✨ Challenges to get a job in Europe

I wrote this article around 5 years ago when I recently moved to the Netherlands, although it was in Portuguese, this is a mere translation but I thing it is still valid for those who are on the same battle I fought years ago: trying to get a job in Europe not being an European.

So, here you go 😄

Intro

I'll try to be very succinct, practical and objective so that the reading doesn't get so boring. For those who don't know me, I'm Gustavo and I've been working on web development for 9 years, I started with Java, then VB.NET with webforms, then C# with MVC.NET and Kendoui, in case you do not know what kendoui is, click on the link and check it out ;) and finally currently working more focused on the frontend with React + Redux and of course, NodeJS. super summary.

Why leave Brazil?

In 2010 I had something called epiphany, I felt that Brazil was changing and things would get better, protests, corrupt politicians falling among other things, but then I thought, I'm young, 22 years old, and I'm sure this will take some time, at least about 30 to 50 years, I don't want to go through this phase, I want a nice life, travel, tranquility and etc, at the time I researched many places and saw a possibility of moving to Canada, the country is beautiful, clean, organised, everything works very well and I thought, that's where I'm going to live, so, closing this topic this was my motivation.

Next plans

Is it possible for us simple human beings in the technology field to immigrate to Canada? yes, IT IS! and IT folks are very welcome in Canada, however, Canada has a scoring scheme and it is "slightly" competitive. I only had a technical course at the time and I decided to start my bachelor, this was in 2011, because one of the things you certainly get a lot of points for, is with the damn bachelor degree, so I drew up the following plan:

• Bachelor degree
• English
• Immigrate

Easy, very simple, it would still be competitive, but it would be ahead of many other candidates, then the battle started, I was not born in a golden cradle, so my dear friends, it was 8 hours of working day, 4 hours of college at night, and around midnight 1 hour of gym because yes, and I like it.

Graduated and going for English

So, I graduated in June 2015, and I thought, I'm tired as fuck of studying, I don't even want to know about English now, haha, I spent 6 months relaxing, important tip: busy mind doesn't work, sometimes it is necessary to relax, maybe not 6 months, but a few weeks is cool, it's part of the game. but I started to focus in January 2016 again, I started studying English with my dear Teacher Jakeline, to whom I am very grateful for all the learning.

I ended up not telling it at first because it wasn't the focus, but in May 2016 my girlfriend and I were completing 10 years together, and I wanted to do something special for her, she always wanted to visit France, seeing that pile of cluttered iron that everyone loves, this, that thing, eh, Eiffel Tower, this one, anyway. I thought and rethought, the money is short but it's ok, let's go to Amsterdam, What??? wait, wasn't it Paris?, Eh, more or less, short in money, not very proficient in English yet, I thought I'm going to Amsterdam, because I have friends living there, I stay at their place, I know a nice place and I still give her a great dating gift, and guys, it went very well, she and I went to Amsterdam, it was fun, the city is beautiful, fantastic, as perfect as Canada or even more.

Change of plans

Coming back from Europe, I had many ideas in my head, my girlfriend had already mentioned several times about going to live in Europe before Canada, for thousands of reasons, but the ones that weighed the most on this decision were: Cost and Time, if I lived in Canada, I would certainly like to travel to Europe from time to time, visit other countries, and my friends there, when you get on an 11 hours flight to travel from continent to continent, even more so when you are 191 cm tall, in the economy class, it's just sad, and very painful and the f**king time doesn't pass. All this and other things made me think about my decision of where to live, and I thought I'm going to continue studying English for another year and then I'm going to start applying to Europe, I'm not going to get out of my plans so much, I just changed the country, so, let's go.

One year later

Not graduated in English, as they were private classes, usually two classes of 1.5 hours, totalling 3 hours a week, with some absences and setbacks, I believe that 1 year and 4 months of English I was already communicating, this means that I could have a conversation, explains things, talk about code and many other things, it's equivalent to an intermediate level, from then on it's vocabulary, phrasal verbs and practice. In April 2017 I really started applying for some vacancies, I think in a total of 25, I had interviews every week, the no's, maybe's and yeses came with time.

You must be wondering, my God, 25 CVs, this guy sent CVs everywhere. so, it was almost like that, I had seen some requirements which I didn't fill completely but I sent the CVs anyways, perhaps that was my initial mistake, and some companies simply replied, Sorry but you don't fill the requirements. really, Europeans aren't rude, they just go straight to the point, I like that, a thousand times they cut me off at the beginning saying they don't want a profile like that, than, having HR interview, practical test, technical interview, interview with the director, passing everything and in the end, receiving an answer like this: unfortunately we decided to continue the process with other candidates with the profile closer to what we were looking for. Annoying folks, but this has happened to me a few times.

No, almost, and a yes/99.9%

This story of the no's may seem silly, but it's not, it's very demotivating, it was difficult to keep my head up, taking a beating, doing various types of tests, one more bizarre than the other, I remember that a guy once asked me: what's the result of this? 1 + 2 + ,,3" + 4 + ,,5" so I said: syntax error, and he told me: no, it's actually 3345, anyways, I'm not here to judge, just to show that there are several types of questions, and sometimes through nervousness I came across simple things and couldn't solve them, after he answered me '3345' I realised that the guy had just mistyped the quotes and typed two commas, it happens.

The almost was more or less like this, two companies I passed an HR interview, tests, technical interview but at the very end, in the almost, they decided to continue the process with another candidate, it varies, sometimes because in the last interview I answered a wrong question, sometimes because there really was another candidate, even more so that there are European candidates who they don't need to pay relocation and visa process. Several really, don't be discouraged if you receive an answer like that at the end of a process, if you got until there it's because you're good.

And the story of yes/99.9% was funny and sad, I basically passed in all the processes, the director even congratulated me, and said I want to see you as soon as possible here with us, this happened on a Friday, the HR person told me that on Monday she would send me the formal proposal by email to accept or negotiate adjustments. and when Monday arrives, with my heart in my hand, I receive an email asking for a new step, an interview with another developer, and guys, I was terrified, the interview was difficult, conceptual, questions like, what is the difference between object-oriented programming and functional programming, I know, the problem is that at the time of nervousness + no domain of English + pressure + talk about concepts in English, basically nothing useful came out, my interview was horrible, a disaster. I wasn't approved by the interviewer, and I'll say more, I wouldn't approve myself either, it wasn't cool, and maybe I wasn't ready for that vacancy, HR just replied that I wasn't approved and they wouldn't continue the process with me.

Finally Approved!

After 25 CVs and the most varied no's possible I realised that it was already at the beginning of July 2017, I was terrified, because I really wanted to go until June at the most, so, I decided to apply for 25 more vacancies. a few more no's, interviews and tests and finally, the blessed company that approved me, I had a HR interview, one of the worst, because my listening in English wasn't very good yet, and the recruiter was in an open room, without furniture, a lot of echo, without a proper microphone, just the laptop, and there were people dragging something, probably the new furniture they were installing.

I remember she asked me, do you have a portfolio? if you have, send it to me, because we will pass it on to the dev team to evaluate your code, otherwise we will send you a test for you to do, I passed some projects on my Github and went on with life, this was on a Tuesday, on a Thursday of the same week, the recruiter send me a message, saying that the dev team liked my code and that they wanted to schedule the second step, a technical interview with the IT director, I scheduled it on Friday, I had the interview, it was cool, I prepared a lot this time, and it was cool, advanced conversation about concept and all the react lifecycle. I've made just one mistake, and in the end they told me, Gustavo, we have other candidates to interview, I believe that by the end of next week we will have an answer, I said: ok, I'll be waiting for your email.

On Monday of the following week I woke up very early because I had another interview with a British company, when I took my cell phone in my hand, I saw the following message: Hello Gustavo, Would you have time for a quick call? We've got good news for you, I jumped out of the bed and said, Yes of course, and then I got the news that I'd made it, Finally, after taking several no's and sending out about 50 resumes, I finally got it. a job in Europe!

Tips and Conclusions

Study the market where you want to go to work and live.
Based on the market studied you will know whether or not a degree is necessary and thus perhaps save you a lot of time or apply your time better, for example I have some friends working as Senior Devs in Europe without a degree so make yours research.

English, always study English, it is very, very important, I never liked English, I went to learn it after I was “old” at 26, it was more difficult, but with time, classes, exercises and a lot of practice, it worked out. Oh, and I must say, there is no magic course to learn English or any language, there is only one way: study, exercise and practice a lot of listening, reading, writing and speaking.

Portfolio, always have projects or codes that you can present at hand.

Get ready, know everything possible and important about the company and the vacancy, make a check-list, lock yourself in your room and talk to yourself in English, ask yourself: talk about yourself, what do you do in your current job?, what methodologies do you use, why do you use them and do you like them? What are the processes of the company you work for? uses Scrum or some other agile methodology and so on.

Be nice, smile, you don't have to smile all the time, but show sympathy, be friendly, for example: a friend of mine from Europe said he had a very good guy technically but the guy didn't smile at all, and wasn't a good fit for the team, too introspective.

Be very organised, Europeans don't like delays or forgetfulness, there are some good cell phone apps for calendars, so plan ahead.

LinkedIn updated and in English, if you are looking for an opportunity abroad, use the language as close to universal as possible, post projects, write what you do, technologies you used/use, add all useful information, don't bullshit, be direct and objective.

Meetups and events, some people say you don't learn anything there and basically with a 10 minute internet reading you know as much as the speaker. in my humble opinion, yes it is partially true you can read this in 10 minutes on the internet, and you should, but don't discard the idea of ​​attending these meetups and events, because that's where you sometimes find out about new technologies, make a cool networking, meet new people and companies, vacancies, discuss about many things and in a somewhat generalist way, Devs are a bit introverted, get out of the comfort zone, go beyond, make friends, see what they work with, learn new technologies or update yourself on what you like, one day I will make a post only about meetup and events, as there are many things to talk about, for now, that's enough.

In addition to all the advice and tips I gave above, I really want to make a conclusion, simple but valid, I'm not the best, maybe that's why 50 CVs, but I'm very persevering, dedicated and committed to myself, I said I would make it and I would achieve these things, I went after that, ran, fought and here I am, there are lucky people and better people than me, who will just send one CV and pass the first time, YES, of course, but what I want you to understand is, don't let yourself be carried away by the no's, they may appear, but move on, put it in your head that you're going to make it and run after your dream, I'll close up here, I hope I've inspired and helped you all.