AB Werkt South Netherlands proves the power of AI in recruitment: less work, better matches
AB Werkt Zuid-Nederland demonstrates the impact of AI in recruitment. Thanks to their smart AI agent, Abbi, the pre-screening of candidates is handled entirely automatically. This not only ensures happy candidates and recruiters – thanks to the speed of the process – but also happy clients. Thanks to these time savings, AB Werkt Zuid-Nederland can focus even more effectively on the human aspect of recruitment: making the best match.
The power of together
What started over 50 years ago as an agricultural cooperative has since grown into a leading staffing organisation in the southern Netherlands. With a focus on the agro, food, waste, green and cleaning sectors and five offices spread across Zeeland, North Brabant and Limburg, AB Werkt Zuid-Nederland puts more than 6,000 people to work every year.
AB Werkt was originally founded on the principle of collaboration, and 50 years later, that same ethos still runs through the organisation. Patrick Friesen, Manager of Marketing, Communications and Cooperation, explains: “We believe in the power of working together. Really thinking alongside our clients and finding bespoke solutions – that’s where our added value lies. Together with our clients, we’re building their teams of tomorrow.”
"Of course our recruiters ran into challenges, but often you don't know what you're missing if you've never worked otherwise. That's very human. MrWork gave us that wake-up call, that this is how it can be done moment. And that struck a chord!"
Patrick Friesen, Manager Marketing, Communication and Cooperation
New strategy, new technology
AB Werkt recently opted for a new course, with one of its six pillars being about happy clients, members, candidates and employees. Another pillar revolves around future-oriented recruitment. A different way of thinking followed from this new strategy: instead of focusing on their own processes, they started thinking and acting from the candidates and clients' point of view.
Patrick says: "Previously, our website was very static and set up in a way that was mainly convenient for our recruiters. Now we have turned this around: what is the best way for our clients and candidates? And how can we adapt our recruitment process to serve them better? What technology goes with that? Soon we ended up with MrWork. They have the tooling and the know-how, plus a partnership with PADDAP: the party that would build our new-style job site." So AB Werkt's new direction was mainly driven by a change in direction and less by a desire from recruiters.
Meet Abbi: the AI Agent of AB Werkt South
The desire to recruit differently led to an innovative outcome: Abbi, AB Werkt's AI Agent, now handles the entire pre-screening of candidates. Candidates apply to Abbi, after which they answer a few questions - about availability and experience, for example, but also about motivation and motives - and Abbi automatically creates the candidate with all the information in the ATS. Candidates who do not pass the pre-screening are kindly rejected and do not enter the ATS.
"We have only been live with Abbi for 3 months, but the results are already amazing. We only receive serious applications anymore, which means the data in our ATS is clean and recruiters can fully focus on relevant candidates. We used to work with a static chatbot, but that really only caused problems. The responses we got were often very sparse and it created confusion among candidates, so the helpdesk spent a lot of time with all the questions that came in. We even disabled the chatbot at the time. With our AI Agent, it is completely different. I am amazed at how smart our new digital colleague is and how quickly Abbi learns," Patrick said.
The name Abbi, by the way, was not coined at random. Patrick explains: "On our intranet, Abbi was already a tool you could ask questions to and was already known to us as a helping hand. The first two letters correspond to our company name. In addition, Abbi can be pronounced in all kinds of languages (important in connection with our international character) and it is not a name that belongs to any gender or culture. We think diversity and equality are hugely important and so the choice was quickly made: Abbi it would be!"
For AB Werkt, it is crucial that their AI Agent can handle multilingualism well. "We recruit in all kinds of countries and in various languages, and with the static chatbot we used before, this presented challenges. Abbi, on the other hand, adapts effortlessly to the candidate. Among other things, the tool looks at which website (what language) you are on and your phone's language settings to find out what language the candidate wants to communicate in. We hear back from both our international recruiters and non-Dutch-speaking candidates that the translation is incredibly strong," Patrick says enthusiastically.
From strategy to action: a super-fast go-live
On 1 April, AB Werkt partnered with MrWork to develop the AI Agent. On 30 June, Abbi was at work. Patrick says: "In 10 weeks, we went from nothing to everything. Incredibly fast! I must confess it was exciting for a while. There weren't dozens of AI Agent use cases yet, but we believed in it and were willing to take the gamble. We agreed with MrWork that together we would pull out all the stops to make this a success. And we more than succeeded!"
But there is no question of sitting back. AB Werkt wants to keep developing Abbi, together with MrWork. "MrWork keeps us very keen on opportunities and solutions. They actively think along, are lightning fast and keep improving their technology. The launch may have taken place now, but this is never finished. You can always add new smarts or incorporate feedback from customers and candidates. We are now in the process of linking skills to the profile based on a candidate's answers, so you can match better with that. In this further development, we really pull together with MrWork. This way, we maintain our lead in the market and MrWork can use these practical cases to help other customers," Patrick indicates.
"Interviews now delve deeper into motivation and development opportunities and are therefore actually more human and personal than before"
Patrick Friesen, Manager Marketing, Communication and Cooperation
Candidates happy with more speed and personal contact
Now that a digital recruiter is on hand 24/7 for AB Werkt's candidates, their satisfaction with the process skyrockets. Patrick says: "Candidate reviews show a world of difference. Where we used to get stuck around a meagre enough, candidates now give us big compliments on the application process. Our Google Reviews have gone from 2.7 stars to more than 4 stars. We are of course very happy with that!"
Sometimes you still see some reluctance among recruiters to use AI in communicating with candidates, for fear of impersonality. How do they look at this at AB Werkt? "We see just the opposite. We get a lot of job applications in a day and in the old situation these came in with minimal information. Recruiters spent seas of time pre-screening and only a small proportion of candidates (around 10%) turned out to be suitable. Now that pre-screening is fully automated, recruiters can take the time to engage extensively with relevant candidates.
Recruiters happy with time savings and quality improvement
The impact of this new way of working is huge for the recruitment team. Some concrete results:
- The general mailbox receives 90% fewer questions or requests than before because Abbi catches almost everything automatically.
- The average time from application to contact has been reduced from 48 hours to a maximum of 4 hours (during working days and office hours).
- Every recruiter saves hours per week by eliminating the need for manual pre-screening.
Recruiters not only report that their work has become more fun, but also see their success increasing thanks to this technology. This is because the time that now remains is put into sourcing and an even stronger match. Patrick says: "Previously, our recruiters had 0 space to actively source candidates. Now we do so for certain positions and we are already getting a lot of results from this. We are now getting in touch with latent jobseekers and have thus increased our pond to fish from. This means we can raise our bar and present clients with only the very best matches. So the knife cuts both ways!"
More than a technological innovation
Abbi creates happy candidates, recruiters and clients, and it doesn't stop there. Abbi sets the entire organisation in motion. "Deploying this technology has drastically reduced our time-to-fill, even in this tight labour market. We see that because of this speed, we are getting close to a tipping point - a situation where we will soon have more candidates than vacancies. We can then offer candidates to a client even before the vacancy is there. That kind of change affects everything and everyone in our organisation. We may have implemented a recruitment tool, but the effect is much bigger than that. The snowball has started rolling and developments are now following each other in rapid succession," Patrick indicates.
Patrick concludes with words that make our MrWorkers very happy: "I think the cooperation with MrWork is super. They have really taken us forward and together we continue to grow. Outlining great sales stories is one thing, but MrWork also has the execution and technology super tight. What they say, they also realise. Often even more than that. They have exceeded my expectations!"
