With only a few new companies like Carv, I-RPO, The Talentpool Community, and RecruitAgent, it seems to be a relatively quiet year for recruitment start-ups in the Netherlands. Sure, TestGorilla was recently named the fastest-growing recruitment start-up in the world (surpassing HireEZ, Personio, and Eightfold), but that Amsterdam-based company is now six years old and hardly a start-up anymore. So, is there little happening this year? Or are we just not looking closely enough? After a bit of digging, we did find five initiatives. Who are they, and what do they say about the market?
#1. Nutzy: ‘Job Community’ for Gen Z
Who? Mitch Gielen and Kevin van Houten
From? Deurne and Moordrecht
What do they do? A community and visual job platform for Generation Z.
“The new generation no longer wants long job descriptions, but rather visual content like videos and TikToks,” says Van Houten. He and his partner-in-crime Mitch Gielen (Purple Squirrel Effect) aim to cater to this with their newly launched platform,
Nutzy aims to offer jobs where candidates can swipe through them in a contemporary manner, and the founders also want to include internships and traineeships. Additionally, they aim to provide “relevant content” like dressing tips for interviews, information on transition compensation, and how to negotiate remote work. “Our mission is to inform Generation Z and give them confidence in their job search, with visually appealing job profiles and help them make a good choice,” Gielen explains. “At Nutzy, we don’t create job postings; we create fan pages,” adds Van Houten.
#2. Swipework: ‘TikTok for the job market’
Who? Niek van Schootbrugge and Maarten ter Velde (with third co-founder Ferran Rohaan)
From? Amsterdam
What? A video job platform that aims to make job hunting more fun, transparent, and more accessible with video job postings and AI.
Another initiative with swiping right in its name can be found with more swiping and TikTok. Niek van Schootbrugge (30) and Maarten ter Velde (29) launched Swipework, a video job platform that has already generated attention from Dutch platforms like MT/Sprout and De Ondernemer. Despite officially launching on September 1, the startup secured €650,000 in funding, raising expectations high.
The platform differentiates itself with 30 to 60-second videos, “where companies can show how fun it is to work there,” says Van Schootbrugge. “A.I. takes care of the boring tasks for you, like creating a CV.” Employers receive help from the startup in assessing and developing their videos, although they are responsible for posting them on the platform. The job requirements appear when you click on the video, and job seekers can access these videos through an app they install on their phones.
#3. Jaicob: AI-driven ATS
Who? Remy van der Wijngaart, Luuk Zebregs, and Remco Mulders
From? Tilburg
What? AI-generated job postings and a fully automated recruitment process.
Officially launched on January 22 this year, and thus still making it into this overview, is the AI-powered recruitment tool Jaicob, which promises to make recruitment 400% more efficient. According to the founders of Jaicob, it was born out of “a deep frustration with current recruitment challenges.” Their tool aims to turn recruitment from a stumbling block into a springboard for success.
Jaicob’s AI can screen resumes, conduct interviews, and provide real-time recruitment advice and data-driven marketing campaign insights. The platform includes integrations with tools like Outlook and WhatsApp, plus advanced features such as natural language processing for text understanding and generation.
#4. Power Path: Microsoft-Integrable
Who? Maarten Docter and Ruben Lamot
From? Driebergen
What? Recruitment software based on Microsoft’s low-code platform.
Launched at the end of last year but still relevant to mention is Power Path, a start-up from Maarten Docter and Ruben Lamot offering recruitment software built on Microsoft’s low-code platform. The software’s unique advantage is its seamless integration with the entire Microsoft 365 stack.
#5. MAXrecruit: CoPilot for campaigns and more
Who? Caron Ellens and Yentl Ellens
From? Deventer
What? Another CoPilot, but mainly for campaigns.
MAXrecruit, created by Caron Ellens, aims to help small businesses compete with a tool that performs over 90% of recruitment tasks.
Ellens explains, “You input who you’re looking for and where, and MAX—our CoPilot—creates the job page, advertisements, and Meta campaign. It collects all applicants in a dashboard and runs A/B tests for quality, so you can adjust for efficiency.”
The death of the job posting?
Conclusion: Aside from noticing that the start-up world is still primarily male-dominated, several trends emerge if we look at these five companies. The first is the increasing use of A.I. While it has been the norm to stamp A.I. on everything, the last three companies mentioned seem to give real meaning to the term. Another notable trend, especially with the first two companies, is the rise of video, which is particularly important for Gen Z. It’s too early to declare the traditional job posting dead, but the challenge has certainly begun!
Did you miss a recent start-up? Let us know!
