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Hi Thanakorn,

Welcome to the forum 

Till members provide you some infos, please drop a "loooking for" advert in the Jobs in Amsterdam section of the website.

All the best,
Bhavna

Hi Scott and welcome to the Forum.

Further to Bhavna's earlier post; at the top of the page is our Handy Tools link, if you select that, you can select our Expat ´ó¿§¸£ÀûÓ°Ôº which contain useful information for planning your journey.  The first thing you need to appreciate is that there is no quick/easy way for non-EU citizens to enter Holland and work; there is an administrative process to go through which I'll explain below.

For people with your skill-set, you need to have some formal qualifications to back your claims up (the Dutch are big on qualifications).  Assuming you have them and you are a non-EU citizen, then you need to go through the MVV process; this will take you straight to the Dutch Government Immigration (IND) web-site which will explain the process you will need to go through.  There is another way through this (known as "Skilled Worker") where your future employer helps you through, although you will need to go through some hoops to qualify; this will take you to the relevant part of the IND website that explains that process.

In the meantime, if Holland is absolutely your chosen future, then you need to start learning Dutch, you will need it to pass the integration exams.

Once you've read our guides and consulted the IND website if you have any further specific questions, please come back to us.

Hope this helps.

Cynic
Expat Team

Some really great advice there. I can't recommend anything else. I wouldn't risk moving until I have a firm job offer and a place to stay, it's extremely hard to find something on arrival.

Thank you all for great advises. I will be looking into deep-down stuff in order to understand better about how it works there. If I have anything worth sharing, I'll definitely update it to you guys.

Hi Guys thank you so much for the article,

To make it clear i have a few questions regarding the scheme (which should we obtain first to be eligible to work in NL, specifically to respond @Cynic answers.. So does it means that we as the non-EU have to get an employment contract first from the company that's interested to hire us, second apply for the residence permit or MVV (if its right that this words stands for), then third after we obtain the MVV we can immediately to start working in NL?

What about the Zoekjaar test? I've tried to research about what-to-do-where-should-i-begin from online sources (IND, hollandalumni, others) and i must say the different answers baffled me. Some say we shall begin by taking the zoekjaar 1 year test first,then we have 1 year to seek jobs, then if we get it we can continue to take mvv, then we are eligible to find a job and be hired from holland-based company.

I mean what's the used of having the work permit, invest so much time and fund for 1 year of zoekjaar but then we ended up got no job in NL?

Thank you so much for taking time to read this and look forward for an enlightenment


Warm regards,
Hanna

Hi Hanna,

To try and answer your questions:

As a non-EU citizen, you will need a job (or at least the possibility of one) in order to come to Holland to live and work; this will take you to the IND website that explains the process.

More importantly, it needs to pay you at least €1,690.64 p/month, which is actually more than the monthly Dutch minimum wage that most unqualified people will start on.  They are doing this for a reason; Holland is not short of unqualified workers, they are looking for skills that are in demand (doctor, engineer, scientist etc), if you are one of these, you may qualify for a skill-shortage visa.

Some companies will also be looking for people with key-skills (qualified accountants, IT specialists) that they will sponsor through the immigration process.

Zoekjaar is for non-EU students who have successfully (in the past 3-years) graduated from a university, who wish to come/stay and work in Holland, it basically gives them a year to find a job and then work for 12-months without a work permit.

Work-permit etc.  I agree; the question you have to ask yourself.  "Having invested all this time and money, what chance have I got of getting a job?"  My experience is that to get a well-paid job, you need 4 things:

  Relevant qualifications
  Relevant experience
  Speak the local language
  Luck

The more of these you have, the more chance you'll have, but Luck can always screw you over.

Hope this helps.

Cynic
Expat Team

Hi Cynic,

Thank you so much for the answer!

Other than the part of i have to get paid around €1,690.64 /month, does the company have to apply for my sponsorship for about € 5276? ( found it from

I got some offers from some small ventures in tech industry but most of them cant provide me a sponsorship. I assume that € 5276 amount of money they have to pay is the problem...

Or is it possible i can obtain work permit and MVV without the sponsorship?

Thank you

The €5,276 is the fee the Company has to pay to the IND to register as a sponsor; there is also a whole load of other things they have to comply with which will cost them time and money.

Without sponsorship; you can apply (and still have to go through MVV and take the Dutch language exams), but there is no guarantee you will get work, so you are then back to your:

Indobabe wrote:

....what's the used of having the work permit, invest so much time and fund for 1 year of zoekjaar but then we ended up got no job in NL?