What is a Dutch “sollicitatiegesprek” like?

Sollicitatiegesprek voor een baan in het pretpark

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A2 Dutch listening practice · Dutch · Curated for beginners

💡 Did you know?
sollicitatiegesprek
noun · dutch job interview
A Dutch job interview, with a tradition of plain questions, no small talk, and direct answers

A Dutch sollicitatiegesprek (“job interview”) tends to be shorter, more direct, and less performative than the American or British equivalent. Dutch hiring panels favor plain questions (“waarom wil je hier werken?”, “wat zijn je sterke punten?”) and watch how candidates handle silence. Dutch bluntheid shows up here too: candidates are expected to give honest answers about salary, hours, and career plans without the usual interview spin. Sectoral norms vary, but the sollicitatiegesprek tradition skips most small talk.

In this clip, a Dutch comedy interview at a pretpark: “Waarom wil je bij werken? Nou, de Efteling had geen vacature.” Followed by “Ik heb een groen hart.”

Vocabulary frequency

How common is the vocabulary in this A2 Dutch listening practice listening practice?

92.6%
of words are in the top 2,000 most common Dutch words
Based on this reel’s transcript, most of the vocabulary is high-frequency, everyday Dutch.

General Dutch frequency

88.2%
Top 1,000
92.6%
Top 2,000
97.1%
Top 5,000

Spoken Dutch frequency

95.2%
Top 1,000
98.4%
Top 2,000
100%
Top 5,000
👄 Conversational vocabulary
This reel’s words appear more often in subtitle-based spoken-Dutch data than in general usage, so it may feel closer to everyday conversation.

Words above this video’s level

Quick glosses for vocabulary that goes beyond this video’s A2 level.

duinrell
3×
Rare / outside top 5,000
Duinrell
kwek
2×
Rare / outside top 5,000
kotsmisselijk
1×
Rare / outside top 5,000
(slang) extremely nauseous / disgusting
omschrijf
1×
Rare / outside top 5,000
efteling
1×
Rare / outside top 5,000
Efteling
kikker je van op
1×
figurative: you are surprised

Source: wordfreq 3.1.1 (general) · SUBTLEX-NL 2014 (spoken). Buckets approximate; exact ranks not stored.

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