As we kick off 2025, we take a moment to reflect on the milestones, challenges, and lessons that shaped Hire Abroad in the past year. It was a year of building, refining, and expanding. During 2024, we strengthened our foundation, onboarded over 100 recruiters, and made a tremendous impact in international recruitment.
From launching the Hire Abroad platform, expanding into new markets, and setting record recruitment numbers to refining our strategies, here’s what shaped 2024, what we learned, and what’s coming next.
The Year We Aligned as a Team, Launched Our Platform, and Proved the Model Works
Apart from the success in our achieved targets and objectives, 2024 was also a year of alignment—as a team, as a business, and as a leading player in the industry. October marked two exciting years of Hire Abroad. In that time, we’ve grown from a team of five to a team of 20 professionals from 10 different countries, all working toward one shared mission.
We focused on bringing together an extraordinary team of A-players—people who are not just skilled but who believe in what we’re building and the impact we can create. The results speak for themselves. Everything we achieved in 2024, we achieved together as a team.
Launching the Hire Abroad Platform
As we entered 2024, we already had a clear vision for Hire Abroad, but executing said vision was a different challenge, or more precisely, an exciting learning curve.
One of the biggest achievements of 2024 was launching the Hire Abroad platform. We started from scratch, creating a fully functioning platform from an idea, helping recruiters and companies improve almost every aspect of talent acquisition.
Partners immediately joined the platform after we launched, and we listened carefully to their feedback. Thanks to the suggestions of both employers and recruiters, we took immediate action to revamp the platform and make it more intuitive, user-friendly, and convenient.
The platform is now, more than ever, designed to reduce time-to-market and deliver faster, high-quality matches for recruiters and employers. Recruiters now have full control over processes, employers get better data for hiring, and candidates experience a smoother recruitment journey.
What have we learned? Building a platform is one thing. Building the right platform that solves real industry problems is the game-changer.
Setting Recruitment Records
We could say that 2024 was off to a slow start, but the finish was nothing less than remarkable. At the beginning of the year, we faced challenges delivering the CRM and had to rethink how we structured our processes. But by the second half of the year, everything changed.
Looking at the numbers, here’s how 2024 looked:
- Total candidates placed: 2,688 hires through Hire Abroad
- Most placements in a single week: 109 hires in Week 47 (November)
- Highest recruitment month: 388 successful placements in September
- Strongest industry demand: The logistics sector led the way, with more than 4,000 vacancies in warehouses across the Netherlands.
- Standout achievement: Weeks-long record-breaking recruitment streaks in June, September, and October.
And what would be our biggest win? We saw growth in the average duration of stay and significantly reduced candidate no-shows, which completely transformed the recruitment pipeline and improved the experience for all parties involved.
Expanding Into Germany
Another achievement we’re very proud of as a team is our expansion into Germany. Hire Abroad entering the German market created huge opportunities for recruiters and employers.
“Several of our partners have expressed a strong interest in recruiting blue-collar workers for the German market. We are excited that new opportunities have emerged, enabling us to meet these demands. Expanding into Germany represents a significant milestone, allowing us to grow beyond our existing markets and broaden the impact of Hire Abroad.”
–Johan van Zutphen, CEO of Hire Abroad
Just in the past year, recruiters at Hire Abroad successfully filled 205 vacancies in logistics, production, agriculture, and other sectors across Germany.
While the Netherlands remains our core focus, rapid growth in Germany showed us that we entered a high-demand market and proved there’s a strong demand for international hiring beyond the Netherlands.
2024: The Year We Strengthened Partnerships With Employers and Recruiters
Our highest priority last year was building a strong community of top employers and recruiters. That said, in 2024:
- We onboarded over 100 new recruiters, including freelancers and small recruitment companies across Europe.
- Recruiters stayed active on the platform longer, with a rise in candidate proposals and placements.
- Employer relationships grew, with many new partnerships coming through referrals and ambassador recommendations.
- Our recruitment partners received nearly 50% 5-star feedback from all recruited candidates, showing that Hire Abroad delivers quality placements.
But beyond the numbers, what truly made 2024 special were the success stories of recruiters who joined Hire Abroad and transformed their businesses, placing more candidates than ever before.
Recruiters Who Took Their Business to the Next Level
Meryem Ablay, an independent recruiter from the Netherlands, is a great example. In her first month with Hire Abroad, she transitioned from a traditional to a freelance role and successfully placed 12 candidates!
Here’s what she shared with us:
“With Hire Abroad, I’m no longer burdened with every step from A to Z, including planning and administration. Instead, I can focus solely on recruitment, thanks to your very supportive platform.”
Katrina Pazare, a freelance recruiter from Latvia, had a similar experience. Before joining Hire Abroad, she handled every part of the recruitment process on her own. Now, with a streamlined system and strong support, she’s able to work more efficiently and focus on growing her business.
“With Hire Abroad, everything is in one system. The work is organized and streamlined, which has made a huge difference in my productivity.”
For many recruiters, 2024 marked a year they took their business to the next level. We’re grateful for everyone who joined us and proud of the successful placements we achieved together.
What keeps us moving forward is knowing that recruiters trust the platform, and employers are seeing results. This is exactly why we built Hire Abroad—to create a system that works for everyone.
2024 Taught Us Lessons for the Future
Last year brought us a lot of learning, adjusting, and setting the stage for the future. We worked hard, faced challenges, made mistakes, and improved through every experience. Each step helped us refine our approach and grow stronger as a team.
2024, thank you for teaching us that:
- Sometimes, stepping back is necessary to move forward. Growth isn’t always linear. The slow start didn’t define the year—the strong finish did.
- Alignment is everything. 2024 was the year the team came together, making us realise what we can achieve when we focus on one clear mission.
- Our core focus is international blue-collar recruitment, and that’s what we do best. This year reinforced the importance of staying focused on our expertise, continuously improving, and growing Hire Abroad to be the #1 recruitment provider in the Netherlands.
2024 taught us indeed that success isn’t always linear. Sometimes, you need to take a step back, reassess, and refine your strategy to move forward stronger.
And that’s exactly what we did.
What’s Planned for 2025?
With a solid foundation in place, Hire Abroad is ready to take international recruitment to the next level.
2025 will be all about leveraging data from past placements to match candidates more effectively, ensuring that recruiters can place the right people faster and that employers get workers who will stay long-term.
This year, we are committed to:
- Smarter Candidate Matching → Using data-driven insights from past placements to improve quality and retention.
- New Platform Features → Giving recruiters more control, visibility, and tools to optimise placements.
- Stronger Employer Partnerships → Supporting employers in hiring international talent that stays longer and aligns with their company culture.
- Expanding Our Reach → Providing more opportunities for recruiters across new industries and markets.
You can read all about 2025 recruitment trends and predictions in one of our recent blogs, including market insights from our co-founder & CEO.
