Carrière Bouwers

Young entrepreneurs Hilde Ploeger (27) and Jip Korner (29) are starting their own recruitment agency in the middle of the corona pandemic in 2020. For years they worked together at a large recruitment agency in construction and technology. Combining their work experience, Hilde’s communication background and Jip’s background in HR, they created Carrière Bouwers – a specialist in the construction industry in the field of recruitment & selection and secondment.

Doing business in corona time

As for almost everyone, 2020 started as a positive year. But what no one could ever have imagined, happened: the country in lockdown, working from home and above all a virus that spread around us. Jip and Hilde have been thinking about starting their own recruitment and selection agency for some time now. Whilst working from home, they kept meeting each other and the ideas of starting their own business became more and more concrete; independent entrepreneurship – everything that comes with it – and set up a company they are proud of. After several brainstorming sessions, Carrière Bouwers was born – a contemporary recruitment agency with a name that has a connection with the target group, the services and the common sense of Hilde and Jip.

Going for a personal approach

The ambitions are great. Carrière Bouwers wants to build long-term relationships based on high-quality partnerships. They unburden organizations by providing them with the right professionals and offer construction engineers the next step in their career.

When asked what distinguishes them from other agencies, they have an unambiguous answer:
“People do business with people, not with companies. We both have a network within the sector, are very curious and enjoy hearing about people’s ambitions and what organizations really need. Find out the question behind the question. Listening carefully, making connections and personal contact ensure that we know which person is a good fit for which organization. In addition, it is also a matter of making a lot of meters and just doing it! ”

Investing in growth

To get off to a good start, Jip and Hilde immediately looked at what was needed for a perfect basis. Investing without any form of certainty on income was part of this. But with rapid market developments, a solid business plan and two ambitious ladies at the helm, they knew these investments would help with the growth of Career Builders.

“In our view, the right investments were a website with a suitable corporate identity, a good recruitment system and business cards to leave with customers.”

Jip tells.

The corporate identity, logo and website were arranged by Cindy, a friend of Hilde’s. “She has a graphic background and is incredibly creative. It was therefore very nice to be able to brainstorm with an acquaintance and together transform an idea into a real brand. We help build careers. Building blocks could therefore not be missing in the logo.” Hilde continues.

Carerix for startups

Hilde and Jip soon came to Carerix for their recruitment system. “Former colleagues and acquaintances who have taken the step to start their own company told us that they worked with Carerix and that Carerix partner Step2Go can also advise the startups well in this regard.” Jip tells.

“As a startup you might think that working with Excel is even possible. However, our wish and ambition is to continue to grow in the future and this is the reason that we want to put this right from the start. We knew Carerix from our network and one of the sister companies of our previous employer also had positive experience with the system. ”

Carerix partner Step2Go implemented the system together with Carrière Bouwers and also provided training for Hilde and Jip. The system is structured and can be set up in such a way that it is easy to scale up in the future when a new colleague is hired.

Carerix is ​​easy to understand and with the ‘just do it’ mentality of the Carrière Builders implementation was no problem. You can configure the system according to your own working method, even if you are only the two of you. The Carerix system contains all the tools for both a start-up and a large organization, including integrated e-mail and calendar functionality.

“In Carerix it is very easy to quickly propose a good candidate, for example. We are not discovering much yet, such as the handy candidate and vacancy mailings and triggers for automation.” Jip continues.

“With this basis, we will increasingly have the system work for us and automate it where possible, so that we can spend as much time as possible in contact with our clients and candidates.” Hilde adds.

Are you curious about how Carerix can work for your startup? Please contact us!