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YER’s History

Success does not just appear out of thin air. Discover at a glance how YER has been helping professionals and clients achieve their goals since 1987 on the basis of entrepreneurship, focus and future orientation.

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Our history

YER was founded by Jaap Kooijman in 1987. A business and administration night-school student working at a temp agency, Jaap identified a market gap between temping and executive search: Young Executive Recruitment, or providing mediation services for young applied and academic university graduates. It comes as no surprise that the first YER professionals were Jaap’s fellow students who got jobs in sales, marketing and finance. 

A dynamic start was soon followed by the 1980s crisis, which YER survived thanks to shrewd entrepreneurship and maximum media visibility.

During this pre-internet age, we were the first - and for a long time the only - organization to publish our job openings full page in newspapers and magazines. Highly educated people and the business community started hearing about us en masse, and we became known as an approachable, reliable and professional organization.  

Growth based on entrepreneurship 

The 1990s were dominated by growth. We gained a foothold in Eindhoven by hiring experienced consultants who ran their “own” business. This strategy quickly landed us in a position that enabled us to compete with major players, and we still use it as a blueprint for success.  

Our growth really took off starting in 2003. Offices in Rotterdam, Zwolle, the rest of the Netherlands and beyond quickly followed. 

Successful focus shift 

We gradually shifted the focus from offline to online. We saw the rise of LinkedIn and job platforms. As organizations increased their flexible, temporary workforce, providing mediation services for professionals with permanent contracts became a smaller part of our work.  

Under Johan Overgaauw’s leadership, we underwent a transformation to become an organization with more of a temporary-employment focus. The successes followed in rapid sequence: YER became the preferred supplier for top organizations, surpassed internal goals and continued to show healthy growth.  

Ambition for the future 

YER focuses on rapidly changing fields with employment shortages such as IT, engineering and the public sector. Chances are we know your next employer through our consulting networks. Or the talent your company needs. If this isn’t the case, we develop a traineeship, recruit far beyond our borders, or come up with another plan.  

YER is right there beside you, just like it always has been, still is, and will be in the future, so we can set your ambitions in motion.