Migrating to EU from India

[Peter Selvan]

Dear Reader,
i am a software engineer currently working India and i have 3 year work exposer in Netherlands.

Now i am willing to immigrate to Netherlands or any EU country.

Questions?
1.Is it possible?
2. If yes possible to immigrate then what is required to do so?
3. Which are the EU countries which is interested to take skilled worker from India.

Thanks in advance for your reponse.

[Charan.Krishna]

I am also in a similar position. I think you have to find a sponsor. Please be active in linkedin. Keep on trying. Prepare your mind to send 100th application after 99 failed applicaitons.

[secret.simon]

Any long-term immigration requires planning, lots of it.

First of all, choose which country/ies you wish to immigrate to. Remember that you want to look at the culture of a place, not just what currency you earn in. Even if you do not wish to integrate, your family, especially your children, will need to. Plan for the fact that the values that you have will not be held by your children and whether that is something that you can tolerate.

Once you have chosen the country/ies that you wish to immigrate to, start studying their requirements and work towards them. It took me a year of planning and a year of making sure that I am earning a sufficient amount to get my initial work visa. And that was 10 years ago.

Always have a backup plan. In my case, I was aware that I thrived best in a Anglophilic culture and so I shortlisted Canada in addition to the UK. As it turns out, I did not need to activate my backup plan, but I had one.

Coming back to the EU, as mentioned above, choose your country and work towards learning its immigration requirements. With regards to software engineers, I believe that English is a working language in that field in almost all EU countries except France.

But if you wish to immigrate on a long term basis, you will need to learn both the language and the culture of the place. Find out which EU language is easier for you and start learning the basics. German is a good bet as it is spoken in Germany, Austria and parts of Belgium and Switzerland (Switzerland is not a part of the EU, but is a part of the EEA).

Also, look at applying for an EU Blue Card, somewhat like a US Green card and valid across all EU countries except the UK, Ireland and Denmark.

[noajthan]

Any long-term immigration requires planning, lots of it.

First of all, choose which country/ies you wish to immigrate to. Remember that you want to look at the culture of a place, not just what currency you earn in. Even if you do not wish to integrate, your family, especially your children, will need to. Plan for the fact that the values that you have will not be held by your children and whether that is something that you can tolerate.

....

Always have a backup plan. In my case, I was aware that I thrived best in a Anglophilic culture and so I shortlisted Canada in addition to the UK. As it turns out, I did not need to activate my backup plan, but I had one.

Coming back to the EU, as mentioned above, choose your country and work towards learning its immigration requirements. With regards to software engineers, I believe that English is a working language in that field in almost all EU countries except France.

But if you wish to immigrate on a long term basis, you will need to learn both the language and the culture of the place. ...

+1

Sound advice.

English is the lingua franca of transnational software engineering.

Good English is required & will help immensely;
(ie fluency plus familiarity with regional UK accents as well as exposure to European & US English).