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Location & Radius Search

Geographic filtering lets you focus your client search on companies within a specific area. Whether you operate within a single city, a region like the Randstad, or across the entire Netherlands, the location and radius filters help you find companies where your geographic presence gives you an advantage. Location-based searching is particularly valuable for recruiters who build their business through in-person relationships and local market knowledge.

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Why Location Matters for Recruitment

Geographic proximity plays a significant role in recruitment business development for several reasons:

Market Specialization

Many recruiters build their reputation within a specific region. Companies prefer working with recruiters who understand the local talent market, salary expectations, and competitive landscape. Demonstrating local knowledge in your first conversation builds immediate credibility.

Candidate Proximity

Candidates generally prefer roles within reasonable commuting distance. If your candidate pool is concentrated in a specific area, you want to find companies that your candidates can actually reach. Matching geographic alignment between your candidates and clients increases placement success rates.

Relationship Building

Face-to-face meetings are still valuable in recruitment. Being geographically close to your clients makes it easier to build strong relationships through in-person meetings, site visits, and informal coffees. Proximity reduces the friction for initial meetings.

Regional Knowledge

Knowing which companies are in an area, what the local talent pool looks like, and which companies compete for the same candidates gives you a significant edge in conversations with potential clients. This insider knowledge is hard to replicate remotely.

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Setting a Location Center

The location search uses a center point plus radius model. First, you set the center point of your search area.

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Using Google Maps Autocomplete

The location field uses Google Maps autocomplete. As you type, it suggests matching locations:
1

Click the Location Field

Click on the location center input field in the filter panel.
2

Start Typing

Begin typing a city name, such as “Amsterdam” or “Utrecht”. Google Maps autocomplete will show suggestions as you type, including cities, districts, and regions.
3

Select a Suggestion

Click on the correct suggestion from the dropdown. The field will populate with the selected location, and the latitude/longitude coordinates are stored automatically behind the scenes. These coordinates are used for the distance calculation.
You can enter various types of locations:
Input TypeExampleResult
City name”Amsterdam”Centers on Amsterdam city center
Region”Noord-Holland”Centers on the province
Address”Zuidas, Amsterdam”Centers on a specific district
Coordinates”52.3676, 4.9041”Uses exact latitude/longitude
The autocomplete works with both Dutch and English place names. “Den Haag” and “The Hague” both work, as do “Eindhoven” and variants with postal codes. The important thing is to select from the dropdown suggestions so that the coordinates are captured correctly.

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Adjusting the Search Radius

Once you have set a center location, you can adjust the search radius in kilometers. The radius defines a circular area around your center point, and only companies with job postings located within this area will appear in results.

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Available Radius Options

The radius can typically be set between 5 km and 200 km. Common settings include:
RadiusCoverageTypical Use Case
5-10 kmSingle cityFocus on companies in one city center
15-25 kmCity and suburbsCover a metropolitan area including surrounding towns
30-50 kmRegionalCover a region like the Randstad or Brabant
75-100 kmMulti-regionalCover a large part of the Netherlands
150-200 kmNationalCover nearly the entire country
The Netherlands is compact — a radius of 100 km from Utrecht covers most of the country’s major cities including Amsterdam, Rotterdam, The Hague, Eindhoven, and Arnhem. If you work nationally, you may not need a location filter at all, or you can set a very large radius from a central point like Utrecht or Amersfoort.

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How Geographic Filtering Works

When you set a location center and radius, Recruitier filters companies based on the geographic coordinates of their job postings. Here is how it works:
  1. Each job posting has a location — When jobs are scraped, the location field is extracted and geocoded to latitude/longitude coordinates.
  2. Distance is calculated — For each company, the distance from the job location to your search center is calculated using the Haversine formula, which accounts for the earth’s curvature. This produces accurate real-world distances rather than simple straight-line approximations.
  3. Companies within radius are included — Only companies with at least one active job posting within your specified radius appear in results.

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Important: Job Location vs. Company Headquarters

The geographic filter operates on job posting locations, not company headquarters. This is an important distinction:
  • A company headquartered in Rotterdam but posting a job in Amsterdam will appear in an Amsterdam-centered search.
  • A company headquartered in Amsterdam but posting all its jobs in Eindhoven will not appear in an Amsterdam-centered search (unless the radius is large enough to reach Eindhoven).
  • A company with multiple office locations may appear in searches centered on any city where they have active job postings.
This behavior is intentional. You want to find companies that are hiring in your area, not just companies that happen to be registered there. The jobs are where the actual placement opportunity exists.
Some companies post jobs with vague locations like “Netherlands” or “Remote”. These jobs have broad geocoding and may or may not fall within your radius depending on how the location was resolved. Fully remote positions may be geocoded to the company headquarters or to a central point in the Netherlands, which affects whether they appear in radius searches.

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Combining Location with Other Filters

Location filtering works alongside all other filters:

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Location + Skills

Find companies within 30 km of Amsterdam that are posting Python developer roles. This is perfect when you have Python developers in the Amsterdam area and want to find nearby companies that need them.

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Location + Industry

Find healthcare companies within 50 km of Utrecht. This helps you focus industry-specific prospecting on your geographic market, targeting companies where you can combine sector expertise with local presence.

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Location + Hiring Activity

Find companies within 25 km of Rotterdam that posted new jobs in the last 48 hours. This combination is powerful for timely outreach — you are reaching companies that just started hiring and are geographically close.

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Location + Employee Count

Find startups (1-50 employees) within 15 km of Eindhoven’s tech campus. This targets the specific segment of smaller companies in a known innovation hub where personal relationships and proximity are most valuable.

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Location + Skills + Industry

Find IT companies within 40 km of Amsterdam posting Java jobs. This triple combination creates a highly targeted list of companies that match your sector, technology specialization, and geography simultaneously.

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Clearing the Location Filter

To remove the geographic filter:
  • Clear the location center field, or
  • Remove the radius setting
Both actions remove the geographic constraint and return to showing companies from all locations. Clearing the filter is useful when you want to switch from a regional search to a national view.

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Tips for Effective Geographic Searching

  • Start with a wider radius and narrow down if you get too many results. It is better to see all options and then filter further than to miss companies on the edge of your area.
  • Try different center points — Centering on Amsterdam Centraal versus Amsterdam Zuidas can produce slightly different results at small radii (under 10 km).
  • Remember that remote jobs may not appear — Fully remote positions may not have a specific geographic location and might not show up in radius-based searches.
  • Use location for prioritization, not exclusion — Consider doing both a location-filtered search (for nearby companies) and an unfiltered search (for the broader market) to make sure you are not missing opportunities.
  • Consider the Randstad corridor — A single search centered on Hilversum with a 40 km radius captures Amsterdam, Utrecht, The Hague, and most of the Randstad — the densest employment area in the Netherlands.
Setting a very small radius (under 5 km) may produce few results, especially outside major cities. Dutch companies tend to be concentrated in urban areas, but their job postings may reference a broader area than just the exact city center.

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Advanced

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How the Haversine Distance Calculation Works

The location filter uses the Haversine formula to calculate the great-circle distance between two points on the earth’s surface. The formula is: 
distance = 6371 * acos(
  cos(radians(lat1)) * cos(radians(lat2)) *
  cos(radians(lon2) - radians(lon1)) +
  sin(radians(lat1)) * sin(radians(lat2))
)
Where 6371 is the earth’s radius in kilometers, and lat1/lon1 are your search center coordinates while lat2/lon2 are the job’s geocoded coordinates. This calculation happens at the database level within the SQL query, meaning it is applied efficiently to all jobs in a single pass. The Haversine formula is accurate for the distances involved in Dutch recruitment (typically under 200 km). At these distances, the difference between Haversine and more complex geodesic calculations is negligible.

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How Location Interacts with Job Counts and Hotness Score

When a location radius filter is active, it affects which jobs are counted as “matching”:
  • Total job count: Still counts ALL active jobs at the company, regardless of location
  • Matching job count: Only counts jobs within your specified radius
The hotness score switches to use the matching (location-filtered) job count when the radius filter is active. This means companies with many jobs in your area rank higher than companies with many jobs overall but few near you. For example, a company with 50 total jobs but only 2 within your radius gets a hotness score based on 2 (not 50). A company with 10 total jobs and 8 within your radius gets a score based on 8. The second company ranks higher because more of their hiring activity is relevant to your geographic market.

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Geocoding and Data Quality

Job locations are geocoded during the scraping process. The quality of geocoding depends on how specific the location is in the original job posting:
  • Specific city: “Amsterdam” geocodes to a precise city center point
  • Vague region: “Netherlands” geocodes to a central point in the country
  • Missing location: Jobs without location data cannot be geocoded and are excluded from radius searches
  • Remote jobs: “Remote” positions may be geocoded to the company headquarters or may lack coordinates entirely
Companies that only post jobs with vague or missing locations may not appear in radius searches even though they are nominally in your area. This is a limitation of the source data quality, not the filtering logic.

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Connection to Other Features

  • Skills + Location is the top combination: When both are active, you get companies hiring for your specific skills in your specific area — the most targeted search possible.
  • Saved Searches: Location center coordinates and radius are preserved in saved searches. When you load a saved search, the exact same geographic constraint is restored.
  • Company Detail Page: The company’s headquarters location shown on the detail page may differ from where their jobs are posted. The location filter uses job locations, not headquarters.
  • Matching Job Count Display: When location is active, the results table shows “X / Y” where X is jobs within your radius and Y is total jobs. This helps you see companies that have significant hiring both inside and outside your area.

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Power User Tips

  • Use overlapping searches for full coverage: If you cover multiple regions, create separate saved searches for each (e.g., “Amsterdam 30km” and “Rotterdam 30km”) rather than one giant radius. This gives you cleaner, more actionable results per region.
  • Beware of border effects: A company with an office 31 km from your center point will not appear in a 30 km search. If you suspect you are missing companies, increase the radius by 5-10 km as a buffer.
  • Remote-first companies may be invisible: Companies that post all positions as “Remote” may not appear in any geographic search. If you want to include remote-first companies, run a separate search without the location filter.
  • Center on transport hubs: Centering on a major train station (e.g., Utrecht Centraal) mirrors how candidates think about commuting, making your location-based results more aligned with real candidate preferences.