She walked into a room where half the people already knew her name.She hadn't met any of them.
How Nathália Cortez, a Brazilian international lawyer based in Amsterdam, built a LinkedIn presence that opened doors she didn't even know existed.
Want to follow Nathália's journey? Find her on LinkedIn here.
Nathália arrived in the Netherlands in 2018 to do a master's in international human rights law at Tilburg University. She didn't speak Dutch. She didn't have a local network. And she was entering one of the most niche, politically-driven fields in the job market — sustainability and human rights compliance.
Seven years later, she walks into industry events and strangers say: "Oh, you're the girl from LinkedIn."
This is her story.
Starting from scratch — twice
After finishing her master's, Nathália quickly realised that landing a job in the Netherlands as an international was going to be harder than she expected. Sustainability was still being treated as a marketing exercise by most companies. And without Dutch fluency or a local network, the usual routes weren't available to her.
So she made a strategic decision: move to Brussels. More international organisations, more institutions, more jobs for multilingual candidates. She landed a role at a compliance software company, not exactly the sustainability dream, but close enough, and it taught her a lot.
Then COVID hit. She went back to Brazil. Found a new remote role from there. And eventually made her way back to the Netherlands.
The lesson she carries from all of it: "Try to find something that only you have, or that other people are less likely to find."
For Nathália, that was the combination of legal training, sustainability expertise, and fluency in Portuguese, English and Spanish. Not one of those things on its own. All three together.
Building a LinkedIn presence that actually means something
Nathália started posting because she wanted to make sense of the world she was working in.
"Information nowadays is very scattered. You don't know what is real and what isn't."
She curated her feed deliberately, following credible sources, engaging with people in her field, saving posts worth responding to. Over time, her own feed became a reliable signal in a noisy landscape. And her posts became a way of sharing that signal with others.
She posts things that genuinely spark interest. Like the piece she shared about how the EU's forced labour regulation, despite its noble intentions, may have doubled CO2 emissions in Brazilian soy supply chains, because the infrastructure there was never built for the kind of traceability the law requires.
"Post things that are really helpful for other people. Post things that are different. Everybody does the same thing, you should be asking yourself what you can say that others aren't saying."
The moment she knew it was working
A few weeks ago, Nathália walked into an event at Erasmus University in Rotterdam. She found out about it through LinkedIn.
When she arrived, she recognised around half the room. More surprisingly, they recognised her.
"They were like: 'Oh, you're the girl from LinkedIn.' I was like, how do you know me?"
That's not a small thing. In a field as specialised as sustainability law, being known before you walk into a room changes everything. She regularly gets coffee invitations from people in her field, three in one week recently.
The one unfriendly reply, and what she did about it
Out of hundreds of connection requests and messages, Nathália got one rude response. Someone wrote back: "Why are you messaging me? You don't even know me."
She replied: "You are on LinkedIn. If you don't want people to reach out to you, you shouldn't be here."
Her advice to internationals who are scared to message people they don't know:
"If you get ignored, you get ignored. At least you tried."
What Dutch people take for granted
One thing Nathália keeps coming back to is the invisible advantage of being local.
Nathália remembers how she got her own internships back in Brazil, through an uncle who knew a prosecutor, through a friend of a friend. Before she moved, she never had to think about networking deliberately. It just happened through proximity.
As an international, that proximity is gone. The safety net isn't there. Which means you have to build your own, intentionally, consistently, and yes, often on LinkedIn.
"We underestimate the importance of networks as internationals. And we have to work so much harder for it."
One thing she wants more of on LinkedIn
More honesty. "I don't like it when people post that life is great, everything is amazing, all the time. That's not real. The posts that get the most engagement are the ones where people say what's actually happening."
What's next for Nathália
She's wrapping up her interim at Unilever this month and looking for her next permanent role in sustainability management or ESG.
George, the 14-year-old dog she was sitting with during our call, seemed to have strong opinions about this. She'll be fine.
Nathália's story is a good reminder that building visibility on LinkedIn isn't about hacks or tactics. It's about showing up consistently, saying something that actually matters, and trusting that the right people will notice.
If you're an international professional navigating the Dutch job market and you're wondering whether any of this applies to you, it does.
Book a free intro call with Aiva and let's figure out where to start.
