MECAL

MECAL is an independent engineering company operating globally, offering engineering consultancy services to the semiconductor industry, the wind industry, and recently also to the solar market. Their headquarters are in Enschede, in the Netherlands, with offices located also in Denmark, Japan and the US.

The company has seen its business triple an its workforce double in the last 3 years bringing it to a current 150 employees. Dick van Haare, HR at MECAL, explains: “Over the past few years we have seen an enormous development within the company where we have invested strongly in talent management, setting ourselves high goals.” MECAL is very specific when it comes to recruiting new people. As they are working on innovative concepts they want to have the best qualified people for this.

Although the company is relatively small, the job opportunities at MECAL are diverse. These cover several activities, from conceptual design engineering to mechanical and applied engineering for both onshore and offshore projects. With regards to the wind related services the company can draw on 20 years of experience with a focus on innovative solutions for improved and more reliable wind turbine technologies in order to help the market bring down the cost of energy.

For example, the company has worked on a 12MW wind turbine concept study, the results of which were made public early in 2013. This research assessed different drive trains, where the preferred design had a medium speed compact drive train with one single main bearing instead of 2 bearings. However, MECAL’s services to the wind industry do not stop here at the engineering design phase. The company also sends out technicians for inspections on turbines. Mr van Haare estimates the activities taking place offshore will grow substantial the coming years, as optimising yield is a growing factor in engineering. By working on both ends of the engineering activities this gives the company the ability to look at this sector from different angles.

The employees at MECAL originate from all over the world. Currently they employ around 20 different nationalities. When it comes to the share of female employees Mr van Haare explains that for an engineering company they have a healthy balance between women and men, with women taking up approximately 17%, mainly filling coordinating and support positions. In general the jobs require higher educational and academic educational backgrounds. For the employees carrying out inspection work more practical expertise is required.

With regards to their recruiting methods Mr van Haare says: “We use a mixture of methods to look for new colleagues, both passively and actively. We have a growing file of people that are interested in working for MECAL from which we can recruit. At the same time we are also actively looking in the market ourselves. We have ranked the top international universities and visit them to organise lectures to get students interested in our field of activities and in our company.” MECAL has, for example, an active exchange with China whereby the company offers students apprenticeships and graduate programmes. MECAL also looks for high potentials through referral recruitment and shortlisting through social media platforms such as Linkedln.

He admits that it is not too easy finding the right people and this is applicable for both the semiconductor branch as the wind related positions. However, he adds, “Being a global company, with a very international team we offer an interesting and culturally diverse working atmosphere, while at the same time the size of our company makes it possible to remain relatively informal.”

The job roles are also very specialists, with in-depth knowledge built up over time, which make these very challenging. “We invest in our employees and make sure that we build up competence. This is done through our in-house training, the MECAL Academy.”

“There is a 6-week course for people entering the academy. We teach them the company values and quality goals, and how the company wants to grow. At the same time we look at the personal needs of each employee and create a personal development plan for each who is interested to develop one self.” This way both the company and the employees can get the best out of the available competences.

Sabine Lankhorst