Your CV is not wrong. It’s written for a different market.

Most internationals show up with a CV that served them perfectly well at home, and that’s exactly the problem. A Dutch recruiter is scanning for different signals, in a different length, in a different tone, and none of that has anything to do with how good you actually are at your job.

Two pages, not one

If you were taught a CV must fit one page, let that go. Two pages is standard here, and cramming a decade of work into one page reads as thin, not sharp. The one-page rule comes from markets where recruiters screen enormous volumes of near-identical graduate applications. That is not what is happening when a Dutch hiring manager opens your file.

Use the space for what it is actually for: the last three roles in real detail, earlier roles compressed to a line or two each, and nothing padded to fill a gap. A second page that is half empty is worse than a tight single page, so let the content decide.

Say what changed, not what you were responsible for

Dutch business writing is understated, almost blunt. Calling yourself a results-driven visionary won’t read as confident, it’ll read as noise a busy recruiter skims straight past. Say what you did, what changed because of it, and let the numbers do the persuading.

The pattern that works is unglamorous: what you did → what changed → how you know. Most CVs stop at the first part.

If you genuinely don’t have a number, say what changed in plain language instead: a process that stopped breaking, a backlog that cleared, an audit that passed. Inventing a percentage is worse than not having one, because the first competent interviewer will ask how you measured it.

The line most people forget

The line that quietly kills the most applications is work authorization. A recruiter looking at a foreign name and a foreign address won’t spend a call finding out whether hiring you means a permit process, they’ll just move on. If you qualify for the highly skilled migrant scheme, say so near the top. It’s often the difference between a callback and silence.

The conventions nobody mentions

A few things differ from what you may be used to, and they are easy to get right once you know:

• Personal details are normal here. Name, city, phone, email, LinkedIn. Date of birth and nationality are commonly included and are not the taboo they are in the US or UK. Include them or don’t, but their presence will not count against you.
• A photo is optional and common. If you use one, use a plain, well-lit, professional photo. A holiday crop will do more harm than no photo at all.
• Open with a short profile. Three or four lines saying who you are professionally and what you are looking for. Not adjectives — specifics.
• Skip “references available on request.” It takes a line and tells the reader nothing. They will ask when they want them.
• Languages matter, so be precise. List them with honest levels, ideally on the CEFR scale. “Dutch (A2, learning)” is respected. “Dutch (basic)” is ambiguous, and ambiguity gets read pessimistically.
• Keep the layout plain. One column, standard headings, no text boxes or tables. Beyond looking calmer, it survives the software that may read it before a person does.

Before you send it

• Can a stranger tell, in ten seconds, what you do and what level you work at?
• Is your work authorization status visible without scrolling?
• Does every bullet say what changed, not just what you oversaw?
• Have you cut every word that would sound inflated read aloud in a quiet room?
• Is the file named something a recruiter can find later — Surname-Firstname-CV.pdf, not CV-final-v3.pdf?

None of this is about pretending to be someone you’re not. It’s about being read correctly by someone with 30 seconds and a stack of a hundred CVs. For a longer walkthrough of formatting conventions, The Hague International Centre’s guide is a solid start, though the version tailored to your actual story is the one that gets you hired.