Field Notes
Where to find us in person: PCIM, electronica, SEMICON Europa and Optatec
Four shows, every edition, the full run of days. They are where a year of email turns into conversations, where a coffee becomes a search, and where the people we placed last year introduce us to the people we will place next year. If you are going, we are going. Here is what each one is for, when the next one is, and how to find us.
Why we go, every time
A recruiter who only knows a market through job descriptions knows it badly. The shows are where the market explains itself: which technologies a company is betting on, who has just moved, which stand is twice the size it was last year and which one has quietly gone. Three days on the floor is worth more than three months of reading.
They are also where trust gets built at a pace email cannot manage. Most of the searches we run started as a conversation at a stand, or a coffee that had been in the diary for months, or somebody flagging us down because they had just changed jobs and wanted us to know. We go to every edition of all four, at PCIM and electronica for the full run of days, and we start fixing half-hour meetings months ahead.
PCIM Europe, Nuremberg
This is our home show. Power electronics is the market we have worked longest, and PCIM is where that market stands still for three days and lets you walk round it. Device makers, module makers, the drives and converter companies, the test and measurement people, and the engineers who design all of it in.
This June we were in Nuremberg for all three days. A field applications engineer we had known for years flagged us down at his new employer’s stand to tell us about the move, and the conversation that followed was the start of our approach to a company we had wanted to work with for some time. A sales director we met on the floor mentioned a possible opening in his EMEA applications team; within days we had a strong candidate in that conversation. A contact we had first met at electronica two years earlier made time to catch up again, and a hiring manager we reconnected with there had two of our people in front of him within weeks. That is what a good PCIM looks like, and it is why the follow-ups run well into the autumn.
The conference alongside the exhibition is where the technical direction of the market gets argued out in public, which is worth a recruiter’s time even if none of the papers are about hiring. Knowing why a design team is moving from one device technology to another is the difference between a shortlist that makes sense to them and one that does not.
electronica, Munich
electronica is the big one, and it is on our doorstep. Every second November the whole electronics supply chain arrives in Munich: component makers, distributors, the automotive electronics world, power, RF, test, and the people who buy from all of them. It is too large to walk in a day, which is exactly why it is useful: nobody is there by accident.
We plan it early. By the end of August we are already writing to people to fix half an hour in November, because the people worth half an hour are the people whose half hours go first. We like to be prepared. Several of the relationships that produce our searches began as a coffee at electronica and were picked up again at PCIM the following June, and then at electronica again two years on. A show that recurs is a relationship that recurs.
SEMICON Europa, Munich
SEMICON Europa runs alongside electronica in Munich, and it is the other half of the same trip. Where electronica is about the components, SEMICON is about how they are made: the fabs, the equipment makers, the materials suppliers, and the vacuum, thin-film, plasma and metrology specialists whose work most people never see.
For us it is the show for a market that is small, technical and hard to reach any other way. The engineers who genuinely understand a deposition or etch process are a short list, and a good proportion of that list is in the halls at SEMICON. It is also where the European semiconductor conversation happens in the open, which matters when the searches we run depend on where the next fab investment lands.
Optatec, Frankfurt
Optatec is the photonics show: optical technologies, components and systems, every second May in Frankfurt. Lasers, lenses, fibre, optical sensors and the imaging and measurement systems built on them. We have been going since 2018, and the photonics contacts from those early visits are still on our list.
It is a smaller show than the other three and better for it. Conversations are longer, and it is possible to leave having actually met the people you came to meet.
How to find us there
We do not exhibit; we walk. The easiest way to meet is to book a slot before the show. Email, WhatsApp or LinkedIn all reach Ramon directly, and half an hour at a stand or over a coffee is enough to work out whether we can help with what you are hiring, or where you want to be next.
If you would rather not plan, that works too. Every year somebody stops us in an aisle, and every year one of those conversations turns into something. Say hello.
- PCIM Europe, Nuremberg: next edition 11 to 13 May 2027. We are there all three days.
- electronica and SEMICON Europa, Munich: 10 to 13 November 2026. Meetings are being booked now.
- Optatec, Frankfurt: next edition 9 to 11 May 2028.
- To book: contact@globalrecruitment.tech, or the Contact button on any page.
Tell us what you are trying to hire
Send the role, or send your CV, and it reaches Ramon rather than a queue. If it is not something we can do well, you will be told that straight away rather than a month from now.
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