In childcare, candidates ghost the recruiter more often than the other way around, says Dionne Mooijer of Compananny. Because the market is tight they line up several options, and whoever replies first wins. Compananny makes contact within 24 hours and still never speaks to roughly half of its applicants.
Dionne Mooijer is manager of recruitment and employer branding at Compananny, which runs between fifty-five and sixty day care centres and after-school clubs across the Netherlands. She came into the profession through a temp agency, built up thirteen to fourteen years of recruitment experience and started her own talent coaching business along the way. In this episode of Selection Talks she explains how volume hiring works across dozens of sites, what changed in candidate behaviour over two years, and what her first pilot without a CV or cover letter looks like.
Q: What does Dionne Mooijer say about how she got into recruitment?
A: Dionne Mooijer says it started before her studies, because she did not know what to study and found that hard to work out. That is how she ended up at a temp agency, and after one month she knew. What caught her was discovering people and looking at so many different jobs from the inside. What sits behind a job, what do you need to be able to do, what talent do you have. She carried that question into every step since.
Q: What does Dionne Mooijer say about her own personal development?
A: Dionne Mooijer says it started with NLP, which showed her she is far more than she had always assumed. It also gave her the words for what she does and why. After that she became, in her own words, slightly addicted to that side and took more courses. She started her own talent coaching business and combined it with recruitment work at startups and scale-ups. Once you know who you are and what your talent is, translating that into your work becomes much easier.
Q: What does Dionne Mooijer say about Compananny?
A: Dionne Mooijer says Compananny runs day care centres and after-school clubs across almost the whole of the Netherlands, currently between fifty-five and sixty sites. Two weeks after the recording the newest location opened in Amsterdam at Het Kwartier, the seventeenth or eighteenth in that city. The organisation contributes to the generation of tomorrow, she says. Their own line for it is that the finest thing a child can become is itself.
Q: What does Dionne Mooijer say about volume hiring across dozens of sites?
A: Dionne Mooijer says she puts thirteen to fourteen years of recruitment knowledge into that question. The largest target group sits in one specific vacancy, so at some point almost every conversation is the same. On top of that comes the question of how, in a multi-site business, you make all fifty-five locations feel seen while each one needs something slightly different. And how you build a strategy with talent at the centre.
Q: What does Dionne Mooijer say about leading a recruitment team from talent?
A: Dionne Mooijer says she always starts with her team at the core. Do you know who you are, what your talents are and how they show up. Because the work is largely volume hiring, she looks per recruiter at which projects fit that talent. For one it is going deeper into interview technique, for another it is being data-driven, so how you gather the data and what analysis you bring back. That keeps the role broader and more interesting.
Q: What does Dionne Mooijer say about the childcare professionals she recruits?
A: Dionne Mooijer says that group once decided they wanted to do something with children, often after someone remarked how good they are with kids. Then they enter the world of childcare, and that work is fairly demanding both mentally and physically. That is still underestimated sometimes, she says. There are also a great many childcare organisations in the Netherlands, from small to large, each with a slightly different outlook. That is where her question starts of how you show who you are and why someone would fit.
Q: What does Dionne Mooijer say about the change in candidate behaviour?
A: Dionne Mooijer says something shifted over the past six months to two years. Two years ago candidates were mainly looking for security, and now they find it everywhere because the market is tight. She calls it, with some exaggeration, the shopping factor, so comparing and negotiating faster. Salary cannot be set above the collective agreement, so the conversation is about scales and steps. In a group with many women she sees that move towards negotiating as a positive one.
Q: What does Dionne Mooijer say about candidates who ghost?
A: Dionne Mooijer says this happens across the sector and not only at Compananny. Because candidates line up several options, it depends where their preference lands. Compananny makes contact within 24 hours and still never speaks to roughly half of its applicants, because they have already gone elsewhere. Where in many sectors the recruiter ghosts the candidate, here it is the other way around. She sees room to respond even faster with conversational AI.
Q: What does Dionne Mooijer say about combining recruitment and employer branding in one role?
A: Dionne Mooijer says the combination came about through the knowledge she brought with her. With the manager of marketing and communications she noticed they were on the same track, but that her colleague leaned towards the consumer brand and she towards the employer brand. So they separated the titles and work closely together behind the scenes. Compananny's EVP is nearly finished, and from there they will take the employer brand to market.
Q: What does Dionne Mooijer say about applying without a CV or cover letter?
A: Dionne Mooijer says she believes strongly in skills based hiring, while the organisation still finds letting go of the CV a little nerve-racking. The Monday before the recording she launched the first pilot region with what they call fast-track or low-barrier applying, so no CV and no cover letter. The recruiter stays in the lead and supplies extra information. They decided in advance which competencies to ask about and what good answers look like. Qualifications remain the baseline.
Q: What does Dionne Mooijer say about bringing the organisation along in that change?
A: Dionne Mooijer says she first picked the recruiter with a talent for curiosity and probing questions, who is also strong at stakeholder management. Together with the recruitment marketer they worked out what it would take and how to measure it in data. They presented that to the regional manager and all site managers, asking what risks they saw. They collected a go from everyone. The most important thing, she says, is that site managers are genuinely heard and seen in what they consider a risk.
Q: What does Dionne Mooijer say about internal moves and training site managers?
A: Dionne Mooijer says HR at Compananny consists of three departments, namely recruitment, HR and learning and development, and that the last one is sizeable. Last year they launched an internal training programme for site managers, which allowed ten internal colleagues to move into that role. They already know the organisation and its vision and understand the work itself. On top of that, the board visits the regions twice a year to find out what site managers need.
Q: What does Dionne Mooijer say about the price of a career?
A: Dionne Mooijer says younger people often look at the end product and have not seen the struggles underneath. So she takes them through what she had to give up and which choices she made, and is open about it. She has been at home with panic attacks, first thought it was down to her manager, and six months later saw that she had a share in it too. If you want to make a step, you have to be willing to look in the mirror. It comes at a price.
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