If you are applying for English-language jobs in the Netherlands, your existing CV will probably get read. It just might not get read the way you want. Dutch hiring managers move fast, they skim for evidence, and they expect a document that looks a specific way. The gap between a CV that works in London or New York and one that works in Amsterdam is not enormous - but the details that differ are exactly the ones recruiters notice first.
Here is what Dutch employers actually expect on a CV in 2026, when English is fine and when it is not, and the mistakes internationals make over and over.
The shape of a Dutch CV
Start with the format, because it is the fastest thing to fix.
Length: one to two pages. One page under five years of experience, two once you have a real track record. Three pages reads as an inability to prioritise, a bad first impression in a culture that prizes getting to the point. Academic and research roles are the exception.
Reverse-chronological order. Most recent role first, all the way down. Functional or skills-first CVs are rare here and often read as if you are hiding something. Put career gaps in the timeline with a one-line explanation rather than restructuring the document to obscure them. Dutch recruiters are more relaxed about gaps than you expect, and much less relaxed about documents that feel evasive.
Clean, plain layout. No heavy graphics, no skill bars showing "Python: 87 percent", no two-column template that an applicant tracking system will read in the wrong order. A single column with clear headings and consistent dates beats a designed CV almost everywhere outside creative roles.
Sections, in roughly this order:
- Name and contact details
- A short profile or summary (three to four lines, optional but useful)
- Work experience
- Education
- Skills
- Languages
- Extras: certifications, volunteering, side projects
Moving skills above experience is fine if you are switching fields. Burying the work history under a page of soft-skill adjectives is not.
The photo question, honestly
You have probably read that you must never put a photo on a CV. That advice comes from the US, and to a lesser degree the UK, where anti-discrimination practice has made photos close to taboo.
The Netherlands is softer on this. Photos are not expected, and no serious employer will penalise you for leaving one off - but they remain fairly common, and a Dutch applicant including a plain, neutral headshot is not doing anything unusual. Larger international employers and consultancies increasingly ask for CVs without photos, sometimes anonymising applications entirely.
The practical answer: leave it off by default. It is safe with every employer and it gives you back space at the top of page one. If you do include one, make it a professional headshot on a neutral background. Never a holiday crop.
Personal details: what belongs and what does not
Normal and expected:
- Full name
- Phone number with country code
- Professional email address
- City and country (Amsterdam, Netherlands). No street address - a full postal address is outdated
- LinkedIn URL, cleaned up so it is readable
- Portfolio or GitHub link if relevant to the role
The grey area:
Date of birth. Some Dutch CVs still include it. It is a legacy convention rather than a requirement, and it is fading. Leaving it off is completely normal in 2026, and your graduation year already gives a recruiter a rough signal of where you are in your career.
Nationality and work authorisation. This one genuinely matters for non-EU applicants. Skip permit categories, application numbers and immigration history. One short factual line near your contact details is enough: "EU citizen, no work permit required", "Dutch residence permit with unrestricted work rights", or "Requires employer sponsorship (highly skilled migrant scheme)". That line saves everyone a round of email.
Never put on a CV:
- Your BSN (Dutch citizen service number). This is sensitive personal data used for tax and payroll. It belongs in onboarding paperwork, never in an application.
- Passport or ID document numbers
- Marital status, religion, health information, children
- Your salary history
On the 30 percent ruling and the highly skilled migrant route: both are worth knowing about, because they shape which employers can hire from outside the EU and how quickly. But your CV is not the place for them beyond that single sponsorship line. Do not attempt to explain tax arrangements or eligibility on a CV - the rules change and every case differs. Raise it in the offer conversation, with the employer's HR team or a qualified adviser.
English or Dutch?
The short version: in a large slice of the Dutch job market, an English CV is completely normal. In another slice, it will quietly rule you out.
English is genuinely fine when:
- The vacancy is posted in English. This is the strongest signal you have. Match the language of the posting.
- You are applying to an international company, a scale-up, or the Dutch office of a global business
- You are in tech, product, design, data or research - especially in the Randstad (Amsterdam, Utrecht, Rotterdam, The Hague) and the Eindhoven technology region
- You are targeting universities, research institutes or international consultancies
- The team's working language is English, which the job ad usually states outright
Dutch is expected when:
- The vacancy is written in Dutch
- The role is public sector, healthcare, education, law, or local government
- The role is client-facing with Dutch customers - sales, account management, retail, hospitality
- The employer is a small or mid-sized Dutch company with no international footprint
- The ad says "Nederlands op professioneel niveau" or similar
If you are genuinely uncertain, apply in English and state your Dutch level honestly in the languages section. Never submit a machine-translated Dutch CV. Dutch readers spot it immediately, and it undermines the exact claim it is trying to make.
The languages section, done properly
International applicants routinely under-use this section, and in the Netherlands it carries real weight.
Use CEFR levels. A1 through C2 is standard, widely understood and expected in a Dutch context. "Conversational" and "fluent" are vague; B2 and C1 are not.
A good languages block looks like this:
- English - C2, professional working language for six years
- Spanish - native
- Dutch - A2, currently studying, aiming for B1 this year
That last line does more for you than people realise. Employers hiring internationals worry about retention, and a candidate visibly learning the language reads as someone who plans to stay. Be honest about the level - claiming B2 and then freezing during Dutch small talk at interview is worse than claiming A2.
Achievements, not duties - and Dutch directness
Dutch professional communication is direct. Not rude, not aggressive - just unpadded. Claims are expected to be proportionate to evidence, and overselling gets noticed and discounted. A CV full of "spearheaded", "transformative" and "world-class" lands badly. So does understatement that buries what you actually achieved.
The target is plain, specific and confident.
Weak:
- Responsible for the management of the customer support inbox
- Worked closely with stakeholders to drive alignment on key initiatives
- Passionate, results-driven professional with a proven track record of excellence
Strong:
- Cut average first-response time on support tickets from 14 hours to under 3 by restructuring the triage queue
- Led the migration of 40 internal reports from spreadsheets to a single dashboard, adopted by three departments
- Ran onboarding for 12 new hires; all reached full productivity within their first quarter
Each strong line names the action, the scope and the outcome. Where you have real numbers, use them. Where you do not, use scope - team size, number of markets, project duration, budget range. "Managed a rebrand across four European markets over eight months" carries weight without inventing a percentage.
A useful test: read each bullet and ask whether your replacement could have written the same sentence on their first day. If yes, it describes the job, not your performance. Rewrite it.
The motivatiebrief
This difference catches a lot of internationals off guard. In the Netherlands the cover letter - the motivatiebrief - is expected far more often than in the US, where it has largely become optional. Many Dutch vacancies treat it as a required part of the application, and some hiring managers read it before the CV.
It is not a summary of your CV in paragraph form. It answers three things: why this company, why this role, why you. One page, in the language of the vacancy, and it is where a career change or an international move gets explained properly - context that is awkward to fit into CV bullets. If you are relocating, say so here: that you are moving to the Netherlands, whether you already have the right to work, and when you can start. Our companion guide to the motivatiebrief covers structure, tone and worked examples.
Mistakes international applicants keep making
Sending one CV to every vacancy. Dutch job ads are specific about requirements. Mirroring the vocabulary of the ad - the actual tools, the actual responsibilities - is the cheapest improvement available.
Leaving the qualification untranslated. A degree title that is instantly recognisable at home may mean nothing in Utrecht. Give the original name, a short plain-English descriptor and the awarding country. If it has been formally evaluated for the Dutch context, say so in one line.
Saying nothing about location. A CV listing only overseas employers, with no sign of where you are or want to be, creates friction. One line resolves it: "Relocating to the Netherlands in March 2026" or "Based in Rotterdam since 2024".
Inflated language. Superlatives without evidence read as noise. Cut them.
Over-designing and ignoring the ATS. Larger Dutch employers screen with software. Standard headings, a single column, a normal font and consistent date formats matter more than a striking template.
Before you send
Run this check on your final PDF:
- Two pages maximum, single column, consistent dates
- Contact block with city, country, phone with country code, LinkedIn
- One factual line on work authorisation if you are not an EU citizen
- No BSN, no ID numbers, no marital status, no salary history
- Every experience bullet names an outcome or a scope, not a duty
- Languages section using CEFR levels, Dutch level stated honestly
- CV language matches the vacancy language
- Filename with your name and the role, so a recruiter can find it later
- A motivatiebrief drafted for this specific vacancy
Get those right and your CV reads like it belongs in the pile - which is exactly the goal. The rest is the quality of the work you describe.