Bill Hilhorst

As the Head of Talent Acquisition for Cognizant BeNeLux, my scope got extended from my previous role as Head of Talent Acquisition | Netherlands to the whole BeNeLux region.

Key accomplishments;

- Integrate the Belgian and Dutch recruitment team into one team for efficient workload distribution and cross-border knowledge sharing.

- Navigated the organizations needs for last-minute hiring by having the team focused on strong and early pipelines bringing time to hire back to under thirty days

- Part of the Diversity & Inclusion management team to enhance diversity participation on all levels.

- Implemented and helped the organization to adapt to a new interviewing platform.

- Being a commercial business partner to make the many stakeholders aware of succession planning & workforce planning to overcome any last-minute hiring under pressure.

As the Head of Talent Acquisition for Cognizant, I oversee and manage all recruitment activities across the Netherlands. In this role, I am responsible for developing and executing comprehensive recruitment strategies that align with the company's business objectives and growth plans. My key responsibilities include:

- Leading a high-performing recruitment team, driving talent acquisition strategies, and ensuring the effective execution of recruitment processes.
- Collaborating with senior leadership and key stakeholders to understand workforce needs and deliver tailored recruitment solutions.
- Managing relationships with external recruitment partners and vendors to enhance sourcing and candidate pipelines.
- Implementing data-driven approaches to optimize recruitment processes, improve candidate experience, and achieve hiring targets.
- Navigating complex matrix organizations to streamline recruitment efforts and ensure alignment with organizational goals.
- Providing strategic insights and reporting on recruitment metrics to support decision-making and continuous improvement.

Key accomplishments:

- Reorganized the recruitment team as a cost-reduction exercise. Reduced headcount with 55% but kept productivity on 100%. Motivation of remaining recruiters have been the focus.

-Led a high-performing team of recruiters, fostering a culture of collaboration and continuous improvement.

-Implemented a CRM system to enhance pipelining and candidate contact.

As Talent Acquisition Manager I was responsible for the day-to-day execution of talent acquisition for the consulting, corporate functions and half of the technology stack functions.

Day to day contains, operational recruitment, training, escalation handling, creating insights on strategic decisions and supporting recruitment colleagues in various challenges including junior lateral up to sr. director hiring. I did this with eight recruiters reporting into me.

Key Accomplishments:

-Created a consulting recruitment team to offer the needed support for the Consulting hiring needs

-Turned around low performers

-Created a culture of performance and trust

Operational recruiting and leading/mentoring a team of two to grow into their role.

- Hands-on recruitment

- Mentoring juniors and assisting peers

- Assisted M&A on an acquired project including take over of associates

- Created processes for consulting recruitment to enhance delivery and success.

As a Business Manager at Profit4Cloud, I was responsible for the acquisition of new clients, the account management of existing clients and I was involved in serving various portals for secondment of our own specialist Software Developers. I also got certified as an AWS Cloud Practitioner to meet the organization's wish to become an AWS Selected Partner.

Hays is the largest recruitment agency in the world. With offices operating in 33 different countries and a little over 10.000 employees, Hays continues to expand their market through a high level of service and quality within the recruitment industry.

Within Hays, I was P&L responsible for the permanent IT team in the Netherlands containing 9 FTE with the following responsibilities:

• Business Development
• Strategic Account-management
• Headhunting activities
• Team growth
• Training and Development of (new) employees

- Lead by example

- Top three in revenue Hays Netherlands

- Build a symbiosis of sourcers and accountmanagers

- Hired associates and trained them from scratch.

- Acquired new accounts, managed existing and did commercial cross selling through the company.

Accomplishments:

- First steps in managing consultants (two FTE)

- Received multiple trainings on leading by example and growing others

- Obtained the needed revenue for promotion to teamlead in six months

- Transferred to the Software Development recruitment team

- Responsible for full-cycle recruitment of permanent candidates within the space of Software Development

- Obtained the promotion target to become a Managing Consultant within six months.

- Attracted and extended client engagements.

Responsible for end-to-end recruitment for permanent candidates within the infrastructure space. Client acquisition, candidate acquisition and interviewing were part of the day-to-day.

As a recruitment strategist at SIRE Life Sciences I was responsible for managing the end-to-end recruitment process within the life sciences sector, connecting clients (companies in pharmaceuticals, biotechnology, medical devices, and related fields) with qualified candidates. My role was to connect professionals within the commercial B2B domain with fitting customers.