Job advertisement
Runs 30 days, gets extended
Reaches those already searching. The far larger group that is open to an offer but not searching reads no job board.
The in-house recruiting system Six building blocks
The last recruiting system you will ever need.
You fill several technical roles every year. So far you pay for each one again. We are a systems builder, not an agency: we build it once as your own system – after that you hire on your own, with no fee per head, no retainer and no us.
Join the waiting listThe contradiction
The industry is cutting jobs.
And still cannot find anyone.
What the headlines say
- 22,000 jobs cut in German mechanical engineering in 2025
- ±0 percent production growth forecast by the VDMA for 2026
- 77.8 percent capacity utilization against a 85.6 percent average
What is happening in your service team
- 123,000 roles unfilled, up 18 percent
- 42,000 of them skilled workers – industrial mechanics, machinists, mechatronics
- 106 days to fill a skilled position
Both are true, and both happen inside the same company. The cuts are in production, the hunt is in service – the line that typically delivers 30 percent of total profit in mechanical engineering, and 50 percent or more on maintenance-intensive equipment. Failing to find the service technician does not cost you one role. It costs maintenance contracts, response times and, at the next quotation, the machine itself: service quality accounts for 50 percent of the customer’s investment decision – as much as product quality and price combined.
VDMA · Deloitte, Service Performance in Mechanical Engineering
The status quo Ends
Four routes. All of them start from zero every time.
We do not position against a single provider but against the pattern all four share: the company buys a hire and keeps nothing from it.
Recruitment agency
15–25 % of annual salary, market average 27.5 %
It works – exactly once. At the next vacancy the same invoice starts over. You buy a head, not a capability.
Temp staffing
Markup factor 1.5–2.0, indefinitely
The person never belongs to your company. Your customer has a technician on site who will be elsewhere tomorrow – a problem under a service contract.
Agency on retainer
Monthly, without end
You pay for effort, not outcome. Ad account, audiences, copy and applicant data sit with the agency. Cancelling means back to square one.
Even across two technical hires a year, that is not a one-off item. It is a subscription you never signed up for.
The system
Six modules.
All of them stay in the company.
Every module carries a line an agency cannot write: what belongs to you afterwards. That line is what the claim of being the last system hangs on.
The role profile a technician understands
Travel radius, overnight stays, on-call arrangement, setup time, vehicle, shift. The six points a service technician decides on – in the first line instead of the fourth interview. It costs applications and saves first-year resignations.
Yours afterwardsYour profile template for every future role
The careers page on your domain
Not a portal profile that disappears when you cancel. Your own page on your own domain, applicable on a phone in 90 seconds, no CV requirement. A machinist applies after their shift from a phone – any PDF requirement is a drop-off you never get to see.
Yours afterwardsThe page. In full, including source code and access
The channel to the people who are not searching
According to the EY job study 2025, a quarter of employees are actively looking while another third are open to an offer without searching. We address the second group regionally, where they already are. Run on your accounts, not ours.
Yours afterwardsAd accounts, audiences, creative, budget control
The response rhythm: 72 hours
First application within 72 hours of launch. Then a fixed rhythm: every application answered the same day. Take three days and you negotiate against a signed acceptance – and read it as market scarcity.
Yours afterwardsThe process, the message templates, the ownership
The pre-selection your service manager defines
The technical criteria come from your house, not ours. We build the path that asks for them before anyone loses interview time. For a role with six to twelve months of onboarding, pre-selection matters more than volume.
Yours afterwardsThe questionnaire, the scoring logic, all applicant data
The handover
The part no agency does: access, templates, ad accounts, training. We are done when you can run it without us. Without this step, everything else would be a campaign with a better name.
Yours afterwardsAll of it. In writing
What the system delivered in machinery
Service technician in 14 days. Machinists in the first month.
A special-purpose machinery builder with just over fifty employees had been advertising for a field service technician on a job board for months. Through the system, 31 applications came in; the hire was made after fourteen days. A CNC machinery builder with 80 employees filled its service role after 25 days. A machining company with 15 employees had three qualified candidates for two open positions in the first month.
The companies appear here without names because they did not consent to being named. The figures are unchanged, and in the first call we go through every case – role, region, time to hire, and what was difficult about it.
“If the system belongs to us – what do you live on?”
On building new companies every year. Not on old ones never finishing. A recruitment agency, a temp staffing firm and a retainer agency cannot say that sentence without abolishing themselves – that is not a rhetorical trick, it is the entire difference.
Honest answers.
-
01 The labour market is empty. How can you help?
Right and wrong. Right: too few people are coming through – by 2034, 296,000 employees retire and 118,000 follow (IW Köln / Impuls-Stiftung). Wrong is the conclusion. The service technicians you need are working today, in companies within a 60-kilometre radius. According to the EY job study 2025, a third of employees are open to an offer without actively searching. They simply do not know you exist or what you offer. That is where the system starts. -
02 How do I know whether this pays off for us?
It is arithmetic, not a gut call: what does the open role cost you per month – in overtime, postponed maintenance dates, jobs you turn down? A skilled position in German machinery stays open 106 days at the median (own analysis, 23,707 Federal Agency postings, 2026); after roughly 120 days the cost of vacancy exceeds a full annual gross salary. Run your own numbers, and we will go through them with you. -
03 We have no HR department. Who runs this for us?
Nobody. That is the point. We do not hand you a kit to operate – we run it: advert, careers page, application route and campaign, fully set up under your name. Your effort up to the first application is one approval. After that you only decide who you want to meet. The next role takes minutes: type the title, tick the box, live. No training, no project, no monthly fee. -
04 Roughly what does it cost?
Once, not monthly. The order of magnitude sits below a single agency fee for the same role – for a field service technician on €52,700 a year, a recruiter takes about €10,500. We name the exact figure on the first call, because it depends on role, area and number of positions. What never comes: retainer, monthly fee, percentage of salary. -
05 We only need this seasonally. Does that work?
Yes. Adverts and campaign can be paused and restarted – the build stays in place and is not charged again. Agricultural machinery, refrigeration and heating typically start before the season and pause afterwards. -
06 What if Meta or Google change their rules?
The accounts are in your name, audiences and templates are yours – a rule change takes none of that away. If you want us to keep up with those changes for you, add the monthly support. It is never a condition of the guarantees. -
07 Works council and data protection – what do we need to prepare?
Applicant data sits in the EU, we act as processor under Art. 28 GDPR and the agreement is signed before launch. For the works council, § 87 (1) no. 6 BetrVG applies where a technical system could record performance data – ours does not, and we supply the documentation. In companies with a works council we recommend involving them once before launch: that is one meeting, not a project. -
08 From how many roles does this pay off?
From two technical roles a year. A recruiter takes 15 to 25 percent of annual salary – across two hires that is the order of magnitude at which building your own carries itself against the recurring invoice. From there you pay once instead of every time. If you fill a single role every few years, a recruiter is the cheaper calculation – and we will say so, rather than building you something you cannot keep busy. -
09 What exactly do you guarantee?
Two things, both in writing in the contract. First, the applicant guarantee: the first application within 72 hours of launch – not a first review, not a first report, but an application from a person who is a candidate for your role. Second, the hiring guarantee: if the committed role stays open, we keep working at no further fee until it is filled. Filled does not mean “interview held” – it means an employment contract signed by both sides. -
10 Do you guarantee that we hire someone?
Yes – in writing, with a clear definition: the role is filled when you and a candidate we introduced have signed an employment contract on both sides. If it stays open, we keep working at no further fee. For the guarantee to apply we need your cooperation, and that sits in the contract rather than the small print: a response to every introduced candidate within 48 hours, agreed interviews within ten working days, unchanged parameters. Whoever abandons the process or rebuilds the role profile after signing loses the claim – we say that upfront, not afterwards. Across our cases so far, an average of 24 days passed between launch and hire. -
11 How many applications will we get?
We give no commitment on that, deliberately. What is guaranteed is the placement, not the volume. A provider who promises application numbers optimises for volume – you need exactly one right person, and every unsuitable application costs your service manager time he does not have. -
12 How fast is the role filled?
The first application arrives within 72 hours. Across our cases so far, an average of 24 days passed until the hire. How fast it goes for you depends on two things you control: how quickly you invite, and how clearly the role is described. For comparison, the industry average for a technical skilled position is 106 days (own analysis, 23,707 Federal Agency postings, 2026). -
13 We have already tried two recruiters. What is different here?
The last step. A recruiter delivers a head against a fee; at the next role the same calculation starts over, and the company stands exactly where it stood before. We build the system inside your company and hand it over with accounts, templates and training. The difference is not the campaign – the difference is who owns the accounts afterwards. -
14 Who runs the system from day one?
Until the role is filled: we do. After that it keeps running without anyone on your side operating it. You launch the next role at the push of a button: swap the profile, publish, done. No briefing, no new engagement, no invoice from outside. In practice HR does it, in smaller companies the managing director’s assistant or the service manager. A everything documented in writing comes with it – not because you have to read it, but so the answer is available when the person who keeps it in their head moves on. -
15 If the system belongs to us, what do you live on?
On building new companies every year – not on old ones never becoming self-sufficient. That is the most honest point about this offer and at the same time the reason a recruiter, a staffing firm and a retainer agency cannot make it: it attacks their own business model. Anyone who wants support from day one gets it – voluntary, cancellable, never a precondition. -
16 Are we tied to you afterwards?
No. Careers page, ad accounts, audiences and all applicant data are yours. When our filling phase ends, the system stays up – no platform you rent, no access we could switch off. We stay if it is worth it, not because you have to. -
17 Why only one company per specialisation and area?
Because service technicians and industrial mechanics are won regionally. Two systems advertising for the same people in the same catchment area devalue each other – the ads compete, and costs rise for two customers at once. That is why we build only one company per specialisation and area. -
18 Why does your site show a waiting list?
Because slots per specialisation and area are limited and currently taken. You leave a postcode and a website, we place your area and come back as soon as we can. If your area is taken or the role cannot be filled, we decline – honestly, before you lose time. -
19 What does it cost?
A fraction of what the open role costs you over the same period. A technical skilled position stays open 106 days at the median (own analysis, 23,707 Federal Agency postings, 2026); after roughly 120 days the vacancy exceeds a full annual gross salary. What the build costs exactly depends on the number of roles, sites and areas – that belongs against your numbers, not on a website, and we will also tell you when it does not pay off. What is fixed here: a one-time build. No retainer, no fee per head, no licence.
BLOG
Articles for this industry
Practical guides and levers – straight from the field
Waiting list
One company per specialisation and area. Every slot is currently taken.
Put your name down. As soon as a slot opens in your area we will come back to you – with an assessment, not a pitch.
What happens next
- You leave a postcode and a website. That is all we need to place your catchment area.
- We come back as soon as we can – and we decline if your area is taken or the role cannot be filled. Honestly, before you lose time.
- If it fits, we run your area together: how many suitable technicians work within range, and what the build would cost you – including when we advise against it.
Join the waiting list 4.8 on Trustpilot · 283 businesses in the group