What we handle when you move
Country-by-country breakdown of what Octagon takes off your plate for inbound hires across the Netherlands, UK, Germany, France, Italy, and Cyprus.
How we work
How we work
The candidate experience Octagon has defended since 1987: a real employment contract, a named contact for the full engagement, no third-party passthrough, and no recruiter carousel.
The problem with how most of the industry hires
Candidates who have worked through the wider recruitment market recognise the patterns. A global employer-of-record platform signs you into a contract the end client has never read, then holds you at arm\u2019s length from the people you actually work with. A high-volume agency lists roles that turn out to be speculative, rotates you through a carousel of recruiters, and goes quiet after the placement fee has cleared. A managed-services intermediary trims CAO adherence, interprets holiday accrual in its own favour, and lets a pension contribution slip. The contract is on paper that is not yours, the employer sits somewhere offshore, and the everyday experience is of being a second-class employee with a hidden fee structure.
These are observable patterns, not isolated complaints. They are the reason a senior professional considering a move through a third-party provider treats every promise sceptically. The rest of this page is written with that reader in mind. Octagon has run this work since 1987, and the model below is the one we have defended across six markets against every incentive to cut corners.
Not a recruiter carousel
How others do it
You talk to three different recruiters at three different companies. A fourth calls about a fifth role that does not match. By month eighteen, you cannot remember who actually works for you.
How Octagon does it
One named Octagon contact from the first conversation through month eighteen or year five. The same person handles your contract, your compliance questions, and your day-to-day. You have their number.
Not a third-party passthrough
How others do it
You sign with a managed-services company that signs a separate contract with the end client. Your employer is technically someone’s back-office, and questions about pay, pension, or illness bounce across three email addresses.
How Octagon does it
You sign a real Dutch employment contract (or UK equivalent) with us. We are the employer. You get Dutch CAO terms, Dutch holiday allowance, Dutch pension, and Dutch sick-leave cover — because we are a Dutch employer, not a shell resold from abroad. The same logic applies in the UK, Germany, France, Italy, and Cyprus, where we run our own entities.
Not a platform that discounts compliance
How others do it
CAO adherence gets trimmed to protect margin. Holiday accrual gets interpreted generously-for-the-provider. Pension contributions skip a month.
How Octagon does it
CAO, pension, holiday, and sick-leave obligations are statutory and non-negotiable. They are not line items we trim. We carry them because they are the actual Dutch employment contract terms — not because a client specifically asked for them.
Not a sales pipeline
How others do it
After the offer call, you are a case number. Onboarding is a portal link, not a person.
How Octagon does it
After the offer, we file the 30% ruling application where you qualify, handle the IND Recognised Sponsor paperwork when you need a visa, and introduce you to our housing and banking partners. Your named Octagon contact then walks you through the personal admin — BSN, DigiD, healthcare, schooling where applicable — as you arrive. See the Relocation page for the detail by country.
What this looks like in practice
The four contrast blocks are not positioning copy. They describe the everyday reality of working through Octagon and reflect how long-standing clients have experienced us. We have been placing into ESA teams since 1990, working with OPCW and Europol since the late 1990s, and running Swisscom relocation programmes for more than a decade. Those relationships did not survive for thirty years because of a price point. They survived because the people we placed stayed, the contracts held up, and the compliance work was actually done.
That continuity is the evidence. A candidate who joins Octagon today sits inside the same operating model that has kept those engagements running. One contract, one named contact, one provider across six countries, and no passthrough layer between you and the work.
The 1987 founding story
How Octagon was founded in The Hague and the reason its model has outlasted every passing platform trend.
How clients see us
The same model, from the hiring organisation\u2019s side of the table. Why employers stay with Octagon for decades.
Ready to see what an Octagon engagement looks like?
Browse the open roles we are running right now, or send us your CV so we can match you against placements before they are publicly advertised.