Verry happy with career opportunities and living environment in Twente

He has of course thought about studying or working outside of Twente, but he already figured out that he wanted to stay during his business economics study at Saxion in Enschede. “Why would I do an internship at a big company far away when I can do it here? I did an internship at ABN-AMRO/MeesPierson, right here in Enschede. You can find the same opportunities here as you can further away. We have big companies, they all have branches here. And there are also many innovative medium-sized companies like Victa, where I ended up.”

A lot of paths opened up for Dylan when he finished his studies in business economics two and a half years ago. “I did not yet know what I wanted to do exactly, but I did figure out during my internship that, even though I had a great time there, I did not enjoy working for a very large company, precisely because it is so big. That often makes an organisation less flexible. My girlfriend had a job at a café called De Appel at the time, and I heard about a vacancy at Victa from her.” This is another advantage of staying in Twente, he says. “You have your contacts here, your network. You don’t have that in another city. I was very enthusiastic when I saw the vacancy.” This feeling only became stronger during his job interview. “Especially when I found out that everyone here is a big FC Twente fan. That creates a bond because I am one too.”

As a BI Consultant, Dylan ensures that customers have a visual image of what they want to know at the push of a button, based on data from their organisation. “Their wants and needs can be very different”, says Dylan. “One company might want insight into their inventory, another might want to quickly look into their sales over several months or years. Meeting the customers’ demands is a challenge every day. The puzzle is different every time. Every company works with different systems, and the trick is to transform the data into a compact answer. This job at Victa gives me the variety, the contact with clients and the puzzle-solving I was looking for. They were my first employer after I finished studying, and it is a perfect fit. I don’t think that many people are lucky enough to find such a great first employer.”

Dylan and his girlfriend bought a house at the edge of the centre of Hengelo. “That is also one of the reasons for staying here in Twente. This is the “place to be” if you want to build up something. Houses are not affordable in large parts of the country, but here they still are. I do not want to throw away money on an expensive house that I am just renting. You may earn a little less here than you would in the Randstad, but you do have the opportunity to become financially stable here.”

Dylan also enjoys the directness of the people here. “People do not beat around the bush, you can just say what you have to say. Everything is fairly close by as well. If you want to go do groceries, it costs a lot less time than it would in a big, busy city. So there is more time for fun things, such as going to an FC Twente match with a group of friends – who, by the way, come here from all corners of the country every fortnight for FC Twente’s home matches –, working out or drinking a beer in the pub. It is all possible right here in Hengelo. You can have a great time anywhere when you’re with nice people, especially here in Twente!”