The eminent Dutch psychologist, management researcher, and culture expert Geert Hofstede, early in
his career, interviewed unsuccessfully for an engineering job with an American company. Later, he wrote of
typical cross-cultural misunderstandings that crop up when American managers interview Dutch recruits
and vice versa:
“American applicants, to Dutch eyes, oversell themselves. Their CVs are worded in
superlatives…during the interview they try to behave assertively, promising things they are very
unlikely to realize…Dutch applicants in American eyes undersell themselves. They write modest
and usually short CVs, counting on the interviewer to find out by asking how good they really
are…they are very careful not to be seen as braggarts and not to make promises they are not
absolutely sure they can fulfill. American interviewers know how to interpret American CVs and
interviews and they tend to discount the information provided. Dutch interviewers, accustomed to
Dutch applicants, tend to upgrade the information. To an uninitiated American interviewer an
uninitiated Dutch applicant comes across as a sucker. To an uninitiated Dutch interviewer an
uninitiated American applicant comes across as a braggart.