Imec the Netherlands is a research and development hub for nano- and digital technologies. Imec’s ambition is to stay at the very forefront of new research innovations in order to offer ground-breaking solutions for their customers. Expansion and retention of imec’s talent workforce is key to fulfilling this ambition. In a competitive and tight global labour market, a strong employer branding is required in order to be able to attract, onboard and retain the best, loyal and motivated employees.

With its headquarters in Belgium, imec has a strong brand name internationally, especially within the specific sectors in which they operate. Being part of the Brainport region, imec the Netherlands wanted to also build their name locally. Realising that successfully putting in place a strong employer brand, as well as a recruitment campaign, requires full focus, imec the Netherlands turned to us at Tech to Market. We were asked to provide the insights and manpower to draw up a convincing case why working for imec in the Netherlands is the best choice for tech talent.

There were three things that were clamouring for attention. First, when people look for a position, increasingly, it’s not just the work description that is important. Company values, culture and ambitions – the employer brand – play a major role in the perception of a company as attractive employer.

Basically, what we were asked to do was to define a strategy, deploy a tool and increase the visibility of imec the Netherlands. Sounds easy. But we knew that in order to create maximum traction, we needed to put something in place, not just as quick fix, but rather as something that would serve imec for the coming years. Which strategy was it going to be? To answer that question, we had to do some deep diving in the organisation itself. After all, nothing beats an employer branding strategy based on insights derived from extensive qualitative and quantitative research. To put the right things in place to make imec a leading employer of choice, we needed to first fully understand what is important to potential employees (and current ones).

So, we kicked off by conducting extensive buyer persona research. ‘The results of the research conducted by Tech to Market were more or less a confirmation of what we believed to be our value as a company for employees. But, now we had it straight from the horse’s mouth: on what employees consider important, what motivates them and what their ambitions are,’ says Eline van Uden, Communication Manager at imec the Netherlands.

Once we had drawn up the branding strategy, we moved on to the third part of our job: strategy execution. The opportunity that imec gives employees to combine ground-breaking research with real-life applications for a smarter and better tomorrow, was deemed by all to be imec’s employer value proposition. Based on a proposition recognised and acknowledged by all stakeholders within imec the Netherlands, we set off full throttle to put in place what was needed to implement a successful recruitment campaign. In just under 6 months, we conducted extensive keyword research on which we based our SEO tactics, created insight based content, plus a dedicated landing page and deployed targeted online campaigns. The message sent out by imec in this way is clear: this is who we are and this is what we do! If you’re in for a challenge combining ground-breaking research, with finding commercially viable solutions that positively impact science and society: join us and make your mark!

Najat: ‘We believe employer branding isn’t something for today or tomorrow. If you want to do things right, you’re in it for the longer term. After all, the candidate journey doesn’t end as soon as he or she is onboarded. In fact, you could say it’s the very beginning of the employee journey. If you want to retain the talent you’ve just recruited, you need to have in place an attractive, future proof brand promise.’