A hiring story dreamed up by a marketing department is one your own people don't recognise. Why people stay with you — and why new people would want to join — that answer already lives inside. With the engineer, the project lead, the director. I'm not going to invent it. I'm going to surface it.
The usual order: an agency invents a positioning, then 'validates' it with an employee survey. I reverse that. Conversations first, proposal after. That surfaces contradictions — and the gap between what leadership thinks is going on and what's actually going on. Because the director and the engineer both see their own words reflected later, nobody needs convincing afterwards.
Interview research. A minimum of ten conversations, spread across every layer — always including the director.
What surfaces becomes one sharp positioning. Not an invented slogan — the story that was already there, made sharper.
Execution — labour market, internal, external. Specialists join where the work calls for it; I stay the owner.
The same interviews again after six to twelve months. To test whether it landed — and to adjust.
Four steps, one process — not a menu. You can start at any point: Discover can also stand alone.
Technical, installation, energy, utilities, construction, infrastructure, manufacturing. Anywhere vacancies stay open too long, recruiters have gotten expensive, and new hires leave faster than you'd like.
For Feenstra — the national installation company — I work on the labour communications and employer branding. The goal: attract the right technicians, and keep them.
So I didn’t start with a campaign — I started by listening. Leadership, stakeholders, the engineers who carry the work. Out of that came one foundation: how Feenstra shows up as an employer, as a brand, and to its own people.
We've only just started — and there's much more to come.
WIND sat between LinkedIn posts and hardcore recruitment.
For WIND — subsea cable specialists for offshore wind, power grids and data — I build both sides: one story that pulls the right technical people in, and holds the crew already there.
“What sets Robert apart is that he doesn’t start with solutions, but with genuine curiosity. He takes the time to understand people, the organisation and the underlying dynamics. That builds support and trust. At the same time, he doesn’t get stuck in analysis.”
“In interviews, Robert quickly brings to the surface what really drives people, spots patterns others miss, and turns them into clear insights and workable solutions. And he doesn’t stop at advice — he actively helps with the implementation.”
“Robert listens well, asks the right questions and quickly finds the common thread in a wide range of input — without making it his own story. We now have a much sharper, more recognisable picture, including where we are strong and where things sometimes chafe.”
Thirty years across communication, brand and creative direction. International scale-ups. Energy and technical organisations in transition. Calm under pressure. Senior network behind me.
More about meIf finding and keeping the right people is getting harder — and you feel your external story should reflect it too — do the intake, or just ask a question.
