The Nederland Werkt Foundation is an initiative to support refugees, refugees, and people in vulnerable situations in finding a training program, internship, or job of their choice. The platform helps job seekers prepare for their future careers. They use 8vance’s matching technology, which uses AI to predict participants’ skills and matches. More than 100 network partners have now joined, unlocking access to the labor market.
Nederland Werkt Foundation
Matching with context
Board member Wijnand Prins explains the approach. Our ambassadors at the various reception centers help other refugees and refugees create accounts. In the app, participants indicate their skills, work experience, and qualifications. Because people often don’t know all their skills, AI helps provide suggestions. The app then searches for relevant vacancies. The ambassadors—with permission from the COA—voluntarily help people create a profile. This is quite a challenging task, because what are diplomas and skills acquired abroad worth in the Netherlands? What does someone want from their career if they don’t yet know the possibilities of the Dutch labor market?
Board members of NederlandWerkt simultaneously speak with their partners. These are often large companies with severe staff shortages. Wijnand: “These companies are eager to search our pool for suitable candidates. They create a vacancy and immediately see matches with the most suitable candidates. 8vance’s AI ensures that the match takes into account a person’s location, ambitions, personality, aptitude, experience, education, and soft and hard skills.” Even if these are not fully entered, they can be predicted with a high degree of probability.”
A suitable place in Dutch society
Besides companies, there are also welfare organizations, educational institutions, and other initiators who support refugees and refugees with refugee status in finding a place in Dutch society. Wijnand: “For example, we have access to an online pool of 20,000 Ukrainian refugees with refugee status. Together with our partners, we expect to have 25,000 refugees in the pool within a year. Many of them actually want to be able to match themselves with relevant work and suitable training to perform their desired work.”
The initiative launched in 2023. Initially, the initiators focused on highly educated refugees with refugee status, but this scope was soon broadened to include all refugees with refugee status. Wijnand explains the vision of the international and diverse management team: “The Netherlands has a staff shortage and must realize that we are an import market. Like Finland, we could actively recruit people to bring them to our country and deploy them in the labor market.” We want to give everyone who comes here a place in Dutch society.”
NederlandWerkt isn’t limited to refugees. Wijnand: “There are an incredible number of people who are unjustly staying home. Think of young people who dropped out of school and are now out of reach at home. Or people returning to the labour market, who are now available again after a period of caring for their children at home. The UWV (Employee Insurance Agency) and the municipalities are still limited in their ability to match everyone with suitable work. We want to offer financially or socially vulnerable groups a place in the labour market through our infrastructure.”
