IT jobs in UK/US/NZ

Webmaster

You're welcome, and good luck with your decision. Moving to another country is a major step and can be a long process so it's good to consider all options before deciding.

strauchr

Webmaster wrote:

strauchr wrote:

I liked Amterdam, had a lot of fun there I have yet to see the rest of The Netherlands which is one of my many travel plans.

It is impossible not to have fun in Amsterdam. Actually, I'll be meeting Jason Sprague from www.mcmcse.com, again in a two weeks in Amsterdam. This year I'm going to show him some of the Netherlands outside Amsterdam, cause Amsterdam is hardly The Netherlands any more. Not referring to the many immigrants, nor to the fact that the most common man's name is Mohammed (used to be 'Jan' twenty years ago ), but Amsterdam is really just a tourist attraction. Apart from the old architecture and the paintings in the museums it doesn't represent The Netherlands very well.

A couple of questions, migh help spoonroom as well.

Whats a good website to look for jobs

Whats a good site for legal work permits or check what I need

Do you have to speak Dutch or will English suffice?

For spoonroom there hardly is a language barrier because south-african includes a lot of Dutch words. Some mean something different by now, or are proncounced differently, but if you speak one, you can understand the other. However, anyone with an education here speaks English since we got it in school starting at an age of 8-10. Movies and other US and UK television is not translated but subtitled which means looking at English CBTs everyday. Dutch people speak at the very least 2 or 3 languages, which almost always includes English, certainly in IT as well as finance. Has a lot to do with the small size of The Netherlands (I.e. I'm about 40 miles from Germany.), we mostly do business internationally, and have been doing so for hundreds of years. Of the hundreds of Windows servers I managed, configured, installed, replaced, not even single percent runs the Dutch version of Windows (which is almost just as funny as the German version, ie. "Gebruikersbeheerder" in Dutch, Benutzer Manager in German, User Manager in English). Even I don't recognize most of the buttons and options in Dutch windows version just based on the words. Anyway, I really don't think language is an issue. Unlike many other Europeans, Dutch people don't mind adapting to the 'guest's' language at all, often on the contrary. Many managers already talk a mix of English an Dutch. Peptalks are really funnny here, they say things like "that's just not done here', and "over die meeting laatsten", where 'meeting' is the only English word. It kills me when they do that. Learning Dutch however is something I would really not waste an effort on. Apart from a couple of Asian languages, it's considered the most difficult language to well.

www.workpermit.com is something I stumbled on recently, but I suggest checking the embassy sites instead. The information may be a bit dry, but at least it's accurate.

As for job sites, you could try monsterboard.com or even .nl. I haven't looked at the job ads for a couple of months, but there has always been a great demand for people who speak English. Many large IT companies here do business in other countries of Europe and demands fluent English.

If you are seriously interested, I'd be happy to get my knowledge about the Dutch IT market up-to-date and provide you with some decent information and recommedations for companies. A lot of companies here outsource their IT work, to local IT service providers that is, and those companies are always looking for jobs.

And if you know SAP, none if it all matters.

On a side note for the others in this topic: please mind that this topic doesn't become 'too' political and stays on the topic of IT workers wanted to work abroad.

Thanks Johan. While I am very interested like I said before I am commited to the middle of next year in London and then after that who knows - may want to get back to sunny warm Australia! So I'll assess things for then but I now know who come to when I need some info