Who are you, and what are your hobbies?
I’m Daan, 35 years old, and I’m a Senior Tech Lead at Rabobank. I’m crazy about music, so when I’m not working, that’s what I’m doing. I play the guitar, and I often get the urge to start a band again. I have a two-year-old son, so that’s a hobby in itself.
What do you do?
I started at Rabobank in 2018 as a Scrum Master and since 2021, I’ve been working as a Tech Lead, and I’ve been working with Hans since then. We now have 15 teams, with a component of both business and IT in all teams, and I’m ultimately responsible for hiring all IT staff, both internally and externally, ensuring that everything is compliant and secure. Oh yeah… And if something goes down, they call me, and that’s always at the worst possible times, like at 9 pm on a Saturday before Christmas. So I do that too, and sometimes I even pick up the phone!
What does your department do?
Our department deals with Customer Due Diligence, which means we check the risk when someone becomes a customer at Rabobank. Think of money laundering, terrorist financing, tax evasion, etc. We ask every new customer a number of questions in different categories, and based on that, we look at what the risk is and whether there could be something wrong with it. Fortunately, this is not the case for most of our customers, but for a small percentage, we do further research. We look at the structure of an organization, but for example, if you have a house in the Cayman Islands, we find that exciting. But we also look at whether you are a Politically Exposed Person, or a PEP. So if you are a politically prominent person, like the Prime Minister of the Netherlands, it is more difficult to get an account because you are susceptible to blackmail. So we do extra checks for this, by looking at transactions, to find out if you are being blackmailed. Well, this is what we do all the research on.
‘’It’s like an allergy, you know? As a manager, you get called by recruiters all the time. But with you guys, it was different…’’
‘’It’s a relief to have a reliable partner who can provide qualified candidates promptly. In 99% of cases, the candidates you’ve presented have aligned well with our specific requirements and have been a good fit for our team.’’
How did you get to know us?
I first heard about you through Hans a few years ago. It’s like an allergy, you know? As a manager, you get called by recruiters all the time. Often on my private number that they found somewhere on the internet. You can definitely put that in there, because it’s really annoying! But with you guys, it was different, maybe I was in a good mood or something… No, seriously, from the moment I was on the phone with Hans, it was different. It almost sounds like a love story now, but it’s actually a bit like that. Anyway, it felt right immediately and sometimes you just have that feeling. I think the first person was offered to me soon after and it was immediately a match, and the second one too, and the third one too, and now we’re at a point where I’ve actually hired a lot of people through you guys. And what I really like is that it’s really becoming a kind of love story… But I only have to say a few words to you guys and then you immediately understand what I mean. For example, I’m not always very clear, but you always know how to deliver the profiles I need. This is often not even in the job description, but in other things like knowing exactly what type of person fits with us. Of course, sometimes there’s a profile that’s not quite right, but in general, you know exactly what fits, and then it doesn’t matter if they come from Serbia or South Africa… You make the right match, and that’s nice!
How do you evaluate the collaboration so far?
Great! At first, Hans and I had very intensive contact and then he would also search for me, and I would hire them. Now it’s all getting a bit bigger, so he has to put people on it and vice versa for me, but that’s going well and I think the basis is still the same, while we’re both really growing in terms of quantity. So actually quite good!
Why do you choose Unity Staffing Group?
Because Hans is there! Yeah, it’s true… He used to work somewhere else, he told me he had started something else and then I went with him. So in that respect, Hans is really the driving force behind your organization, but I also think that he has been able to get his ideas and vision into the company, which makes it a really good match with the rest of the company as well. It’s just really nice to have a company you can call that you know will deliver quickly, but more importantly, they’re good. And good is in this case: 99% of the time they send people who fit what I’m looking for and fit into our department. Whether it’s a PO, a Scrum Master, DevOps Engineer, a Data Engineer, it doesn’t matter to you. You know how to find the right people!
