Application conventions travel badly. A CV that performs well in the United States or India — long, superlative-heavy, personality-forward — can read as overblown to a Dutch recruiter, and candidates rarely find out that this is why they were passed over.
Keep it to one or two pages, reverse-chronological, no padding. The photo debate is mostly settled now — leaving it off is standard and increasingly preferred, partly to reduce bias in screening, though a few traditional sectors still expect one. Tone should be direct and factual: state what you did and the result, skip the superlatives and self-marketing language that reads fine on an American résumé but lands as overblown here. The motivatiebrief (motivation letter) still matters for a real share of applications, especially direct ones outside recruitment agencies — but it should be short, maybe half a page, and specific to that vacancy and that company, not a reusable template with the company name swapped in. Recruiters read a lot of these; a letter that clearly shows you read the job posting stands out more than one that shows you can write well in general.