Start People looks for start people
The recruitment industry is brutally honest: even the agency that helps people find jobs struggles to find the right people itself. Start People needed a recruitment campaign for HR consultants. Not an ordinary hiring campaign, but a story that the right people would recognize as their own.
The challenge
Start People is the number 2 in the Belgian recruitment market, with more than 100 offices and over 10,000 temporary workers placed every day. Yet they faced the same problem as their clients: too few people to recruit people. The HR consultant vacancy was not being filled consistently enough, and ad-hoc recruiting was no longer sufficient.
They were not simply looking for recruiters, but for socially and commercially minded go-getters with ambition. In an HR market where everyone tells the same story about training programs and awards, a distinctive employer branding campaign was needed, one that would structurally attract the right people.
The analysis
We started with a market and target audience analysis. What we observed in the sector: all competitors tell the same story. Inclusion, sustainability, the human touch, a 'best place to work' award, training programs and benefits. Understandable, but when everyone says the same thing to the same audience, it becomes the baseline. No differentiation remains.
At the same time, the data revealed something striking: a large share of HR consultants say they want to change jobs, not because they are tired of the profession, but because the way it is structured frustrates them. The constant outreach, the rejections, the feeling of standing still.
This led to two sharp insights. First: for people who thrive on making a change, standing still is the worst thing imaginable. The target audience flourishes in movement, variety, and autonomy. And that is precisely what Start People offers. Second: the tension between people skills and sales is not a weakness; it is the very strength of a recruiter.
Being commercially driven while keeping people at the center is not a contradiction, it is the identity of a strong HR consultant.
The approach
From these insights we developed the creative concept:
'Start People is looking for start people.'
A wordplay that immediately tells the whole story. Because whoever joins Start People is, by definition, someone who is in motion, who sets things in motion, who helps others move forward.
The concept was developed as a scalable recruitment campaign with modular templates, deployable across social media, print, events, and video. Regionally flexible, yet with a consistent narrative that can be rolled out nationally. Practically workable and strategically grounded. We ensured an integrated approach in which employer branding and recruitment go hand in hand.
Aspect ratio: 7/3
Aspect ratio: 6/5
Aspect ratio: 7/3
The result
Start People now has a distinctive employer branding story that makes no generic promises but conveys a genuine identity. The campaign concept is scalable and flexibly deployable, with a robust framework of templates that can be applied internally quickly and efficiently.
The result is a recruitment campaign that does not merely aim to attract people, but to be recognizable to the people who are already made for it. Because strong recruitment does not begin with the vacancy, it begins with a story that rings true and radiates trust.
