Veiligheidsregio Utrecht (VRU) plays a crucial role in ensuring safety and crisis management for over 1.3 million residents in the region — covering everything from fire services to disaster response and crisis coordination. In a labor market where talent is scarce and candidates are becoming increasingly selective, attracting the right people is a growing challenge. Traditional recruitment approaches, such as posting vacancies and running standard campaigns, are no longer always sufficient to reach and persuade the right target audience.
That is why VRU is experimenting with new, data-driven ways of recruiting. This case study centers on a concrete example in which VRU, using the Giant Dashboard and its built-in AI assistant, managed to transform a vacancy from “difficult to fill” to successfully filled. It demonstrates how small adjustments, grounded in target audience insights and supported by AI, can make a significant difference in recruitment effectiveness.
1. Challenge
The vacancy for the position of administrative secretary of the works council (OR) at VRU, a pivotal role in employee representation within the organization, had been open for over a month without attracting suitable candidates. An active LinkedIn campaign was running, but without the desired results. The challenge was not a matter of reach, but of relevance:
2. Approach
VRU used Giant data in combination with a Large Language Model (LLM) to optimize the job posting. First, the pull factors and desired employment conditions of the target audience were analyzed. The text was then rewritten with a focus on:
3. Results
The impact of the optimized job posting was immediate: the revised text led to a direct improvement in both response rate and candidate quality.
This case study from Veiligheidsregio Utrecht demonstrates that successful recruitment in today’s labor market is not just about visibility, but about relevance. Where the original job posting failed to connect with the target audience, the combination of labor market data and AI support delivered a clear breakthrough.
By gaining insight into what candidates genuinely care about and consistently translating this into tone of voice, content, and positioning, VRU was able to make the vacancy significantly more appealing and effective. The use of the Giant AI assistant made it possible to carry out this optimization not only faster, but with greater precision.
The outcome reflects a broader trend: organizations that base their recruitment and employer branding on data and audience insights considerably improve their chances of success. For VRU, this meant not only filling a difficult vacancy quickly, but also adopting a new way of working, one that relies less on assumptions and more on insight and evidence.
A relatively small shift in approach, with a significant impact on results.
Want to recruit as smart as VRU? Discover what insights Giant has on your target audience.
