My hopes and wishes for The Netherlands after the 2017 national elections.

The year 2017 is an election year in The Netherlands.

And 2017 is also the year in which the current Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte of the liberal-conservative party VVD wants to serve a third stint as PM in a cabinet in his name.

He wants to do so in any shape or form and with whoever want(s) to be his partner(s), excluding no party in advance at all, even in spite of the sometimes preposterous, disgusting and constitutionally illegal ideas of some of those parties. 

Regular readers know my opinion about this Prime Minister, as I wrote numerous articles about him and his policy.

Therefore I don’t want to waste my energy on an negative, vinegar-ish article, describing why a third term for Mark Rutte as Prime Minister would be bad for the country. People who repudiate this Prime Minister know themselves why they dislike and even despise him.

At the same time, the people who like him and his style of governance will never be convinced by my remarks about him. Remarks about his flaws and especially his lack of intellectual depth in conversations, a necessary grand vision, as well as a heartfelt sense of sanitary decency (to these eyes) and backbone.

Rutte’s fundamentally flawed government with the Christian-Democrat party CDA and especially the right-wing PVV (“Party for Freedom”) of Geert Wilders – as silent partner – was probably not a one-off, of which Rutte learned valuable lessons in order to never repeat it again.

To the contrary: I have a feeling that Rutte would repeat this experiment if he had too; under slightly different terms and circumstances, when it would be a necessary step to stay in charge of the country. Some would call this great political helmsmanship and agility-on-behalf-of-the-country; I call this selling one’s soul!

But enough is enough!

Instead, I want to express my hopes and wishes for the new cabinet in 2017 and for the policy that it will execute. This policy should bring The Netherlands in a better economic and sociologic position, and besides that, it should lead to more confidence, mutual trust, solidarity and togetherness for the whole Dutch population and for all who are depending on that.

These are my hopes and wishes for the next Cabinet:

1.  Stop the national depression that has The Netherlands in its grasp and replace it with a feeling of (humble) self-confidence and strenght again, based upon the nearly unlimited power of the Dutch population during the last 500 years. There is no reason for unfounded boasting, but also no reason for ‘talking oneself down to the ground’.

2.  Stop the poisonous climate in the national, political forae and in some national media, leading to an evermore poisonous climate in Dutch society itself, against different minorities as well as the so-called elites.

Show that the cabinet does not have to incorporate ‘extremist’ visions from the right and left wing, when they can’t beat those visions and their protagonists with a soft and civilized tone of voice. Let the political scoundrels spit their bile, but never consider this a normal 'modus operandi' or something that needs to be followed or even incorporated in the moderate political parties.

3.  Please let the next cabinet develop a vision on The Netherlands in the next 25 years. What is the spot on the horizon that we see as our most desired future and what kind of world do we want our children to live in. And let the cabinet act accordingly.

By continuing to live as there is no tomorrow, the world might come in a situation in which there is indeed no tomorrow.

Fossile fuels, the growing gap and 'two society-division' between rich and not-so-rich, climate change and global heating are subjects and events for which negligence can come at an extremely high price. ‘Wir haben es nicht gewuβt’ (i.e. ‘We did not know this’) is an untenable stand in case of these subjects and events.

Seek cooperation and mutual interests to solve climate and energy isses, but don’t use possible stagnation in the rest of the world as an excuse to do nothing ourselves. The same for this growing gap between rich and poor.

4.  Stop the utterly technocrat, economy-driven policy approach, by calling our country The Netherlands Ltd and by translating every societal development and event into economic, value-driven terms alone. By doing this, politicians grossly neglect the intangible side-effects and emotions that come in the process of such developments and events.

People are people and not durable means of production, which have only value in terms of the Gross Domestic Product of The Netherlands.

The Netherlands is definitely not a limited company and money is not the standard for every event, development or emotion within the country.

By adding economic value to everything and every event, the Dutch people feel themselves neglected in their humanity; as if they are little more than tiny wheels in a huge economic machine: humans as FTE’s (i.e. full time equivalents).

5.  Stop the development in which responsibility and liability in (f.i.) construction and production processes are delegated into oblivion; away from the principals or the main and subcontractors, thus leaving the people that do the actual work in the cold, when it comes to their safety, optimal labour circumstances, fair payment  and pleasure in working.

Don’t accept it, when main contractors for large building projects don’t have executing personnel of their own on the building sites and leave everything to numerous subcontractors and (foreign) freelancers.

Don't accept it either when companies only exist out of executive and management layers and leave the all work itself to subcontractors and freelancers.

6.  Make an end to the excessive flexibilization of the Dutch labour market and to the circumstance that – instead of more people getting job and income security as a consequence of new and improved government policies – actually less people get job and income security, due to ubiquitous freelancing, unavoidable flexible labour contracts and zero hour contracts for nearly all younger workers.

When government policies blatantly fail, please replace them by better and more elaborated ones. Don’t start with the quantitative and qualitative reduction of the existing protective laws with respect to the dismissal of workers with fixed contracts, but start by giving flex workers and freelancers more job and income security via social laws and regulations, as well as new forms of social security and feasible(!) protective policies.

Make sure that you have the unconditional commitment of the social partners before you set the wheels of law change in motion: employers’ organizations, freelancer’s organizations and labour unions.

7.  Be sure that the European Union survives the next decade and does not collapse under the ubiquitously mounting negative, anti-European and nationalist feelings, for as far as Dutch government leaders can enable that.

Lead by example by not only emphasizing the Dutch (!) interest in European discussions, but keeping a keen eye for the European citizens' interests, as they might differ on some occasions. Europe is not a simple sum of 27 individual countries interests...

8.  Don’t try to restore the economic situation from the year 2007 in Europe. This was the year when the debt bubbles in any shape or form were on the brink of imploding. By restoring this economic situation, we restore the same bubbles that brought us in this economic depression in the first place.

9.  Take the people, who are very vulnerable for the sometimes poisonous ideas of the left- and rightwing populists, very seriously and show them that you understand and (even) share their worries, disappointments and grief; even when their ideas might sometimes seem simplistic and/or overly aggressive against minorities and the elites of this country.

Try to take away their worries and when that’s impossible for various reasons, explain them why you can’t. Those people are not spoilt, little children who always want to get their way, but they want to see leaders that they can trust and rely upon, even if they don't agree with them.

10. Inform the people about the developments and risks of the digitization and robotization of the economy in The Netherlands. The digitization and robotization of the economy will probably come at the expense of numerous jobs that must be replaced by other jobs, in order to not get massive numbers of unemployed people during the next twenty-odd years.

Instead of putting the people to sleep with governmental marketing babble, 'chill', governmental infotainment commercials and stories about a brave, new world, these people need to get perspective on a better future again; even if they are poorly educated and trained. For instance in the form of early retirement plans, or with retrainings and refresher courses and the national stimulation of innovation, in order to create new jobs.

11. Stop with the delusion that budget balancing, lower taxes and ‘the magic wands of the markets’ are the answer to every economic and sociologic question, emerging in the Dutch society.

Start to act as an active government, by investing in (fundamental) science and research and innovation, but also in people’s (re)trainings and learning possibilities, in order to prevent those people from becoming “unemployed foregood”.

Start investing top dollar in primary and secondary schools, medium and high level vocational education and universities, while at the same time diminishing the administrative red tape that is haunting so many professors, teachers and additional personnel. Trust professionals for doing their jobs professionally and make sure that the new government enables their efforts, instead of hampering those with red tape, as well as useless inquiries and demands.

Don’t waste billions of euros on unnecessary building and construction activities (especially on excess and thus useless commercial real estate) and unnecessary infrastructure (i.e. the proverbial ‘bridges to nowhere’). Such investments costs billions and billions of euro in ‘dead money’ that neither yields to the economy nor to the general well-being in The Netherlands.

12. Be gentle with the ‘baby boomers’ and the last generation of survivors of the Second World War, but don’t let especially the former ‘eat away all the cake’ for the younger generations and especially the current youngsters under 27. Also these young generations want to have a decent retirement plan when they turn 65 (or 70). We simply can’t leave everything to the market...

13. And last but not least: be reliable as a government at one side, but humane and forgiving at the other side. Nobody asks for a perfect government, but nearly everybody wants a gentle, fair and reliable, non-technocratic one.

People want politicians that have a story to tell... Not politicians like the local supermarket branch manager, who only keeps the store (i.e. The Netherlands) open and has no ideas and visions of his own.

And to the Dutch people: be wise in what and for whom you vote! Don’t believe the wonderfully attractive music that the different Sirens and Pied Pipers of Hamelin make, as this music will lead you to your doom.

What good is ICT education at primary school, when children lose the ability to express themselves verbally in a crystal clear and concise way, that is well understood by the people who read their work?!

It were just two news messages in the Dutch national media of last week. Two articles that were peculiar – in case of the first article – and disturbing, in the second case. In combination they sent a tell-tale signal about the state of the primary education in The Netherlands.

The first article was an article in the Dutch ICT magazine Computable that was printed last week. It was a plea, administered by the Dutch, national employer’s lobby organization VNO/NCW and the Dutch guild for the ICT industry ‘Nederland ICT’, to start with ICT and programming education at the Dutch primary schools:

New Cabinet should impose ICT education at Primary Schools

Hans de Boer [chairman of VNO/NCW – EL]: Lessons in ICT knowledge and programming skills should become a regular topic in Primary and Secondary education. In these times of robotization and digitization of labour, it is essential in order to catch up with the future in later years. If we want to remain competitive and want to offer people a lasting perspective on a prosperous future, people need to have ICT knowledge and programming skills, irrespective of their future choice of jobs.

Nederland ICT CEO Lotte de Bruijn states: With the ICT as driving force, there are chances present in all industrial sectors, like logistics, healthcare, agriculture. There should be a Cabinet’s vision involved that superseeds the individual ministries. Only then we are able to profit optimally from the chances of digitization.

Chairman of  VNO/NCW Hans de Boer
during BNR Newsroom in 2013
Picture copyright of: Ernst Labruyère
Click to enlarge

Although I am (of course) not against teaching children important stuff at an early age, teaching ICT knowledge and programming skills were not exactly the first things that I was thinking of, as an enhancement for the curriculum of today’s primary schools. 

It is the same with teaching English at Dutch primary schools, as it happens today: I understand what people are thinking, but I just don’t know whether I agree with it. An old expression in The Netherlands is that you first should be able to walk, before trying to step on a bike.

And that very expression was exactly the point in a disturbing article, printed yesterday in Het Algemeen Dagblad:

Writing skills of children going down the drain

Children are poorly educated in writing clear and concise texts, that are easily understood by their reading public. Teachers don’t know how to train their pupils in order to enhance their skills. With earlier alarms on behalf of this very topic, involving various Dutch primary schools, nothing has been done after all, according to researchers of Utrecht University.

Of the eight weekly hours that are spent on (Dutch) language training, only 45 minutes are spent on writing texts. Pupils are hardly trained on HOW to do that, as teachers don’t know exactly how to instruct their pupils to this regard, according to the researchers, two doctoral students of Utrecht University.

“Nowadays, children hear that they have to write a text about a certain topic”, according to Monica Koster. “Those children write down the first things that pop up in their heads, thus making the resulting text incoherent and unclear". 

During the research of Koster and her peer Renske Bouwer at 52 primary schools, it became clear that two-third of all pupils cannot communicate a relatively simple message on paper.

The average quality of the writing lessons on primary schools was insufficient. Teachers first and foremost put energy in reading and vocabulary lessons. Writing skills are hardly mentioned in the textbooks. Also in teacher training schools the writing skills are hardly educated. In the meantime even vocational schools and universities started complaining about the poor level of the texts that students create.

According to Amos van Gelderen, teacher language acquisition at Hogeschool Rotterdam and researcher at the Kohnstamm Institute (centre for education research of the University of Amsterdam): “Children simply cannot write good enough. 

They can’t create a text that is so clear and concise that their readers understand it directly”, he states. “That is not their fault. Teachers have insufficient attention for writing, as it costs time and is hard to verify. They miss the right expertise”. 

In the remainder of the article, the researchers endorse a teaching method “that could dramatically improve the children’s writing skills in a short period of time”, but that is not my point.

My point is that children nowadays get seemingly insufficient and arguably poor education in one of the most important skills that the human race has to offer: their writing skills. Both the available time for writing – 45 minutes (!) per week – and the below-par quality of the education to this respect, leaves a lot to be desired. 

Reading skills and vocabulary are undoubtedly extremely important too, but clear and concise writing is paramount in the life of every boy and girl. Especially as the chances to sufficiently acquire these skills at a later age, are quite dim and the consequences for one’s career and future are grave.

Already in the days of the ancient Greeks and Romans, people possessed the skills of writing texts and books that were both concise and clear and interesting to read and educate: even nearly 3000 years after they have been written. Numerous students are daily educated in the writings of Homer, Cicero, Socrates and Plato, even though these authors have passed away thousands and thousands of years ago .

Writing and communicating via texts is one of those skills that sets the human race apart from every other animal in the world, as such communication (texts and books) strongly outlast the life span of the authors. 

Therefore the fact that “we” seemingly cannot educate our children anymore to express themselves in a way that everybody can easily understand, is deeply disturbing. The fact that this is not “just another research study about just another subject”, but research of which the conclusions are broadly endorsed by the Dutch education inspection, as well as by teachers and professors at vocational schools and universities, makes this even more disturbing.

When you oppose this last news message against the plea for teaching programming skills and ICT knowledge at primary schools, as quoted in the first Computable article, the latter request seems quite grotesque and superfluous.

Unfortunately, as a member of the participation council at my children’s primary school, I already have experienced that the working days of primary schools are already “filled to the brim” with lessons and educational targets and goals, leaving little time for yet another goal and another politician’s / lobby group’s dream. 

These are targets and goals, which in some cases are either quite political or ideological in nature: that is at least my personal gutfeeling. 

Teachers are constantly complaining about their elevated and mounting working pressure and about their administrative backlog that keeps them busy until late in the evening every day.

Besides the normal skills necessary for their profession, like good knowledge of all aspects of the Dutch language, as well as sound knowledge of children's math, history, science and geography, primary school, teachers already had to learn English at an educational level. 

Forcing them to learn ICT and programming skills too, would ask very much of these teachers, while ICT training on schools by specialized teachers would be too expensive – especially for small primary schools. For secondary schools, this is a different story of course.

More important, however, is the question where these ICT and programming lessons would fit in in the roughly 6 hours of classes per day and 30 hours per week and which other part of the education should drop off the current curriculum.

There is no way that new subjects and topics can be squeezed in the school curriculum, without diminishing or even cutting out other subjects, which are also considered to be of high importance. 

In the current school time table there are no ‘spare’ hours anymore. How else can it be explained that something with paramount importance as ‘writing skills’ gets only these totally insufficient 45 minutes per week.

Basically, the vast majority of the primary schools are definitely not administering poor education, to these eyes. They are also not disconnected from reality or ‘teaching the wrong things right’, is my firm opinion. Most teachers and daily school executives are doing the best they can to administer the best education that they can deliver.

Yet, they simply cannot find the time to squeeze all these new subjects and political / ideological trends and topics in. They don’t have the time available for that. It is time for politics and lobby groups to consider that and to focus on what really(!) matters for young schoolchildren to learn.

Writing skills are definitely one of those subjects. Of programming and ICT skills at that age, I am not so sure. 

5 challenges for freelance ICT consultants... and 8 solutions on how to overcome those.

I. Help, my knowledge and experience are becoming outdated. What can I do?!

The ICT-industry is constantly on the move. Driven by a mixture of fashion and new innovations within the industry, certain methodologies, skills and tools can become outdated quite suddenly and unexpectedly.  Once popular tools and hardware can fall from grace, while new systems and tools emerge like a lightning bolt.

While some tools and brands are long-lasting ‘winners’ (hence: SAP, Oracle, various Microsoft tools), other tools ‘disappear from the face of the earth’ in a jiffy. You could think about tools and systems, like JDEdwards (CRM), IBM iSeries (including the accompanying software and development tools) or any other tools based upon obsolete-ish hardware and operating systems.

Also methods change very dramatically sometimes: ‘CMM/Waterfall’ project execution, following the Prince II method, has been a staple for almost all large ICT-driven companies for many years. Suddenly, however, it was conquered by storm by Agile / Scrum and other agile methods. 

That happened for the simple reason that people and companies became fed up by the incorporated bureaucracy, the inagility and the too often undesired end results or deadline shifts of waterfall projects.

But where Scrum seems now the winning method in 'ICT-land', its days could be counted too, sometime in the future. Simply for its (obvious) drawbacks, as f.i. underestimation of the need for documentation by development teams, the moderate to poor scalability within large organizations and the poor predictability of the end state of a project.

If you have vast experience in one of those legacy systems, development tools or outdated methodologies, but hardly experience in something else, your immediate career could be under acute jeopardy!

What should you do:

1.   Check regularly if your knowledge and experience are still in demand on the market.

Having such a look at your own experience and skills can be confronting. It is not easy to admit that you are under threat of becoming a dinosaur in your field of expertise. Still, you must do it and you must do it honestly. You are the last person on earth for whom you should cover up the truth.

2.   Before your own train stops moving, be prepared to jump on another train.

Afterwards you must decide whether you want to remain the keeper of your own niche –  for instant Cobol programmers can nowadays earn a very decent living with this “prehistoric” programming language – or that you want to learn something new very quickly and thoroughly.

In case of the latter, try to gather new competences quickly and try to get ‘hands on’ working experience in these freshly acquired competences. Accept one or two lower paid assignments, if you can acquire valuable experience there. Get out of your comfort zone, but don’t do things in which you will never become successful: don’t waste your energy on projects, doomed to fail.

However, waiting without acting is definitely not an option, as your sources of income might dry out very soon. And when you are already without an assignment or even unemployed, despair might get hold of you, making you feel miserable and restraining you from doing the things that you must do.

II.  Help, I want to have a new assignment as soon as possible, but I don’t want to shoot at everything that moves?!

Since the trough of the economic crisis in 2011, the ICT market has improved dramatically. There are currently a lot more assignments available in the market and it might be that your field of experience and your skills belong to the absolute winners. Then you are definitely in business and you can pick the best, most convenient and interesting assignments.

However, it could also be that it is a little bit harder to get a new assignment, because your experience and skills are not that distinguishing for you as a consultant and you did not catch the latest trend in the ICT industry in time.

Writing too many motivations for different companies and industries and sending your resumé to too many people and companies is disappointing and it can cost you valuable energy, that you need for a successful intake. But still you have to find a new assignment.

What should you do:

3.   Choose your battles wisely.

Don’t apply for every assignment, but choose the ones that you like and where you have an above average chance of being selected with your resumé, your hands-on experience and your motivation.

The same when a certain assignment does not sound interesting or won’t bring you new and valuable experience. You are much too valuable to waste your energy on an assignment that does not bring you something new and interesting, just for the sake of getting an income. You should not be too picky, but also not too eager for new assignments.

However, when you find an interesting assignment on offer, go for it! Check out which are the most important job demands that the principals of your choice have and whether you can meet most of them. If not, save your energy and don’t apply.

Don’t be scared away by very exotic tools and methods on the ‘demanded experience’ list, for which you lack the hands on experience. You can learn a lot on the job. 

And besides that, chances are quite dim that the principal will find a lot of applicants who have that particular experience, when these tools and methods are indeed as exotic as you think they are. And even when principals find such a consultant, he will undoubtedly have a 'sturdy'hourly fee, as he is one of only a few.

Nevertheless, when the aforementioned tools are not very exotic after all, consider doing a course, workshop or self-study to gather the missing experience. Otherwise you might miss too many opportunities for a good and interesting assignment.

4.   Try to only do business with intermediaries, who are preferred supplier at the principal of your choice or at least have personal relations with people working there.

The world of freelancers is crawling with companies that want to earn a few bucks at the freelancer's expense. What you as a freelance consultant want to prevent from happening, however, is that you only earn 60 bucks per hour for an assignment for which the principal pays €90 per hour to the main contractor.

In other words: you don’t want to have €30 per hour in fee spillage, as that makes you expensive as a consultant, in spite of the fact that you still earn a rather moderate hourly fee. 

The rule of thumb is: don’t pay much more than €10 in fees per hour to the main contractor of the assignment and about €2,50 for the invoicing intermediaries (i.e. companies that take care of the general invoicing on behalf large principals, like banks and insurance companies). The services of such intermediaries are often mandatory, as f.i. large banks and insurance companies demand usage of their services for the invoicing and remuneration of their consultants and freelancers. 

But remember, if more than one party (except for invoice mediaries) stands between you and the principal, your hourly fee will blow away in the wind. So don’t do that, as you have to work very hard for your money and should not see it land in other people's pockets for nothing! You are not a philanthropist! 

Besides that, there are numerous small bureaus and one man-businesses, that are fishing in the same small pond of second grade-assignments (i.e. assignments that have been ‘floating in the market for quite a while’ and already yielded a stockpile of resumés for the principal). These bureaus don’t have direct contracts and/or good connections and relations with large principals and the people working there, but simply feed on the breadcrumbs that the larger brokers and intermediaries drop. 

Don’t waste your energy on those, in spite of their sometimes convincing stories! The chances are dim that your resumé stands out so much that you will get an invitation after all and sometimes deadlines for such assignments have already past, without you knowing it.

Always ask such bureaus which principal is involved in the assignment and ask if they either have a ‘preferred supplier’ contract or personal connections/relations with the principal for which they state to work. 

If the answer is 'yes', you can do business with them, but ignore the others as they cost you a lot of energy and often can’t deliver anything in the end.

And remember: a personal cont(r)act between a intermediary and a principal is often much more worth, than thousand possible assignments from one of those clueless, small bureaus and one-man businesses.

III.  Help, the ‘usual suspects’ among the principals are offering dozens of jobs, but I would rather work at a smaller and more personal company?!

Large principals, like national and local governments, semi-governmental organizations (f.i. railroad companies or infrastructure service providers), telecom companies, large banks and insurance companies are indispensable for many freelancers. 

Such companies and institutions need numerous freelancers throughout the year and therefore offer interesting jobs and contracts for many, many people.

Downside is, however, that freelancers are rather considered as a ‘flexible labour shell’ for such organizations, than as a valuable asset for the longer term. This often means that when your job at such a large principal is finished, you will be dismissed without hesitation. You are hired for the job, so when the job is over, so is your contract (of course there are always exceptions to this rule-of-thumb).

What should you do:

5.   Get out of the comfort zone of searching for jobs exclusively at the large principals and find a principal that ‘feels good’ to you, fits to your goals and offers the chance for a longer and mutually fruitful assignment.

Smaller principals more often see their freelancers as 'an indivisible part of the team' and aim more often at longer working relations, especially when these freelancers are good at their job. You could become more closely attached to such a company and hop from one assignment to another, within the same company. 

So perhaps a smaller principal can indeed offer a longer and more fruitful relation, that lasts longer than until the moment that the job is done. 

Whether you like this or not, depends on you of course. Some freelancers like short assignments at many different companies, while others like long and close relations with principals.

IV.  Help, I don’t know what hourly fee I should ask while applying at future principals?

In spite of the rejuvenating economy f.i. in The Netherlands, 2016 is still distinguishable as a demand-driven economy, in which there is more supply of available workers than actual demand from principals. 

The effect of this circumstance is that there will probably be ‘a stack’ of offered resumés for every available ‘middle-of-the-road’ assignment at common principals. This means in practice that there is still fierce competition from other freelancers, which puts pressure on the hourly fees on offer.

This effect is reinforced by the still high influx of qualified and skilled workers from the (European) low wage countries or from India. These people seem to offer exactly the same that you can offer, but at a fraction of the price.

What should you do:

6.       Know what you’re experience is worth.

Don’t ask too much money, but do not put yourself ‘on sale’, out of fear for competition from the low wage countries. If you sell yourself too cheaply, you can’t pay the bills and the fixed expenses that come with being a freelancer. Or you won’t be able to build up a nest egg for possible hard times in the future. 

However, when you sell yourself to dearly, you won’t get an assignment; especially when your experience and skills are not that exclusive for you.

Most companies, however, are willing to pay €60 - € 70 for younger and less experienced workers and roughly €70 - €80 for very experienced, senior workers. This is the rule of thumb. More exclusive skills and experience for a freelancer mean a higher hourly fee than the aforementioned ones, while genuine juniors should aim at an hourly fee slightly below the €60 per hour.

If you go cheaper than that, you will get in the zone in which you cannot pay your fixed expenses anymore (i.e. your car, fuel, taxes, disability insurance, health insurance or retirement payments). Due to the insecurity of a life as freelancer, you must take care of yourself in case of tough times and longer lasting periods of unemployment.

Fortunately, most companies learned to understand the wishdom behind the (not very sympathetically sounding) expression: “If you pay peanuts, you get monkeys”.

Many workers and ICT service suppliers from the low wage countries were initially just not good or experienced enough to fulfil their assigned task, in spite of their (sometimes) very low hourly fees. Or they where hampered by cultural differences and a mutual misunderstanding of their language (mostly English), which handicapped the execution of their job.

But while the best knowledge workers from India and Eastern Europe were able to gather the desired experience and cultural skills and grew into very valued workers indeed, it inevitably meant that their hourly rates went higher too. 

These people also discovered their net worth and did not want to work for a 'token' fee anymore, as they discovered the general costs of living in an expensive country as The Netherlands!

So don’t go cheap on yourself... and once again remember: every superfluous service mediator or job broker that you don’t have to pay for his activities, cannot eat away your sales revenues or make you too expensive. So get these guys out of your personal value chain, where possible.

V. Help, there is so much that I don’t know and so many tools that I don’t master yet.

There are so many operating systems and development, deployment and testing tools in the ICT industry and there is so much to learn in this business, that it is impossible to always stay totally ahead of the game and educate yourself in any tool or method that comes along. 

It is also impossible to win every intake, as there sometimes simply are better and more applicable people for the job. 

As long as your general knowledge, experience and skills are still in demand within the business, you should not worry too much about that (see also I. and II.)

What should you do:

7.   When you can meet most demanded skills and experience (i.e. when you have chosen your battles wisely indeed), you will probably be in business.

Many principals offer very long lists of requirements – tools and methods – that a freelancer should master, in order to obtain the job on offer. It is therefore very hard to meet all requirements on that list.

Remember, however, that such lists often represent a 'starting bid' and that people who master every aspect on that list are probably scarce – and therefore expensive. So don't let those lists haunt you and scare you away. 

Browse through the list and look up if you can meet the most important requirements – the knock-out criteria. If you can do that, just apply for the job.

8.    Be prepared on your job interview, but don’t be overprepared. What you don’t know, you don’t know.

Overpreparation for a job interview can be killing. You can sound ‘mechanical’ and nervous, like an overprepared school kid during his final oral exam; not like you are on the top of your game.

Be explicit and proud about what you know and what your skills are – without too much boasting – and don’t feel bothered and nervous or disappointed about what you don’t know. You can’t know everything!

One of my own mistakes is that I want to answer every question sufficiently and satisfactorily, instead of just chosing for 'no' when this is most applicable. When I can't answer such a question properly, I start stuttering and sweating, which makes a very poor impression, of course. This is my personal handicap and it cost me some good assignments in the past, I'm afraid.

When the conclusion is that your knowledge is insufficient for a particular job, then so be it. There is always another job in which you will prove to fit perfectly, provided that you are still on top of the game with your skills and experience and not have 'turned into a dinosaur' indeed. Grab that one!

And my only additional advice is that you closely follow the trends and don’t forget to jump on the right train, when it leaves. 

You will notice that, when the whole industry is buzzing with a new trend or tool. Don’t miss out on that one!