It’s been a crazy rollercoaster ride the last few weeks, where the euphoric feeling that I had when I arrived is slowly dissipating.

At first, I was so excited about SF, I was absolutely convinced that I wanted to stay and could already envision myself living here for a few years. So I decided to look for jobs in San Francisco, little did I know things would go so differently here than they did in the Netherlands.

I strongly believe that the best way to find a job is by having open discussions with people, learning about what they are doing and understanding their challenges. If you think there’s potential, you can find out how you can contribute your unique skills and tailor a role around that. Most of my jobs in the Netherlands come out of conversations with people rather than job vacancies. (Shout out to Wies Bratby for these tips!)

In the Netherlands, it’s fairly common to reach out to people via LinkedIn or cold emails and the response rate I’ve had so far in Europe is probably around 80-90%. Whether it be CEOs and directors of companies, start-up founders or freelancers, most people have responded to personalised messages.

SF is a whole different story. Due to the tech hype here, I’ve heard that people here get so many messages that inboxes are overloaded, leading to a response rate of 5-10%, no matter how personalised the message is. Unless you’re introduced by someone, the chance of getting a meeting with someone is really small. People told me that networking in SF is important, and I’ve come to learn the hard way how true it is.

To be honest, my initial assumptions and impressions were that people don’t respond because of status. It felt to me as though people that work for a large tech company, a successful start-up or have a fancy title, don’t have an interest in talking to “outsiders”. In contrast in the Netherlands, people, including CEOs or directors, are interested in hearing from students, the “ younger generation” or others and are therefore very approachable and open to a conversation.

The job search process in this sense has been extremely exhausting and I’ve been hearing no (or nothing at all) more times than I can count. My experience in the Netherlands has been the other way around and everyone seems to be very happy to make time and share what they’re working on. It’s been quite a challenge to get a foot in the door and deal with the differences between SF and the Netherlands.

The key message here is that network in SF is everything.

Now that a few weeks have passed, I’ve decided that I will only stay in SF for the right reasons and not just for the sake of being here. By that I mean, that I’ve realised that I don’t think I’d be happy here if I’m not working for a company I believe in, where I’m in a role where I’m not learning anything or working with people I like. That makes the challenge of finding a job a lot more tricky.

In the meantime, I’ve been entered into the H1B lottery by my company and will hear the outcome on the 1st of April. It’s not really sure where I would work in the company, so I’m trying to figure out what I'd do at Cuberg if I stayed. At the same time, I’m contemplating other options such as remote working and travelling the world, heading back to Europe or maybe even moving to Asia.

That’s it for now! More updates will follow!