A CV from Spain, India, or the US follows different conventions than a Dutch one. Which differences matter, and which adjustments actually improve your response rate.
What's different in the Netherlands
Length: one to two pages, not five (Indian style) or strictly one (American). No marital status, no religion. Birth date optional. No "Career Objective" — a short two-sentence profile summary. Numbers with moderation; Dutch readers are sceptical of heavy marketing claims.
Framing foreign employers
"Tata Consultancy Services" is recognisable to a Dutch recruiter; "Reddy Labs" isn't. A short parenthesis helps: "Senior Engineer — Reddy Labs (Bangalore, DSL verification, 2018–2022)".
Language of the CV
English if the workplace is English-speaking, Dutch if not. Half-Dutch versions work against you. An English version alongside a Dutch version for different employers is an acceptable pattern.
Concrete examples
- Profile: Senior data engineer with 8 years in fintech (Bangalore + Amsterdam). EU Blue Card holder since 2023. Looking for principal-level role in Dutch scale-ups.
- Bharti AXA — Senior Data Engineer (Bangalore, 2018–2022): owned ETL pipelines processing 40M events/day; led migration from on-prem Hadoop to Snowflake.
- Bachelor of Engineering (Bangalore Institute of Technology, 2014) — equivalent HBO-level ICT per Nuffic.
- Languages: English (native), Dutch (B1 — working on B2 via Nuffic course), Hindi (native).
Pitfalls
- Career Objective instead of profile summary. Out of fashion in the Netherlands.
- Foreign employers without context. Recruiters don't know them all.
- Education without Dutch equivalency. Nuffic guidelines help with framing.
- Half translation. A half-Dutch CV with English bullets is irritating to recruiters.
For foreign profiles in the Netherlands, a calm, recognisable structure helps. No design statements.