Career prospects

After graduation, you will be ready for various positions relating to intercultural communication processes in organisational and cultural contexts. You will be able to design and execute (practice-oriented) language and communication research. You will also have the knowledge and tools to advise companies and organisations on communication processes for migrants and expats (communicative auditing). 

During the Master's you will learn professional skills in project management, reporting, analysis and research, customized multilingual communication, client-focused solutions, and more. Alumni of this programme often apply for jobs in the fields of: 

  • communication
  • human resources
  • consultancy and PR
  • translation
  • mediation and training
  • sales and marketing
  • language education

You can also enrol in the educational Master (in Dutch) to become a teacher after completing our programme. If this is your ambition, you will have to pick a language-specific track that corresponds to the subject you will be teaching in the future. 

Alumni on LinkedIn

  • Joscelyne Williams

    Multilingual, Intercultural Communication & Online Marketing Specialist

    Intercultural Communication: 2016-2017

  • Ashley Merkl

    Executive Manager of the FDP-parliamentary group in the City Council of Stuttgart

    Intercultural Communication: 2017-2018

Other programme alumni have also obtained jobs in the communication sector:

  • Lotte Edelkoort works at an HR company in the Netherlands and focuses on organizational development, behavioral change and team effectiveness.
  • Qing-Yi Fan is an International Office Coordinator at the TU Delft.
  • Wouter Kuiper is a consultant and project manager at Van Aetsveld.

Academic careers

During this programme, you will develop strong academic skills in a field with many useful applications. Education at Utrecht builds on the research our professors and assistant-professors, all researchers at our university, carry out on a daily basis. Some graduates have followed up their Master’s degrees with PhD projects in the Netherlands or elsewhere in Europe.

  • Alumnus Koen Docter obtained his PhD at the European University Institute in Florence, Italy, for his research into secularism and media representations of Islam in the Netherlands and France and how they differ.
  • Alumna Nynke van Schepen works as a PhD student for the University of Basel in Switzerland on the research project Speaking in Public: Social Interactions Within Large Groups. Contributions from a Conversation Analytic Multimodal Perspective. 

Facts and figures

Many of our students find jobs prior to graduation. Usually, this job is the result of the compulsory internship during the Master’s programme. Professionals seeking to improve their career opportunities also regularly take part in this programme. Text continues below the image. 

Infographic alumni data

Alumni data MA Intercultural Communication

Overview of job positions of 305 alumni based on their LinkedIn profile in 2018:

  • Communication officer = 16%
  • Marketeer = 15%
  • Teacher, lecturer, trainer = 11%
  • Account manager, sales = 11%
  • Researcher, consultant = 8%
  • HR, recruiter = 6%
  • Project manager = 6%
  • Copywriter, translator, editor = 5%
  • Other (some link to ICC) = 15%
  • Other business branches (no link to ICC) = 7%

Career development

Active Alumni Network - ICC Café

The Master’s programme in Intercultural Communication has an active alumni network. Alumni frequently return to the university as guest speakers. They also provide advice and information to current students about career opportunities in regular meetings and send out their employers’ job vacancies through a closed discussion group on LinkedIn and the programme's Facebook page.  

Guest speakers

Utrecht University regularly invites guest speakers who work in the sector to speak to students in the programme. These professionals share their experiences not only with intercultural communication, but also on their day-to-day activities and general information relating to their professional careers.  

Career Services

Career Services offers events, tests, coaching and training in and outside your Master's programme, related to professional self-analysis, career orientation and job application skills. You can find more information about career services on Career Services for Dutch students or Career Services for international students.

Other career events

  • Your Perspective is a monthly career orientation meeting for students and alumni of the Faculty of Humanities at Utrecht University. Each month we explore a different workfield or theme that is relevant for students of various disciplines within the humanities. 
  • The Faculty of Humanities organises a Career Night Humanities with interesting partners who will illustrate the diversity in career opportunities for humanities graduates and give you possibilities to develop yourself by joining their projects or attending their services. 
  • Once a year Utrecht University organises a Careers Day. This Careers Day offers the opportunity to sign up for workshops and trainings, and to meet recruiters at the careers fair. It’s also possible to participate in a job application training or have your résumé checked.