Volkerwessels
Jul 30, 2025
5 min
Introduction
VolkerWessels, one of the Netherlands' largest infrastructure, construction, real estate development and engineering companies, operates through 55 decentralized businesses with approximately 9,000 employees in the Netherlands and has in addition three divisions in the United Kindom, North America and Germany. Max, part of the Corporate Development team at VolkerWessels, was tasked with modernizing recruitment across this complex organization while managing relationships with over 50 recruitment agencies.
"I needed a solution where I could post a vacancy to an agency with one push of a button," Max explains. "Not deal with endless emails and manual processes."
About VolkerWessels
Industry: infrastructure, construction, real estate development and engineering
Employee count: Approximately 9,000 in the Netherlands
Structure: 55 decentralized businesses ranging from 50 to thousand+ employees
Countries active: Netherlands, United Kingdom, North-America, Germany
ATS: Recruitee
VolkerWessels is a leading Dutch construction and engineering company operating through 55 individual businesses. These range from specialized firms to large operations like KWS (road construction), Aveco de Bondt (engineering & advisory) and Visser & Smit Bouw (construction) , each with unique recruitment needs and varying levels of recruitment expertise.
Challenges
Before implementing HirePort, VolkerWessels struggled with:
Fragmented agency management across 50+ recruitment suppliers working at company, division, and individual business levels
Manual processes requiring extensive email exchanges to distribute jobs to agencies
Lack of centralized oversight while maintaining necessary autonomy for individual business units
Mixed user capabilities - from dedicated recruiters to secretaries occasionally handling recruitment tasks
No unified communication between internal teams and agencies about candidates
"We came from Connexys, a very complex system built on Salesforce," Max recalls. "For dedicated recruiters it was fine, but we have construction companies where sometimes the management assistant gets the task to handle recruitment. For them, it was just too complex."
Solution
VolkerWessels chose to implement Recruitee as their ATS, with HirePort as the integrated agency management solution. The decision was influenced by:
HirePort's evolution from external connection to white-label integration within Recruitee
The ability to maintain separate instances for different business units
One-click job distribution capabilities
Max explains. "The fact that HirePort evolved from an external connection to a white-label integration was enough proof they were the right choice."
Implementation and Impact
Working with implementation partner MatchLab, VolkerWessels achieved a remarkably fast deployment despite the compressed timeline:
Lightning-fast implementation: From contract signing (week before Christmas) to go-live (February 1st) in just 4 weeks
Decentralized approach: Set up separate HirePort instances for different business units rather than one monolithic system
Improved visibility: "Each business now has better insight into their own contracts - which work well and which don't," Max reports
Streamlined communication: The agency chat feature eliminated confusion about communicating with agencies versus candidates
Dramatic efficiency gains: Eliminated countless hours of manual email exchanges with agencies
Adapting to Specific Needs
As VolkerWessels' structure required a unique approach, HirePort's flexibility proved crucial:
"Yes, we now work with our talent partners like Brunel across various instances within our group," Max acknowledges. "But the trade-off is worth it - each business unit has visibility into their own agency relationships and performance. That’s very valuable to us so we can optimize for speed and spend."
The white-label integration was particularly important: "You go from an external link to an integration in the system. That's very intuitive. There aren't too many bells and whistles, which is exactly what we needed."
Looking Ahead
With the new efficiencies in place, VolkerWessels is now focusing on:
Allowing individual business units to optimize their own agency relationships
Gathering more detailed performance metrics now that the foundation is in place
Max's approach is pragmatic: "When it runs, it runs. Then I mainly leave it to the operating companies themselves."
Conclusion
By implementing HirePort alongside Recruitee, VolkerWessels transformed how they manage recruitment across 55 businesses and 50+ agencies. The solution balanced the need for centralized efficiency with decentralized autonomy.
"I would certainly recommend it," Max concludes. "The system looks great and works easily. It's very intuitive - exactly what you need when you're not one company of 9,000, but rather 55 slightly larger SME companies. HirePort makes agency management as simple as internal recruitment, and that's exactly what we needed."
