How a secret service won the recruitment award

Guido started with the story. "If we want to make good employer-brand communication, it has to be a gripping story that people enjoy listening to." He chose a terrorism case the service had already told publicly once before, a safe starting point, and brought in Bart, a real team head within one of the terrorism teams. Not an actor, whatever listeners later assumed online. Bart said yes on the spot, no hesitation.

What followed was six months of preparation and, in Guido's words, "an endless process of sign-off and hassle". Because at a secret service, people are quick to see obstacles that aren't really there. His argument stayed the same: the material is ours, it's recorded, and we can cut until we drop, nothing goes out that we don't want out. Step by step he brought everyone along, all the way up to the director-general.

The first season was scripted to the word and approved. And then interviewer Lisbeth Rasker walked in, and, smiling, simply asked her own questions instead. Nerve-racking to listen to from the control room, but that was exactly what made it come alive. It no longer sounded like people reading out little stories.

The biggest lesson was in the edit. Every episode went past the security authority, then a spokesperson with a fine antenna for political sensitivity, and finally a director. Guido was afraid his edits would be cut to ribbons. Hardly any of it was.

"Lisbeth just sat there, friendly and smiling, asking her own questions. That made it really lively, and it didn't sound like people reading out little stories."

Guido van Hulze

Two seasons of De Dienst sat, just before Guido's departure, "already at nearly a million downloads". More important than the number: people listen all the way through, and some listen to episodes more than once. And season 2 won the Werf& Award, the jury prize for recruitment, for Guido "the prize in my field", awarded by a jury of professionals.

Even so, he plays the figures down on purpose. Recruitment isn't a download contest. "If I get enough good people in the right place with five listeners, then that's fine." The big reach numbers are a welcome bonus, and they do their second job all by themselves: public information. Because De Dienst shows a broad audience that the Netherlands needn't be afraid of what the service does digitally.

That double effect, recruiting and building trust, is exactly why the podcast is worth so much to a government organisation. In a democracy, being open about what you do isn't a luxury but an obligation. A podcast is a low-threshold way to do it: you let your colleagues speak, and people hear that ordinary, enthusiastic people work there.

Should every government body podcast? Not necessarily, video can work just as well, Guido says. But anyone considering it takes away four lessons from two seasons of De Dienst.

"Bring in good people. There are genuinely excellent companies in the Netherlands that can take the whole thing off your hands and think with you about how best to tell your story."

Guido van Hulze