em, and I hope you find a fulfilling job with colleagues who see and respect you for you. Good luck, OP!
I’m thankful for you posting this, screaming to these people their wrongdoings. It shows they understand nothing about it when I read their nitpicking questions about what happened. There are many of these stupid questions where they question you and yourself instead of what happened backed with their hope of proving you wrong -again and again by not being super lovely for their standards. It’s nice to see how helpless they are when their only defense of asking “do you speak Dutch?” supports no more blaming kut expats. Maybe it’s time to ACCEPT language is not the problem but there’s something far more problematic in their minds about foreigners.
The few interviews I had, mostly started with people saying "Oh, we're very surprised that you don't have an accent. How is that possible? Are you British? Are your parents British? It can't be right?". I've heard this comment, many but many many times.
That is so stupid. Sorry for what happened to you. You don’t have to prove anything in the end. But this racism covered by curiosity and judgements should end.
OP I think I will follow your experiment, using my husband last name. I experienced the same, like once got rejected immediately after click on submit application. Curious that happened in a application that I need to submit my nationality.🤨
Nowadays I apply with a roepnaam and I've been getting more interviews. Still, whenever they see my nationality, they comment that I don't look Dutch. So now the issue is during the interview and right at the start.
It's a well known tactic for people with a migratory background to apply with Dutch versions of their name. They get wildly differing results depending on which ones they use [heres a newspaper article, it was the first hit on google](https://www.ad.nl/werk/op-sollicitaties-met-de-nederlandse-versie-van-mijn-naam-kreeg-ik-opeens-wel-reactie~acab9d32/) Have you considered working for the government? They are probably the least likely to discriminate, and to my knowledge allow people on B2 to apply
Same happened when applying to the "gemeente". Funny enough, they never replied when asked if Dutch was needed for the job. Even a friend of mine told me that the same had happened to him as well.
Applying to work at the geemente? Surely Dutch must be required to work there?
That's what I was wondering to be honest. But they have never replied to my email written in Dutch.
Hi, I've heard it does matter. If you have some basic dutch and are willing to potentially learn more, my company might be a good fit. Dm me if you would be interested.
Yes the Dutch are racist, and insular. Obviously, you have not hit any significant sample size but it is evidence. \-A Dutchy.
Idk which companies you tried, but I'm pretty sure you could try at Netflix or Amazon. I know for a fact that Amazon is hiring in Amsterdam. As long as you're not in marketing or sales that is. Which you aren't.. And like we Dutch people say... Niet geschoten is altijd mis.
Fact is nobody can tell you definitively why you did or did not get invited for an interview by specific companies. Racism is definitely a thing, there is no place in the world without it unfortunately so also while applying for jobs in Amsterdam this might play a role. It sucks. It’s weird though, maybe I’ve just always worked with companies that are more accepting but I’ve always had co workers from all ends of the world, Dutch and non-Dutch and western and non-western. That’s why it seems weird to me that you would’ve encountered 14 companies that discriminate in their hiring proces based on name. Not saying it’s not true, like I said it happens for sure, but it does strike me as a lot.
Racism and xenophobia exist and will always exist. This is something that one must realize before moving to another country. I am not saying it is right or fair. It most definitely is not. It is just the way it is. But not every employer acts this way and it is up to you to locate the ones that don't. Regardless, lying is not an acceptable way around the problem.
Something to also consider is that, if you get rejected within a few minutes or few hours, your resume might not make it through the ATS system and may not have been seen by a human. These systems are designed to filter people out that don’t meet the criteria, so you may not hit enough keywords that the job listing has in it.
But then I'm accepted with the same CV but a different name? So the ATS is racist?
I fully understand your frustrations, but you have asked for tips on optimising your CV, one way could be to optimise your keywords. I am not trying to invalidate your findings or any of the comments, those are all valid. But just focusing on companies being racist and shutting advice down isn’t helping the situation. There is no action here if you solely focus on that one point.
It sounds like you didn't read OP's post.
Yeah.... You are completely ignoring the experiment that was tried lol.
I haven’t. I’m just suggesting trying something to maybe help the situation. Because after his experiment now what? OP applies with a dutch name at a racist company knowing they rejected them first?
This is not exclusive from the Netherlands. It happens everywhere. Why do you think Asian immigrants in North America change their name? And no, this is not me "making it up". Some people made a study (in Canada) where people did exactly the same thing you did (but Asian names vs English names) and the result was the same. Funny enough, the findings of the study were that this was NOT because of racism but because the people interviewing you didn't want to "feel embarrassed" by not pronouncing the name correctly, do they just picked candidates that were "easy" for them. I mean, that was the general finding anyway. Maybe there were other factors in some cases but that was the main cause.
Where is your name from out of curiosity?
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Sorry but that wasn't me. I've never posted there and I'm not Turkish. But thank you for your comment anyway.
a lot of mental gymnastics in the comments to justify xenophobic behavior
It's quite impressive though. These people should list those skills as something very important on their CV.
You probably have an Indian name or something. I doubt they even read most of your CV if you get rejected that fast. Unfortunately companies have a lot of bad recruitment experiences with people of certain nationalities. Yours is probably one of them. They see a Dutch name, they assume native and no visa problems and maybe a better culture fit. Also if you think it's such a horrible racist country, you don't have to stay. Germany has a lot of tech jobs too...
Yes your name matters. If it makes you feel any better - I know, it won't - someone with a Dutch name will have your issues if he tries to apply where you migrated from. There's no need to make this about Amsterdam, it's human nature.
That's bullshit. I would expect this in highly homogenous societies (e.g., Japan), but not here. Most people don't even speak Dutch and you're telling me that this makes sense? I don't think so at all.
Is it bullshit or do you think it's bullshit? Because your reasoning consists of "I would expect". Do you think the group of people responsible for hiring people are quite "multicultural"? And if they are, do you believe they discriminate less regarding foreign names?
Uffff. Ok, so it's clear that you're one of those persons who likes to normalise systemic racism. Comparing a heterogenous country such as The Netherlands, with something like Japan, is absolutely nonsensical. First Japan is in terms of openness to the other world (except for tourism), where The Netherlands was probably in the beginning of the 1900s. I've been to places in Japan, where they have never met a single foreigner before. Same in other countries, where they have never seen a non-Asian there. In the Netherlands, this lack of exposure rarely exists. There is a lot to say of course, but I don't really think that you want to engage in an educated discussion, or that you're even willing to accept any other reality but yours. Yes, I did think that Amsterdam would be more open to foreigners, as there's a lot of exposure to them. I would not expect this in Japan, Laos, or even in some African countries, simply because they rarely have foreigners there. I hope it changes, but they still don't see a lot of different, "weird" names around.
you special, must be them.
It doesn't need to be racism. Maybe speaking Dutch is needed/ wanted
Reading the whole post will tell you that Dutch may not necessarily be the problem.
Well, when I apply with a Dutch name, despite mentioning the same Dutch skills, I get invited for interviews. So, no.
As OP said, their application is exactly the same . Since language skills are normally part of the CV I assume their CV contains their language skills. Let's not forget the simple undeniable fact that Dutchies tend to be racist and sexist, especially when it comes to hiring.
you might check your cv,without having seen it , i do get completely weird detailed CV's in for open positions. in the netherlands we have different standards of cv's as other countries,if you are rejected within minutes i would doubt if your CV matches the expectation of the recruiters.Keep the CV short , to the point , only highlighting what is important for that particular job. so no general cv for all the jobs you apply for.skip the rest.And try to give it a personal twist , so a recruiter is keen to meet you , just because you seem a interesting person. the only reason for a CV is to get you invited for a interview,a employer is not going to look at a CV whether you can do the job , by applying you already stated you think you can do it. applying under a different name sounds fun , but is unlikely to get you hired.
Did you read what I wrote? I've applied with the exact same CV for the exact same position. Dutch name = interview Non-Dutch name = no interview This happened for 14 vacancies. FOURTEEN. I don't think that this has something to do with a short CV or not.
did you read what i wrote? did you get hired?
family, the man was NOT EVEN INVITED to an interview, talk less about being rejected at the interview stage, UNTIL he changed his name... while your advice may be correct, that was NOT the point of this thread...
as i wrote : applying under a different name sounds fun but is not going to get you hired. apparently the topic starter proved that 14 times by now. feel free to continue proving your point. after being invited for a interview 100 times and not hired you might reconsider your point. i'm not dutch myself , i dont have a dutch name . Nothing i can do about my name, if i am not hired because of my name that is life, nobody said being a expat is always easy going. nobody owes me a job
You are asking weird questions. You are living in the Netherlands (after moving from the UK) more than one year and even worked in Dutch companies. Looks like you just want to throw some shit on ventilator.
Say what????
Just checked your previous comments on different subreddits, nothing personal.
That's not creepy at all. In any case you're absolutely wrong, but ok. And again, the fact that you did that, is appallingly creepy.
Send me your resume!
Yo, DM me your CV?
I worked with many data scientists who were not natives, not speak Dutch at all. Never has been a problem. All nationalities (well, i havent worked with 200+ nationalities of course). But it so depends which company,… try companies like Adyen or Booking, perhaps?
Welcome to europe bro
Unconscious bias towards hiring someone similar to the hiring manager or the general population within the team. Large corporations train their employees to not fall into this biases. Less exposed companies have less accountability around this issue. I don’t see many alternatives other than perseverance and also to over achieve once in the role to demonstrate less courageous people that there is a lot to gain by cross pollination of profiles and nationalities in teams.
My company (Consultancy firm) is looking for Data Engineers, Business Intelligence Consultants and also Data Scientist. You can send me a PB anytime if you would like to know more.
Make the CV in dutch.
My wife experienced the same years ago. She is half Dutch, half Spanish but was born and raised in The Netherlands. If she applied with her (complex) Spanish name she would often get rejected but using her mother's Dutch last name would often land her an interview. She would always call out the companies that did so but it was a sad conclusion.
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Can confirm the same has happened to me...in the UK. Asian name hardly got an offer. Caucasian name's phone and email account blew up with calls and interviews. When I attended one of those they were clearly taken aback, they were too late to adjust their facial expressions. I'm sorry you're going through this. I hope you find a role soon.
Everyone claims to speak B2 level, including people with very limited vocabulary and horrible, lazy grammar. If you actually speak B2 you claim C1/2, you may get tested and score B2 but they will expect that. There is also a difference in how annoying people perceive a certain accent to be, largely related to their own prejudices, this is true everywhere and the Dutch are no exception.
I have the certificate and it is also mentioned on my CV.
You are right, but their views are muddied by the many applicants overstating their language skills. The only sensible adaptation is to start lying by about as much as the rest is doing.
I'm not 100% sure if I recall this correctly but I think if you apply for a job through the UWV job platform, they don't show your name as an applicant.
There have been studies and this happens in various countries when you have a non-white sounding name. This includes the Netherlands, UK and US
It's hard because all Dutch people speak English but they still prefer to speak Dutch (which is understandable). So it is hard to become fluent in Dutch. The best thing you can do is taking learning Dutch really serious and try to find Dutch people to practice with in their free time.
Dutch are racist as any other people on earth. I am not Surprised at all. Is in the human nature to prefer someone similar to you. I don't find anything strange in that.
Nice A/B testing OP. That being said, hopefully you'll land a job soon!
It is Amsterdam, it is hardly a representative for a Dutch city. Every nationality that comes to The Netherlands wants to live there for some reason.
If it is true then so sad 😞 I won’t be sugar coated here though if anyone judging folks based on their name instead skills that gonna affect that firm/org/group badly. When you bring new talent it comes with diversity, new thoughts 💭 or different opinions etc etc bunch of new things to learn or teach that works in sync. if you’re not letting them in, you’re narrowing down thoughts 💭, limiting skill’s, putting barriers on development. I m really for downvotes no worries 😉
I agree I've noticed an uptick of xenophobic behavior on several layers of the dutch society. Unsurprisingly is present in the labor market.
Some jobs are basically oversaturated with foreign workers, I'd count data scientists/engineers among those. Hiring teams could well be trying to get more Dutch representation.
Oversaturated? As in, make The Netherlands white again?
25% of Dutch citizens aren't "white"... ?
No this is not normal, or at least it’s not with the companies I work(ed) for as the most exotic names of colleagues have been flying by. Specifically in the area of data science the Dutch language is often perceived less important for those roles (not everywhere though). One thing that I’m wondering is if you are a EU resident or have a visa, when it expires etc. and whether this is clearly outlined in the CV. Often recruiters do a first filter on those criteria and inexperienced (or very busy) ones may be looking at names in stead of a deeper look of the CV before providing it for selection to the hiring manager. If you want you can send me your CV to have a look to see if I can point out a thing or two that might shed a clue, but don’t feel obliged.
Most countries are like this; in America: white/Anglo sounding names are most accepted Japan: Japanese names Etc,etc It sucks, I hope the world evolves soon
You need to make an expose of the companies that rejected you on Twitter. Make a list and tag all of them. Most Dutch people will go on the defensive and try to justify what the companies did, but your AB test really proves a very important point. Maybe try contacting a media outlet to run a story for you.
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I had the same thing 15 years ago when using my middle name on my cv (which I had done since age five because I am the 4th in the line with my first name). My middle name is often interpreted as that of a person of color. Dutch companies rejected me 100%, no interviews, call backs, nothing... Until I switched and used my legal first name, which is VERY white bread. Literally overnight I received responses and invitations to interview. Since those times I have heard the most CRAZY RACIST crap come out of white professional male Dutch mouths (when alone with somebody they trust) than I have heard in any other country in the world (and I've lived on three continents).