Find a job
or "Gimme money" Sat 30 August 2014It might happen, like me, that you decide to go to Amsterdam thanks to a job opportunity or, like my roommates, that you decide to come to Amsterdam to look for a job. One option is not better than the other. Everything depends on timing or envy.
Anyway, in both cases, the company won't be the one looking for you (that'd be amazing, wouldn't it?), you then have to do your research because believe me, Amsterdam is a city which has the chance to have a plethora of job or internship offers.
Why in hell would I want to work in Amsterdam?
Well, first thing first: Dutch people are almost all (English) bilingual. Therefore, you don't need to learn the Dutch language and that is a really great news (it's not that difficult to understand but there are some sounds I still can't pronounce).
As told by Amsterdam official website's propaganda, the work atmosphere is informal.
Forget the classic, boring, constraining 8am-6pm work hours, in the Netherlands, work hours are flexible. That's a game changer for me!
I don't think you need me to find a job in one of the myriad of multinationals (but we never know, so here or here and that's why I'll only talk about places where you can find a cool job in a start-up.
I'll obviously start with AngelList because that's thanks to them I found my internship in a start-up from Amsterdam. The principle is close to a dating website: you, job seeker, post your résumé online while the companies post a small presentation of themselves and their possible job offers. Each one wander through candidates or companies and once one appeals the job seeker or the company, a mail is sent to the person concerned to know if the appeal is reciprocal.If that's the case, mail addresses are automatically exchanged and people can continue conversing outside of the website. Here is the shortcut to Amsterdam job offers.
Dutch Startup Jobs seems to work on the same principle. Same as before, here is the link for Amsterdam.
You can also look on eu-startup for news on start-ups everywhere in Europe. It's an excellent way to find promising start-ups or the one which did a fund raising (thus, more likely to be looking for someone).
On this website, you'll also be able to find a fair number of start-ups in the Netherlands.
Also, don't forget some start-ups do not have a website or a postal address! Here (and surely like in some other cities and countries), the start-ups are often overseen by accelerators (such as Rockstart in Amsterdam for example). Look for those "hidden" start-ups! You can find a list of Dutch accelerators here.
I wish you good luck in your research!