In one of my assignments, a candidate accepted the position of COO at an internationally operating manufacturer in the port area along the North Sea Canal. That was far from a given. She lived a considerable distance from the site, and the commute that came with it weighed heavily for her. What helped her over that threshold was the challenge itself: the scope of the role and the developments this region will go through in the coming years.<\/p>\n
I start with this case because it shows that it can be done. It is not, however, representative.<\/p>\n
A threshold that returns in almost every assignment<\/strong><\/p>\n In my own files the picture is consistent. More than eighty percent of the candidates I approach come from outside the region. Of that group, regularly more than half drop out because of the commute. An employer in Velsen, IJmuiden, Beverwijk or Westpoort therefore loses a large part of the available pool with every senior appointment, before the substance of the role can make the difference.<\/p>\n That a national search is unavoidable follows from the regional figures. In the first half of 2025, the Dutch Employee Insurance Agency (UWV) counted an average of 7,550 open vacancies in Zuid-Kennemerland and IJmond, more than three times the number of short-term jobseekers, and it expects job growth of only 0.3 percent between 2024 and 2027. Labour market tightness is easing somewhat, but according to UWV the region still lists more than 240 professions with good prospects, with engineering, energy and manufacturing prominent among them. For a leadership role in those sectors, the regional pool is simply too small.<\/p>\n What commuting time really weighs for a candidate<\/strong><\/p>\n Commuting time therefore inevitably comes up, and it carries weight. According to the Labour Market Behaviour Survey by Intelligence Group, an overly long commute is the main reason for six out of ten Dutch workers not to choose an employer. The commute people consider acceptable also declines with age: from about 44 minutes for workers aged 23 to 27 to about 36 minutes towards retirement age. For senior positions, where candidates are typically halfway through their careers or beyond, that is no detail.<\/p>\n A European study among more than 16,500 employees also shows that Dutch workers already spend an average of 56 minutes a day travelling to and from work, while they consider 47 minutes acceptable. For many people, there is no slack left before a new employer even calls.<\/p>\n The commute is a given, the trade-off is not<\/strong><\/p>\n Still, it would be too easy to leave it there. The COO case shows that commuting time is not judged in isolation. A candidate weighs kilometres against the substance of the role, the direction of the organisation and what the move means for the rest of a career. Without that counterweight, distance has the final say.<\/p>\n This is where regional employers lose ground. A head office on the Zuidas or in Utrecht does not need to explain its location; a manufacturer on the North Sea Canal does. That is exactly when a well-described position is not enough. The candidate needs to see the challenge.<\/p>\n A board matter, not a recruitment matter<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n It is tempting to treat this as an employer branding issue and hand it to HR or communications. That underestimates what is being asked. What a senior candidate wants to know is not in a job advertisement: where is this organisation heading over the next ten years, which decisions lie ahead, and what role will the new executive play in them? Only the executive board can tell that story, with the supervisory board behind it.<\/p>\n The North Sea Canal Area has that story in abundance. The Energiehaven IJmond is in its design phase, IJmuiden is becoming a base for building offshore wind farms, and the region’s industry faces a sustainability challenge that will occupy a generation of executives. For the candidate who accepted the COO role, that was precisely the point. She did not merely put up with the distance \u2014 she deliberately chose what lay beyond it.<\/p>\n The question from the other side of the table<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n For executives and directors considering a move to this region, an honest calculation applies. Commuting costs something, every day, and nobody needs to talk that away. But set against it what you gain. Roles in which you help shape an industrial transformation, in an internationally operating organisation, in a place where the consequences of your decisions become visible, are scarce. Anyone whose search area stops at the Amsterdam ring road excludes precisely those roles.<\/p>\n What I tell employers in the North Sea Canal Area<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n Raise the commute in the first conversation rather than the last; a candidate who brings it up only in the third round has often already made up their mind. Let the challenge be told by those who carry it, the chair of the executive board or a supervisory director, and not solely by the recruiter or the search firm. Invite candidates to the site early, so they see where the work happens and not only how long the drive takes. And make the practical side of travelling part of the conversation about the role itself, rather than saving it for the negotiation at the end.<\/p>\n In closing<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n At the gates of Amsterdam lie challenges you will not find in every region. That candidates see the distance is unavoidable. Whether they also see what lies beyond it is, as a board member, largely in your own hands.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" In one of my assignments, a candidate accepted the position of COO at an internationally operating manufacturer in the port area along the North Sea Canal. That was far from a given. 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