Customer case: Carerix and Jobfeed improve effectiveness Certus Groep

For the past three years, Certus Groep has been located in the historical White House in Rotterdam, which was once the first skyscraper in Europe. The employment agency focuses on the public sector, which is a dynamic market where great demand for temporary workers has been created by political decision-making and demographic change. Certus Groep has been using Carerix as its central recruitment system for a few years. Jobfeed was added to the system six months ago to serve the government market in a more transparent and proactive manner.

Certus is derived from Latin and means ‘certainty’, something which perfectly reflects the company’s philosophy. Certus Groep was founded in 2009 and aims to be a reliable and dedicated knowledge partner for the public sector. “Knowledge is one of our core values and is what makes us so effective”, says Elwin Spoel, general director and founder of Certus Groep. “Certus Groep is an employment agency for the public sector, from scale 9 and higher. We currently employ eleven people and outsource at least fifty people in the municipality at any one time. In addition, we help dozens of people to find permanent jobs with the government every year.”

Sparring partner

At this moment in time, Certus Groep does business with over half of the municipalities in the province of Zuid-Holland, but also focuses on West-Brabant and Zeeland. A second office will be opened later this year in Amsterdam Zuid-Oost, where focus will be broadened to the provinces of Utrecht and Noord-Holland. Spoel regards Certus Groep as a sparring partner for the public sector. “We play an important advisory role, which involves providing strategic guidance. We have also been providing career advice for the past three years. This is a plus because Certus Groep is very familiar with the market and knows what is needed.”

Quality guarantee

Since 2011, Certus Groep has been using the Carerix recruitment system for reporting purposes, but also to create digital invoices and submit time sheets via the ProfessionalPortal. Municipalities are able to digitally register the number of hours that people work. According to Spoel, one of the major advantages of Carerix is that you can design everything in accordance with your personal preferences “In addition, the recruitment system is compatible with our ISO 9001 certification. Carerix offers an insight into procedures and agreements, and adopts a step-by-step approach to guide you to the appropriate stage. This is very effective and helps to continuously safeguard quality.”

The effectiveness of Carerix

When looking for a suitable recruitment system (ATS), various suppliers were approached and asked for a demo. “Carerix is so effective because it is custom-made and part of a total package. This was the decisive factor for us. Before Carerix was introduced, we did everything manually. But we can now work a lot more efficiently. The only thing we have to do is enter the vacancies; the system takes care of the rest.” Spoel is also very pleased with the Carerix partner eco-system. "It allows us to use the latest technologies to distinguish ourselves in the field of recruitment.”

Jobfeed big data tool

Certus Groep has been using Jobfeed, which is a solution offered by Carerix’ partner Textkernel, for the past six months. Jobfeed is a valuable source of information for analysing and searching internet vacancies based on, for example, profession, region or qualifications. The data is always up-to-date, but can also be viewed historically. Spoel: “We already know what is happening at local level, but this helps us to obtain even more market-related information. For example, to identify scarcity and thus offer better advice. There is a lot of activity in the sector due to political decision-making, where decentralisation has caused municipalities to assume responsibility for certain government tasks. Furthermore, the average age of government employees has increased significantly and they are looking for a new wave of people to cope with all these changes.”

Proactive and specific

The positions that Certus Groep fills fall within the Physical and Social domains, and within the field of Management & organisation. For instance, policy advisers, (interim) team leaders or traffic experts. Jobfeed extracts information from vacancies based on profession, qualifications, location and company name, and structures it within Carerix. “The addition of Jobfeed has allowed us to offer even more added value”, says Spoel. “We can offer extra service by, for example, using relationships as a source of extra info. This allows us to be more proactive in the market and be more specific when contacting people who are looking for a job. We are particularly effective when it comes to helping latent job-seekers to find a job. For instance, people who want to move to scale twelve within a year or two, or people who would like to hold a management position. Furthermore, Jobfeed gives us access to all online vacancies, which means we can also offer suitable positions from outside our database. After all, you want to offer people the best and most appropriate vacancies in the region.”

Retention of core values

Spoel also expects Jobfeed to play an invaluable role within the company’s second office. “It will help us to collect information about the new regions. But we have also automated various things in Carerix, which means they can be easily upscaled in the new offices. By opening its second office, Certus Groep wants to increase employee numbers to fifteen by the end of the year; and this should be twenty-five by the end of 2019. This sizeable expansion will also be accompanied by a welcome challenge: to retain our core values of knowledge and quality. Carerix and Jobfeed will be very helpful when trying to achieve this.”

Carerix: flexible cloud-based software for CRM, recruitment and staffing

Every day, thousands of professional employment agencies and talent management departments rely on our online solutions for their staffing and recruitment & selection processes. Carerix offers a modern cloud-based platform for the whole process, ranging from candidate brokerage to essential support. Our intelligent applications allow us to offer better insights into the profiles of talented individuals. And if recruiters, intermediaries and employment agencies have a better insight, they are able to deliver the very best candidates!

Management Summary

Customer: Certus Groep Sector: Employment agency public sector Solution: Carerix ATS supplemented by Jobfeed

Benefits:

• Better market insight
• More proactive approach in the market
• In accordance with quality norms (incl. ISO 9001)
• Safeguarding of knowledge and quality