All posts of Claudia Costa
An Italian expat in Limburg
By Claudia Costa
I moved to Germany from Italy three years ago to start a technical translation internship in Cologne as a starting point for my professional life abroad.
Unfortunately I soon found out that the agency I was working for was not willing to teach me further proofreading and translating skills and I was often left alone, with little work to do and a lot of time to get bored.
As I am a very active person, who surely does not like to wait for work to come down from the sky, I started browsing for job opportunities in The Netherlands through sites like www.jobrapido.nl. I was lucky enough to be contacted by a recruitment agency for expats, called Abroad Experience, and I was invited to join a telephone interview for a job ad as a Customer Service Representative for an employment opportunity in Venlo, in the Limburg region.
Back then I did not know much about The Netherlands; I had visited Amsterdam a couple of times with family and friends, hopped to Eindhoven for a concert and gone on an exchange trip to The Hague during my studies when I was still living in Italy. My first impressions were that it was a very windy and grey country but I was impressed about of well everyone spoke English and how friendly everyone was.
