Over the last several years, my spouse and myself have often considered the prospect of leaving the USA for somewhere in Europe. We both love to visit and vacation there, and despite the significantly reduced salaries by comparison, people are consistently rated as being happier with their lives.

The EU has stronger labor laws.

This manifests itself in a few ways that maybe you wouldn’t consider.

When interviewing for a European-based company, and one that isn’t necessarily an offshoot of an existing company based out of the US, job interviews tend to be more formal and a bit more tech-direct skills (i.e., not soft skills) focused.

Reddit has a lot more to read on the topic.

This showcases in how people are hired and fired.

From bluematterconsulting.com, I found a good description of this:

Across Europe, the concept of at-will employment does not exist, so employees have much greater protections than in the US. If an employer wants to terminate an employee, then it must do so for well-documented, established reasons. In addition, the process of dismissing an employee is usually a lengthy one, with required warnings, consultations, notice periods, and the like. An employer that fails to follow the proper procedures and does not afford an employee due process is open to a wrongful termination suit.

Hiring definitely feels more deliberate over there, and when layoffs occur, companies can’t simply do it overnight and uproot people’s lives like they do here in the US (ahem, healthcare).

I’ve known managers who have had to handle a layoff for some of their EU based employees and doing so took them months. They also had to show legal proof as to why they were no longer needed.

Feedback after interviewing is also different.

When we get rejected from a potential future employer during the course of an interview cycle, we here in the US are largely told “sorry, but no thank you” via a simple email.

You really don’t get much more than that.

You basically forever get to ask yourself “What did I do wrong?” or “Why did they not hire me?” and you basically will never know the true answer unless you get very lucky with the recruiter you worked with and they give you a little bit more detail.

It’s not typical for them to provide anything specific to you due to the market (and law) favoring the employer side of the relationship.

However, when interviewing for an EU based position, you’ll absolutely get told why you weren’t hired. It’s probably not very easy to hear, but it does afford you the opportunity to uplevel yourself for the next time you apply elsewhere.

Personally, I’d rather have the EU based approach.

Too many times I’ve been told “sorry, but no” leaving only weird, unanswered questions in my head and my psyche.