![[Translate to English:] MEDICA](/fileadmin/user_upload/MEDICA.jpeg "[Translate to English:] MEDICA")
Image source: Messe Düsseldorf / Tillmann
MEDICA is one of the most important trade shows in the international medical technology and healthcare industry and takes place annually in Düsseldorf. COMPAMED, a trade show for medical supply technologies, is held concurrently. According to the 2025 post-show report, the event attracted approximately 78,000 trade visitors, more than 5,300 exhibitors from around 70 countries, and visitors from approximately 160 countries. About three-quarters of them were members of their organizations’ senior management.
For recruiting managers, the value of this concentration is obvious. Within just a few days, manufacturers, hospitals, research institutions, startups, and regulatory bodies come together. This creates opportunities for conversation beyond traditional job postings. At the same time, MEDICA is not an automatic recruiting channel. Those who arrive without a clear target audience, a substantive conversation strategy, and a structured follow-up process may collect contacts, but they won’t gather reliable candidate profiles.
Talent sourcing, that is, the targeted search for and outreach to suitable professionals—even when there are no open positions—is particularly important at MEDICA, especially for specialized roles. These include the fields of regulatory affairs (the discipline responsible for the approval and regulatory compliance of medical devices), quality management, product development, clinical application, medical informatics, embedded systems (computer systems integrated into hardware, such as medical devices), and international sales with a medical focus.
The particular value lies in gaining access to passive candidates: these are professionals who are currently employed and not actively looking for a new job. They attend the trade show to gather information and maintain their professional network. A conversation about a technology or a regulatory issue can start on a technical note without any underlying intention to change jobs. Recruiters and department heads can informally assess how clearly someone explains complex issues, whether they understand technical, medical, and regulatory contexts, and whether their interest in the company is substantial.
For job seekers, MEDICA offers a concise overview of employers, technology fields, and trends in one place. This is particularly useful for people who want to transition into medical technology from related industries or who do not yet have a specific company in mind. Conversations do not have to start with an application: First, you can ask technical questions, observe the company culture, and assess your own experience.
The most common mistake is attending events without setting priorities or defining a candidate persona. The latter is a detailed profile of the person you’re looking for, including their experience, skills, career level, and motivations. The result is many contacts, but only a few solid profiles.
Effective preparation involves four steps:
For specialized roles, the combination of recruiters (process knowledge, interview skills) and department heads (subject-matter credibility) at the booth is significantly more effective than a purely general career team. In our consulting practice, we regularly observe that qualified technical discussions at trade shows build significantly more trust than a follow-up cold call.
A systematic lead process for tracking and qualifying contacts after the initial interaction is crucial. Immediately following the trade show, this process should document the following points: reason for the conversation, potential target role, next steps, deadline, and consent to be contacted.
Data protection is not a minor issue. A business card does not constitute comprehensive consent for recruiting communications. A documented opt-in is recommended, meaning a person’s explicit consent to further contact with clear options: a specific position, general contact, inclusion in a talent pool (a structured database of pre-screened professionals for future hires), or no further contact.
MEDICA offers a firsthand look at the structural changes taking place in the industry. A key trend is the increasing integration of hardware, software, data, and clinical applications. The emerging roles require technical, medical, and regulatory expertise all at once.
A 2024 report by EIT Health (European Institute of Innovation and Technology Health), an EU-funded network for health innovation, and Work in Health highlights gaps in regulatory and technical expertise in the medical technology sector. In the field of digital health, expertise in artificial intelligence, ESG (environmental, social, and governance criteria for sustainable corporate management), and digital applications is also required.
Regulatory complexity remains a bottleneck. The MDR (Medical Device Regulation, the European regulation for medical devices, in effect since 2021) and the IVDR (In Vitro Diagnostic Medical Devices Regulation, the European regulation for laboratory diagnostics) are creating an increased need for specialists in the areas of regulatory affairs, clinical evaluation, and post-market surveillance (systematic monitoring of a medical device after market authorization). In our industries, we are seeing this demand continue to grow, and qualified professionals in these areas are correspondingly hard to find.
The international composition of the trade show expands the talent pool for companies with global teams, but at the same time raises the bar: language skills, work permits, and recognition of qualifications must be factored in. While the staffing of booths and a company’s trade show presence provide insights into a company’s priorities, they do not offer reliable information about open positions.
MEDICA is a networking platform that is relevant for professionals who are hard to reach. However, it is not a surefire success. Success comes from a combination of a precisely defined target audience, professionally credible conversation partners, and a robust lead-generation process. A few high-quality conversations are preferable to a broad presence without follow-up. Follow-up should begin within 48 to 72 hours.
For job seekers, attending the event is worthwhile if they select companies and topics in advance, prepare a brief professional pitch, and follow up on conversations afterward with a personalized message.
In the future, recruiting at trade shows will become more hybrid: digital preparation, an in-person event to build trust and facilitate spontaneous conversations, and digital follow-up via video calls and structured talent pools. For very narrowly defined roles, specialized trade shows may be more efficient. MEDICA offers breadth and international reach. The choice depends on the specific recruiting need.
If you are looking for qualified and motivated professionals and executives for your company, we can support you with our specialized network. An experienced recruitment firm can make all the difference, especially when searching for hard-to-find specialists in the fields of medical technology and life sciences, such as in regulatory affairs, clinical evaluation, or digital health. For over 15 years, the recruitment consultants at BESTMINDS have been filling vacancies in the medical technology, healthcare, life sciences / pharma, energy / utility, and IT / media sectors with a wealth of expertise and dedication. We find the right candidates for you in a fair, loyal, and discreet manner. Contact us for a no-obligation initial consultation so that we can fill your vacancies quickly and effectively.
