My DREAM JOB in The Netherlands (and tips on finding one)!

thank you to switchbot for sponsoring today's video i'm really excited to show you guys the switchbot's newest product the pan tilt cam this indoor camera has a resolution of 1080p and a camera angle of 360 degrees horizontally and 115 degrees vertically with a built-in microphone and a speaker and a night vision setting this camera is controllable through your phone via an app and it also works with alexa and google you can ask alexa or google to show me the camera and you can live stream to your devices in it and even enable two-way talk but what really sets it apart is that it features an intuitive privacy mode that enables your camera lens to be stored away and hidden when you arrive at home pan and tilt cam can automatically hide to prevent it from filming you when it's not necessary it is the only product in the market with the privacy mode in that price bracket since the camera can rotate 360 degrees it has an automatic tracking feature that can help to record anything moving around like if your pet is being really cute and playing in the living room or if your baby is having an adorable moment of course it can also track and record suspicious movements should someone unknown enter your living space so if you need an indoor camera and you use my link in the description below you will get an exclusive 15 discount on your purchase so thanks again switchbot for supporting this channel and now on to today's video hi welcome to yobe's home today i want to tell you guys all about my incredible new job so i know that i've been talking about it for a few months already on youtube that i was kind of looking for something and what you know what was i going to do and today i'm going to tell you all about it in this video now this is going to be long and i'm going to address a few different topics not everything is necessarily interesting for you so please make sure to open the description box and you will see the chapters so basically i will put like a heading and a time stamp for everything i'm going to talk about so you can kind of skip through and listen to the things that are interesting for you skip over the things that maybe you don't care about and just in general be like choose what parts of this video you want to watch so if that sounds good to you then why don't you come on in kick off your shoes and stay a while i'm really glad you're here so without further ado let me tell you about what my job is i have accepted a full-time position working as a communication advisor and social media content creator for erasmus university in rotterdam i am so so excited so in my job as communication advisor part of what i'm going to be doing is basically sharing the stories of what is happening at the university what kind of research or projects the professors are working on the researchers are working on kind of share their story um with you guys not just you guys like with the world at large this is kind of a little bit about my job it's still pretty new so i can't talk too too much about it but this is kind of what i will be doing so how did i search for an english speaking job in the netherlands my main approach or my main search engine honestly this time was linkedin i was keeping an eye on lots and lots of different things i think that one of the places where i struggled really was once i decided that i was gonna go back to work i wasn't entirely sure what i wanted to do or where i wanted to work and so i applied to all kinds of things that i thought maybe would be interesting so i applied to legal jobs even though i knew that i don't really want to be working as a lawyer anymore it was something that i was qualified for and i thought okay let's let's give it a try i think that when i was applying and interviewing and stuff although i tried my best and i put my best foot forward i think ultimately the reason that it didn't materialize in an actual job for me is because it was not the right one um which in that moment feels hard and it feels really shitty to get a rejection especially saying it was down to you and this other person and we choose this other person and that happened on more than one occasion where i was the second choice um and i was really sad about it a few times like i cried if you guys follow me on instagram you know i cried um but ultimately all of those experiences and helped me to have this like process of elimination of realizing i actually really don't want to do that and it's good that i dodged a bullet you know i shared this experience of this horrible interview question that i had um which was this male hr manager asking me how i work with women and i was like the exact same way as i work with men and he said to me and i'm not kidding you guys he said in my experience women just tend to blah blah blah over a cup of coffee and they talk about anything that's not in their job description so yeah and i was just like what the are you trying to say to me dude but i just responded to him and i was like um that sounds to me like it's a problem of you managing them if that's what's happening um yeah so i didn't get that job either but i also was really proud of myself for saying that to him because like what what kind of a question is that in an interview like you are literally trashing women in front of a woman well i'm not sure what you're trying to achieve there dude so it's been it's been crazy kind of through a process of elimination i was really able to narrow it down to like i don't want to work in the legal field i don't want to do an out like like too much math analysis analytics kind of stuff um i don't want to work in a misogynistic company and i really really really want to work at the university and then to narrow down no i want to do communications i want to do social media and so that helped me but linkedin was where i searched and linkedin is where i found my current job it actually happens to be that my now boss had posted on her linkedin like the description the vacancy it was just before christmas that i saw it and i yeah i applied i sent in my stuff and i even responded to her like linkedin post where i was just like hey future boss um i see this and this job looks amazing i'm so excited to apply for it and i really hope that i get to meet you in the interview she has never told me whether or not that made any difference but i did do that and i've never done that before for another job where i like comment like by the way i'm applying for your job but in this case i did it felt like a good thing to do and i did it and um that was that was a it was it was all right so yeah for the most part linkedin is where i searched lots of recruiters also post jobs on linkedin so there were definitely agencies like robert walters legal um where i applied for some jobs but i found them originally from linkedin um blue links group which is another employment agency um that i've worked with in the past like they helped me find other jobs in the netherlands but again i found the jobs that they were advertising on linkedin um and in this case for this job i did not go through a recruiter i did not have an agency uh help me get this this was directly i saw the job on linkedin i applied through the university website and everything was done through the university itself so that is kind of how i approached and searched for this english speaking job now i want to talk about how i modified and prepared my cover letters and my cv um for the jobs that i was applying for it's really easy to be a little bit lazy i think um and to have kind of one standard cv like the cover letter we all kind of know you have to change that that needs to change for every job but i didn't really change my cover letter i'm sorry i didn't really change my cv too much between jobs um and i think that that was a mistake um that i had been making because as soon as i also adjusted my cv to reflect a little bit of the job description or the vacancy announcement i ended up getting that exact job so i don't know if it was just this was the perfect job for me that this was like exactly what i needed um and that's why it worked out or if it was my strategy of also adjusting my not just the cover letter but also the cv to match kind of what they were saying so just in very broad terms i'm not going to be too specific but if they say we want somebody that can tell the difference between the color red and the color blue in my cv under like one of my jobs that i would do i would say like you know it was my job to be able to tell the difference between colors for example red and blue so that the thing that they were looking for in their um vacancy announcement that they could see that kind of reflected back in my um cv so that was something that i did um i had kind of different versions of my cvs that i made so um when i was applying for jobs in the kind of communications or social media then i focused heavily on the things that i've achieved in my own social media or with communications the things that i've done through all of my jobs so not just with jovi's home but like for my kind of communications related cv i would talk about in my former job that was not only communications but i would pick and choose the things that were related to communications and i would highlight those things so for example when i was going and speaking at conferences when i was helping management prepare slide decks when i was working on um newsletters or blog posts or things that i was doing that were specifically communications related that was highlighted on my kind of communication cv then i had one which was more project management oriented so for that exact same job that i just talked about where i talked about going to conferences and blah blah on my project management version of that cv that's when i talked about okay i managed this many events i achieved this and this in the project i um you know so it was not related anymore to the communications aspect but it was really tailored much more heavily to the project management aspect so if you're looking for a job i i don't know that this is another one specific but i think it's maybe just a good tip in general tailor your cv really closely to the kind of job that it is that you're looking for so even if your job is really broad and diverse and you do communications and project management kind of separate it into two different kinds of cvs to highlight your real experiences in each of those because then it will make it easier to target the industry that you're looking for in the cover letter i also addressed a lot of the things that they were looking for so um again i would say things like in my previous job at this company um one of the ways that i could tell the difference between red and blue was through my work on this and this and this project um and now when i worked at the i don't know yugoslavia tribunal when i was doing like as an international criminal lawyer for example um i didn't specifically work with the red and blue however i was differentiating between green and purple and this these are the skills that i gained through that job that would help me be able to see the difference between red and blue in this job so every single thing that i had done previously even though it was completely not in the same industry and it was not the same kind of topic i was really trying to show how my experience in law would help me in communications how my experience in project management would help me in communications so everything was just tying it back to even though i don't have you know 20 years of experience in communications i can still work as a communications advisor because of this skill and this skill and this thing that i developed in this and this other job um so that is how i approached it and i also feel like that was one of the reasons that i was able to then get a call back um for the first interview and then the interviews is different but certainly to get your foot through the door i think these were really helpful um these were helpful at least to me um and i i saw some success for the interview itself um in my case there was two rounds of interviews and i met with five five different people over those two rounds of interviews however i was also asked to prepare an assessment or like a kind of a project um before i ended up having the second interview um which was so much fun i had so much fun doing that project we'll talk about that in a second but one of the things that i struggle with um and i think this is kind of my american mentality is i always felt like i had to sell myself like i was just selling myself to you and what felt different in this interview was that it was kind of like we were getting to know each other and they really wanted me to understand what it was like at the university and what the job would be like and would i like that would i enjoy doing those things and then i could tell them oh yeah i think that would be really great or i'm able to do that or this is one area where i'm not exactly strong but i think that i can make up for it in these other ways and it just felt like one of these like like we were getting to know each other and that it was more like partnership and i was not going to be coming in like as a low-level employee um and having to like be like oh thank you so much boss for hiring me but it was really like we are working on this as a team and this is how we work together and it felt um completely different and i really love that about certainly my interview process this time around but also i do feel like in in the netherlands in general we have a little bit less of this um hierarchy that in the states is still pretty like important um so it just felt good it felt like we were just having a conversation we were getting to know each other and i felt both of those conversations just so happy and so thankful and just full of energy and excited about what i could possibly be doing so it felt great and but it was a little bit of a mind shift for me instead of me just being like please please this is why you should hire me and this is all the things that i'm good at and blah blah blah it was kind of like okay well this is who i am and what i have to offer but i you know what do you have and what are you offering and do we have a connection here and do we have a click here and are we going to be able to work together nicely and it just it felt great to find a match in that way um and it yeah take a drink every time i say great and happy and amazing and um we'll be drunk by the end of this video okay so the last step of the interview kind of was to prepare this assessment where they sent me kind of like an assignment a little bit like um in this case it was like we want to have this event um on campus it's this like big important event to the university president blah blah blah how would you what would your communication strategy be now they said 200 words maximum i could not deliver that in 200 words because as i sat there over the weekend thinking about if this was my job what would it really look like how would i approach this how would i communicate about this event what would i do it was like my brain just like unlocked in terms of creativity and i thought we could do this and we could do this and we could do this and this is why i would do this and if we don't do this we miss out on this opportunity and why don't we do this and this is such a good opportunity to do this and this and this and this for next year and i just became completely inspired and like i just i was like i'm just gonna make the kind of document that i would actually make and not worry about the 200 uh words limit and i ended up delivering a 10 page 10 page communication strategy that i would put together for this kind of big event and i felt like that was a risk um because on the one hand they could say we did not ask you for a 10-page document you cannot follow instructions uh what is this you know um but on the other hand i really wanted them to see that like i understood the assignment but also how i would do it and why i would do it and so i just prepared it and i sent it and ultimately it worked out in this way because they really liked it and um it was a it was a good thing but the reason that i share this story with you now is because if you are interviewing for a job and maybe you have to make an assessment or something if you really connect with it if you really feel it if you're really inspired by the thing that you're going to be doing or the thing that you're asked to do put your best foot forward just do it i enjoyed doing the project i had fun to to make this thing um and ultimately it got me to the job where i'm at um but don't don't worry and don't hesitate to just do your best and really try if you want all right so that is where we stand thank you guys so much for uh watching i hope that i answered kind of all the questions um that you might have but if you don't leave them in the comments and i will get to them thank you guys so so so much for watching uh thank you for spending some time with us today i hope that you enjoyed this video please give it a thumbs up if you like it share it if it's helpful for other people and i look forward to seeing you in the next one [Music] you

Channel: Jovie's Home

Views: 20,324

Keywords: Jovies, Jovie's, jovie, Netherlands, nederland, Dutch, Holland, Jovie's Home, the netherlands, American expat in the netherlands, American in Holland, Life in Holland, Dutch life, living in the Netherlands as an Amercian, Dutch people, American abroad, dutch culture, kids in the netherlands, children in the netherlands, raising children in the netherlands, raising children in Holland, expats in the netherlands, moving to the netherlands, moving to holland

Id: Wmt-rDuvD2A

Length: 19min 49sec (1189 seconds)

Published: Fri May 06 2022