The chief executive of one of Europe’s biggest staffing companies is talking ice hockey. “As they say in Canada, skate where the puck is going to be,” says Sander van ’t Noordende of Randstad. “If the jobs are moving there, we need to make sure we are there.”
Van ’t Noordende has led Randstad, one of the world’s largest recruitment and staffing businesses, since 2022, after he missed out on the top job at Accenture. He is now trying to navigate a labour market in turmoil.
Employers are facing obstacles finding staff in an era of low post-pandemic unemployment. Yet uncertainty linked to political and economic upheaval is leaving many applicants struggling to find work. Artificial intelligence is set to upend demand for human workers and is already making hiring more difficult. Van ’t Noordende says his company needs to stay ahead. “I’m in the business of listening to the market, the client . . . We point our efforts where demand is, and will be.”
Randstad has identified growth areas in fields including biotech, logistics and healthcare. By focusing on these, it hopes it can better match the supply of workers with what employers need.
For now, though, the game seems to have stalled. “Things are, let’s say, somewhat stuck,” says Van ’t Noordende. Hiring is muted; quit rates are low. “Clients are saying . . . ‘I’m going to sit on the fence for a little while’, [they] are reluctant to invest.” In quarterly results at the end of April, Randstad reported a 5 per cent fall in revenue, year on year, not dissimilar to peers in international recruitment.
The Dutchman points out that Randstad is protected in part by its long history and size, in a “sticky” industry where reputation matters and client relationships tend to last. Founded in 1960, the Amsterdam-listed company’s 2024 revenues were €24bn and it helped 1.7mn people find work.
But he also stresses the company is pursuing innovative ways of finding people jobs. In the past year, Randstad has acquired Torc, a platform for tech workers that uses AI to review potential hires and match them with jobs; and Zorgwerk, which operates an app for health workers to find temporary work.
These have paved the way for a hiring app Van ’t Noordende compares to Uber, where employers can post jobs and workers can browse, apply and get hired. “You go on the app, you sign up, you get validated . . . and you basically are ready to work within the next 24 hours,” he says. “It’s really a model that is no human intervention whatsoever . . . it sort of takes care of itself.” Since it launched last year in the US, the platform has attracted 500,000 users, the company says.
Its digital-first refocus is happening as recruitment, like the industries it serves, is being disrupted by technology. Jobseekers using AI to mass apply for roles makes it harder for hirers to identify the right people. Platforms such as LinkedIn or freelance marketplace Upwork are encroaching on traditional recruiters’ territory with new features that can sift through, attract or manage potential candidates.
Is greater automation a sign that all workers should be worried about their jobs? Van ’t Noordende says he is an “AI optimist”; jobs will change, not disappear. “Talent is scarce, unemployment is at record low levels in most countries in the west . . . the world is in need of a productivity boost, and AI can help with that.”
He uses the example of industry research. “You ask 10 questions, you push the button and [the AI tool] says, ‘I’m looking at 150 websites for you’. You get a very neat report. It’s amazing. When I was younger I was a consultant and it would have . . . taken me weeks.” But that means more productivity, not fewer workers. “I’m not concerned because the number of people working, they’ll still be roughly the same.”
Will AI agents ever appear among the staff on Randstad’s books? “There might be in the somewhat distant future”. But the company is sticking to its core business for now. Services and technology “don’t gel well” because “services is about people, technology is about developing something and selling it”, he says.
Van ’t Noordende spent more than 30 years at professional services firm Accenture. He started his working life as a consultant there, when it was Andersen Consulting, held divisional CEO positions in resources, management consulting and product, and only left after he missed out on the group CEO role to Julie Sweet in 2019.
“I found myself in a situation where the only job I still aspired to, I was not going to get,” he says. After leaving, he travelled with his husband. He sat on boards including Randstad’s, and when the chief executive position came up, “Did the interview, and I got the job,” he says in a characteristically straightforward manner.
He enthusiastically describes how recruitment overlaps with traditional consultancy. Randstad’s services include cyber security management, for example, as well as providing clients with consultants on HR issues and helping companies manage redundancies.
Van ’t Noordende has a house in Miami, but spends much of his time in The Netherlands, where Randstad is headquartered. He is committed to diversity, equity and inclusion, which perhaps reflects his distance from the more febrile atmosphere of the US culture wars, but also his personal experience.
The chief executive has described coming out as gay at work as “one of the best decisions I’ve ever made” and has sat on the board of Out and Equal, the global organisation for workplace LGBT+ representation. His LinkedIn biography zeroes in on his “particular passion for advocating for workplace equity with a strong focus on supporting the LGBTQI+ community”.
“When you want to recruit the right people you need to be recruiting everyone — from the widest pool you can find,” he says. Even Trump’s threats to the DEI policies of European companies have not damped agreement that successful hiring is diverse, he adds. “The whole situation is settling down.”
However, Trump’s flip-flopping on tariffs has brought fresh uncertainty. Van ’t Noordende says clients are “managing their short term options . . . but not yet pulling the trigger on longer term” changes to manufacturing locations or supply chains.
He acknowledges there are limits to how much a staffing company can influence the labour market. “For that to change we need an economy that is flourishing a bit more than it does today,” he says. “Clients cannot do nothing forever.”
