Tim Schellekens, Art Director at livewall
Applying for your first job is nerve wracking. For Kruidvat, we looked past the vacancy itself and found the real barrier: the fear of doing it alone. Here's how letting people apply together changed that.
Service
Employee Experience
Tools and campaigns that attract, onboard, and retain the right people.
The market for a first job is crowded
Kruidvat has hundreds of stores across the Netherlands and Belgium, and a huge chunk of the team is young people working part time. And honestly, every supermarket and fast food place around the corner is fishing in that exact same pond.
Everyone tries the same fix first
So how do you stand out in a market like that? The obvious answer is to make the job sound better. Higher pay, cooler job ad, better perks. That's what everyone tries first. Problem is, so does everyone else, and for this generation, that stuff matters less than you'd think.
I still remember my first time applying?
So what actually makes this group tick? What do they need, where's the pain, what makes them happy?
First time applying for a job? Nerve wracking. Not knowing where to start, how to even bring it up, what to say when you walked in. I still remember mine. And what makes this age happy? Hanging out with friends. See where this is going?
Why not just... not do it alone?
Apply with your bestie
That's basically the whole idea. Apply with your bestie. Interview together. If it works out, get scheduled together too. While we were at it, we made the rest of the process way less annoying. Apply through WhatsApp, get matched to a store within a day.
You end up with actual friend groups working the same shifts. You can feel that on the shop floor. Young people working alongside their actual friends, and it works surprisingly well.
Kind of ridiculous, on purpose
We wanted something that showed that, not just told it. So we made a shirt. One shirt, made for two people to wear at once. Kind of ridiculous, honestly. It toured cities in a photobooth, and we built TikTok content around it as part of the campaign.
That's the stuff that took off. TikTok grew 774 percent, duo applications jumped 83 percent, and so many people applied we had to pause the campaign for a bit.
Look for where it actually hurts
With this generation, you don't win by being louder about the same offer everyone else has. You win by actually putting yourself in their shoes and finding where it hurts. Sometimes that's not the job at all. It's the part right before it.
Ready to design interactions that actually stick with your brand? Let's talk.
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