Talent Sourcing Partner and Adyen built a future-ready talent pipeline that stays ahead of the competition

The challenge: Scaling at Adyen's speed

As one of the world’s fastest-growing fintech companies, Adyen faced exceptionel hiring pressure. Rapid international expansion drove soaring workloads, delays, and the risk of compromised client service. Every week, dozens of new employees had to be onboarded simply to keep pace. This scale quickly outstripped the capacity of Adyen’s in-house recruitment teams, making volume the critical bottleneck.

At the same time, Adyen was determined to maximize growth without being held back by solvable issues. Budget was not a limiting factor. Quality, speed, and cultural fit were. Recognizing that in-house recruitment could not keep up, Adyen turned to Talent Sourcing Partner. Talent Sourcing Partner is an expert in scaling businesses, building talent pipelines, and delivering high-quality talent at speed. With Talent Sourcing Partner, Adyen found a partner capable of combining volume with cultural alignment and operational excellence.

Our approach: Turning scarcity into advantage

Talent Sourcing Partner applied its Scarcity Solution to go beyond traditional talent pools and create sustainable outcomes. Normally, companies focus on ready-to-deploy talent, and we did too, but that alone wasn’t enough to match Adyen’s pace. Together, we launched the NextGen program, a long-term strategy designed to attract ambitious students early, nurture them, and transition them seamlessly into permanent roles. 

This program built a powerful pipeline of young talent for Adyen long before they hit the job market. When they were ready to work, they bypassed the usual hiring hoops and stepped straight into roles at Adyen. The results speak for themselves: 845students joined through NextGen, with 194 transitioning into permanent contracts. The payoff was a true win-win. While competitors were still scrambling to recruit, Adyen was already welcoming a ready-to-go pool of ambitious talent perfectly matched to its culture and goals.

Alongside NextGen, we ensured flexibility and speed by continuously sourcing high-quality talent. Even during the most demanding weeks when Adyen needed dozens of new hires at once, our recruitment engine never slowed down. We kept the pipeline flowing and adapted instantly to changing needs, supported by proactive communication with hiring managers to ensure alignment at every step.

We also removed friction from the hiring process. Instead of simply forwarding CVs, we handled thorough screenings, first-round interviews, and in-depth cultural fit assessments before presenting candidates. This allowed Adyen to maintain its high bar while freeing its teams to focus on strategic priorities.

The results: A future-ready talent machine

The partnership between Adyen and Talent Sourcing Partner built far more than a recruitment process. It created a future-ready talent engine that combined speed, precision, and cultural alignment, enabling Adyen to scale globally without compromising on quality. What began as an urgent hiring solution evolved into a true strategic partnership, with Adyen viewing Talent Sourcing Partner as a driver of growth rather than just a supplier of candidates.

Together, we transformed hiring into a scalable growth platform:

• 845 students (via StudentFlex) joined Adyen to handle critical junior-level tasks, freeing mid- and senior-level staff to focus on complex, high-impact work.
• 76 young professionals (via TalentSpark) strengthened Adyen’s core operations with immediately deployable expertise.
• 194 students and young professionals transitioned into permanent contracts, proving long-term cultural fit and value creation.

This approach delivered much more than short-term relief. It built a pipeline for future growth and a strategy that continues to support Adyen’s ambitions well beyond today’s needs. It created clear career paths, with students moving from StudentFlex roles into permanent positions, ensuring continuity and deepening expertise across teams. It also safeguarded operations and regulatory compliance during critical growth phases, giving Adyen resilience exactly when it was needed most.

By consistently combining speed, quality, and cultural fit, Talent Sourcing Partner enabled Adyen to maintain operational excellence throughout its international expansion. While others battled talent shortages and bottlenecks, Adyen kept accelerating, powered by a steady stream of entrepreneurial talent. Talent Sourcing Partner played a pivotal role in making this scale of growth possible.

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