✨ Your Integration Bestie ✨

「 Yes, things can change, often faster than you realise and in better ways than you could ever imagine.」

In 2023, I visited the Netherlands three times—winter, spring, and summer. Admittedly, the Netherlands wasn’t initially on my radar. Yet, each visit tugged at my heart a little more. Among all the European countries I had explored, this country felt like a home waiting to happen.

Yet, without a European passport, staying here as a resident felt like nothing but a pipe dream.

But the heart wanted what the heart wanted. I reached out to various immigration agencies, inquiring about the best way forward. And the consensus was that finding employment in the Netherlands and having the employer sponsor me would be the most viable route.

But it also couldn’t be just any job. It had to be a position that would qualify me as a highly skilled migrant, and the employer would have a lot of expensive legal hoops to jump through. As a result, many employers simply would not want the trouble and therefore only hire locals or people who already possessed a work permit.

Still, I thought, why not give it a shot?

But what job to find? Apart from the already complicated immigration requirements, above all, I wanted to do something that would light me up, the way coaching had lit me up.

—-

To be completely honest, having worked remotely for almost three years, I was starting to crave in-person human connections work-wise more and more. I found myself missing teaching in the classroom more and more. Education had always been a calling. No matter the capacity, I would always be an educator —one way or another.

And now I felt a pull back to the physical classroom.

The decision to stay in Europe was made; the Netherlands was the chosen destination, and secondary school teaching was my desired field.

But the job search had its many hurdles. Many schools simply accepted applications from people who already had the right to work within the European Union, which left me with little to no chance. But I kept at it.

In the beginning, it felt like hitting a wall, but then, one day in September 2023, everything started to fall into place.

Two weeks into the job hunt, a prestigious secondary school in Amsterdam reached out for an interview for a Business & Economics teacher position.

—-

I told the school during the first interview that I was not currently in the Netherlands nor did I have a valid work visa. They took note of it, and I didn’t want to get my hopes up, so I didn’t think too much of it.

But 4 rounds of interviews later, almost a month down the line, I woke up to an email one day that changed everything.

Despite an expensive decision, the school offered me the job, taking care of the immigration process and helping with relocation with a generous moving allowance provided.

For days, it felt so surreal. Just like that, my dream came true.

A month later, I was on my way to the Netherlands, getting myself settled into the country.

All right within the 3-month frame I had given myself.

—-

Now that I’ve been in the Netherlands for almost a year, my heart is filled with gratitude.

I share this not as a conclusion but as a checkpoint in my ongoing journey. There’s still so much more I want to share, but for now, I just want to say this:

When you tell life what you want, life will then tell you how to get it. And if there’s something in the way and nothing seems to be working, maybe you should also trust in what isn’t working because it might be trying to guide you to what will.

You got this; I believe in you.