For those of you that have already been following this, I’ll cut to the chase: I probably don’t have a job in Amsterdam. The company decided for now they’re putting the job in London and bringing a current US employee over to do the work for a month. After a month (which is now coming up in a couple of weeks), they’re going to review if the job belongs in Amsterdam or London. If it’s Amsterdam, I still have a good shot at it.
For those who haven’t followed this: my family decided a few months ago that we were going to move to Europe. We reviewed the educational systems, pollution, culture, etc and narrowed it down to three countries: Switzerland, Netherlands and Belgium. I’ve tried before to get a job in the UK, and got no response whatsoever to my resume.
This time, to try to ensure that I at least was heard before I was dismissed, I went to Paris for three weeks to job hunt. Unfortunately, out of that time I only got one interview. (I spent the rest of the time working on our iPhone app, job searching and submitting resumes, so it wasn’t just a three week vacation in Paris.) On the other hand, that one interview turned into a job offer – sort of.
First, they told me that they had an offer letter written and awaiting the CEO’s signature. The CEO was on vacation that week, so I just had to wait. At this point, I think understandably, I thought I had the job. However…
When the CEO got back, I still didn’t hear from the HR person right away. Finally I did hear – they had two internal applicants apply while the CEO was on vacation, and without an offer already extended they had to interview their internal people per their company policy. I can understand this, and I don’t mind competition, and they also told me that the technical guy making the decision quite liked me, so I thought I still pretty much had it in the bag. I just needed to wait for them to interview & figure out I was better than those internal guys 
So I waited, and waited, and waited some more. I finally called in, and found that the HR person was out that week. When I did hear back, I got the news of the job being moved. :-(
For now, I’m continuing to look for jobs in Europe, but at a very leisurely pace. (So leisurely, in fact, that I haven’t yet sent out another resume.) It’s still possible that this Amsterdam job will come through, but I’m certainly not counting on it. Meanwhile, I’ll send out a few resumes each week and see if someone else bites.
