For the next several days I will provide a video diary of my European Tour, sponsored by Otys through the generous friendship of its CEO, Jorrit Blok.

Last November, you may recall that Otys sponsored my initial visit to ERE’s Global Recruitment Conference in Amsterdam. Not even a year later we had a more ambitious introduction into the European market with an extensive itinerary of networking, workshops, and speaking events in Amsterdam and Veenendaal in Holland, Paris, France and Barcelona, Spain.

Upon returning to the states, we have initiated discussions on a third visit within the next two months in both the United Kingdom and France in advance of the REcruitment Community Europe Conference scheduled in November. Stay tuned for further developments.

By Dave Mendoza, Master Cybersleuth, Affiliate Partner, JobMachine Inc.
(720) 733-2022

Bas van de Haterd,
Dutch Staffing Brand Consultant
Site: www.vandehaterd.nl
Email: bas@vandehaterd.nl

Bas van de Haterd is best known in the Netherlands Staffing industry as having founded the first Dutch HR weblog, HRlog, and upon doing so, he quickly merged it with Michel’s blog to found local must-read, HRlog. He has since ventured into other blogging pursuits, helping to develop recruitmentmatters and Marketingfacts in addition to his contributions on behalf of HRpraktijk.

Bas van de Haterd likes to refer to himself as a “professional meddler” aka a consultant, but he doesn’t just say yes to clients he tells me, he refuses assignments that he thinks are destined to fail. He wants to help companies the best Bas can, even in areas they might not want to be helped or expected to actually need that help.

He is currently providing clientele with an assortment of services, i.e. training, coaching, lectures and advice on how to utilize new media in recruitment. Ask Bas van de Haterd and he will tell you that he is an online marketeer not simply focusing on getting in new clients, but above all, equipping them with the capability to attract new personnel.

Bas has provided consultation for major corporations like ING, Yacht and Ilse Media in addition to small and medium sized companies.

He has also been involved in several start ups. Currently, Bas has been setting up Marketingfacts Jobs, the job section of Holland’s largest business blog: Marketingfacts. It’s not just going to be a jobboard where you can post ads, but a broader concept for finding marketeers and online media specialists in the Netherlands by advertisement, referral hires, freelance professionals and more.

Bas is keeing busy with addtional ventures. He also founded Digitaal-werven (www.digitaal-werven.nl) with Marc Drees. Together Bas and Marc have set up a site review for the recruitment sites on corporate websites. An often queried process issue to confound staffing organizations? Every employee first comes to your website and then decides to apply, but how are companies perceived by their candidate audience to have treated them on their site? Did they effectively maintain the credibility of their brand and of their staffing organization in the online experience?

Digitaal-werven was set up a survey with over 50 variables and the ability to rate corporate careers websites. One of the things Marc and Bas look forward to developing is a prize for best recruitment site of the year. In addition, the two are providing companies with the option of a customized report to assess their website customer experience efficiency and overall hiring metrics. After they complete their initial Dutch-oriented trials, Digitaal-werven is seeking to develop partners and investors to set similar models globally.

Bas and I have had healthy, online debates on matters concerning social networking. He is not an ‘open networker’, but rather, he believes in the narrow definition of “truly having an established relationship” as a pretext to accepting a networking invite. Bas has the good fortune of living in Holland, renown for its coffee and related rituals that include pastries and gourmet cookies – that said, I can understand his enthusiastic desire to drink lots of coffee with everyone he can, and then connecting on Linkedin. That said, get on a plane and meet my friend Bas in person, shake his hand and tell him you want to experience this Dutch coffee ritual with him. In that case, Bas will tell you that everyone is free to invite him “by e-mail to have a drink and then we’ll connect ”

Having met and spoken at length at ERE Global in Amsterdam this past November, I am proud to say we are directly connected.

But then again, perhaps It all sounds “Dutch to me” … take my word for it … watch the best and brightest but Google translate the transcript of these wonderful compatriots in our industry at the CSN Conference 2007, panel discussion

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