Hi there! My partner and I are moving from Melbourne, Australia to Amsterdam in April this year. Whilst we are looking for work, it's unlikely that we will lock anything down before we arrive.
A few questions:
1. Can we obtain a working visa before we arrive, without a job?
2. Is it hard to find work, when needing to be sponsored?
Julian is a journalist, and I am a copywriter/strategist. We will both be seeking full time work. Julian holds a British passport, but I do not.
Appreciate any advice!
Maggie.
Moving from Australia: need visa advice
Maggie_Kelly
19 February 2019 09:10:08
2
Cynic
19 February 2019 10:38:38
7386
Hi Maggie and welcome to the Forum.
First - at the top of the page is our "Discover" section, if you mouse over that, you'll get a drop-down menu, select our Netherlands Guide. Read through that as it will contain information relevant to your journey. To answer your specific questions:
Julian, currently no problem, as an EU citizen he has the right to live and work anywhere in the EU, but Brexit may screw that up for everyone. So, for now, we'll assume he no longer has the right.
You both can obtain visas, however, you will be assessed on your capacity to obtain work on arrival. Visas have been denied to people who the Dutch government don't think have any chance of getting work, but these numbers are small and I suspect won't apply to yourselves.
In general, there are 2 types of work visas, the skilled migrant visa and the what I describe as the general residence permit and work visa, the latter of which need you to pass a Dutch language exam. The Dutch Government department responsible for this (IND) has a website with lots of useful information; this link will take you there.
Long range job searching is always problematic; unless you have a unique skill that is in great demand that can't be filled locally, the moment they realise you can't interview this afternoon for a job starting tomorrow, they lose interest - that's the agency situation worldwide and is not going to change anytime soon. Apart from the fact that our local newspaper in Holland closed down some years ago and is now mainly an on-line operation, I know the square-root of nothing about journalism. Perhaps use something like LinkedIn to try and contact your peers around the world to get some idea of what (if any) job prospects there are for you both in the Netherlands.
So, please read the links I've given you; if you have any further specific questions, please come back to us.
On a separate matter - I do doubt your sanity, most people are going the other way. 
Hope this helps.
Cynic
Expat Team
Maggie_Kelly
19 February 2019 10:47:51
2
Hi Cynic, thanks for your fast reply! I will let you come and experience the slow pace of Australia before fully committing myself to the 'insane' pile! Can you please help me to understand what you mean with the work permit? Will I have to pass a Dutch language exam in order to be able to work in Amsterdam? The visa information is quite confusing in trying to sort out what we can and cannot arrange prior to leaving Australia. Thank you! Maggie. 
Cynic
19 February 2019 11:25:25
7386
Hi again.
I've been to Oz (or rather I worked there for a while), I still doubt your sanity. 
Anyway, enough frivolity, to put this simply, the Dutch are big on integration, one of the things that will help people integrate into Dutch society is the ability to speak Dutch. So being able to speak the language is about living there, not working there. In fact, the highly skilled migrants are exempt from the language exam and if either of you can land a job in that category (read the link I previously gave you), then that would be by far the easiest way to do this.
To answer your specific question, unless you're in the highly skilled migrant category, where your future employer does all the leg work to get you and your partner your visas, then you have to go through the Immigration process and the visa that you and your partner will probably have to apply for is known as the MVV, which is a joint residence permit and work visa. There are 2 main processes in this, one is a requirement to pass a Dutch language exam, the other is that the Dutch government will assess you to see what chance you have of getting work when you get here; if you get through those and assuming you don't have a criminal record, you're in.
I wouldn't worry too much about those, thousands of people do it every year; I am to languages what Picasso was to arc welding, but I learnt Dutch (it helped that my Dutch wife was around to constantly remind me of just how crap my Dutch was at the time). If it worries you, then go check out YouTube and enter "naar nederland" in the search box - somebody has placed the contents of the online course and the exam there.
Hope this helps.
Cynic
Expat Team
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