Energy Hiring in 2027: A Conversation with Ray LaMonica

Director of the FootBridge Company Energy Division

As we enter the final quarter of 2026, energy hiring and and workforce decisions are shaping projects and outages well into 2027.

With 25+ years of industry experience and thousands of specialized searches conducted each year, FootBridge has a clear view of what companies face as they build the teams those projects will require. The talent is out there, but the conditions for finding, attracting, and securing it have changed. 

Ray LaMonica, Director of the Energy Division at FootBridge, works directly with clients facing these decisions, so we asked him to share what he’s seeing in the market and what energy companies should consider now as they prepare for 2027.

What is making specialized energy talent harder to secure right now?

Ray: It’s not always that the skill set doesn’t exist. The bigger question is how many people with that experience are realistically available for your particular project.

You have to layer in where the project is located, whether the person needs to be on-site, how much travel is involved, and whether that individual is willing to take another project assignment. Once you do that, a talent pool that looked fairly large on paper can become much smaller.

In contract staffing, you’re not just looking for somebody who can do the work. You need someone willing to work under the conditions of that specific assignment.

Where are you seeing that challenge most clearly?

Ray: Schedulers are one of the clearest examples.

Historically, scheduling has been an on-site function. The scheduler is interacting with the project team, walking the job and seeing progress firsthand. Some of that work can technically be performed remotely, but many clients still believe the position is more effective when that person is on-site.

What changed after COVID is candidate expectations. Experienced people became accustomed to working remotely, and today it can be much more difficult to get someone with the right scheduling background to commit to a full-time on-site assignment, especially when travel is involved.

That’s an important distinction for hiring managers. You can have ten people who look qualified on paper, but if only a fraction of them are willing to work at your location under your schedule, that fraction is your real talent pool.

What are companies competing against when they go after those candidates?

Ray: More than the company down the street.

Look at data center development. Those facilities require tremendous amounts of power, which drives additional infrastructure work, improvements, and expansions. That means companies across different projects can end up needing many of the same types of experienced people.

We see the result in our candidate conversations. The people companies want are often considering multiple opportunities, and in some cases multiple offers.

So the hiring manager has to look at the opportunity from the candidate’s perspective. They’re comparing the rate, but they’re also comparing location, travel, schedule, hours, and the project’s duration.

The question isn’t just, “Is this person qualified?” It’s also, “Why would this person choose this project over the other opportunities in front of them?”

How should companies respond when the candidate has multiple opportunities?

Ray: Move faster.

That means removing unnecessary delays from the process. Every day that goes by is another opportunity for that person to get a call about another project. If the candidate already has multiple opportunities, a slow internal process can make the decision for you.

Before you start interviewing, know who needs to meet the candidate, who has authority to approve the rate, and what you’re prepared to offer. When you identify the right person, you should already know what has to happen next.

The time to streamline the hiring process is before the candidate is sitting in front of you.

How does working in this market every day change the way FootBridge recruits?

Ray: We’ve maintained a network of industry-specific people for years, including subject-matter experts who are willing to travel. We stay in contact with them, and many have worked with us before. Doing so gives us information you won’t necessarily get from a résumé or database.

We may know what kinds of projects someone has worked on, whether they’re open to travel, the types of assignments they’ll consider, and whether another opportunity is likely to interest them.

That becomes extremely important when the talent pool is tight. Finding 100 résumés with the right keywords isn’t necessarily valuable if 90 of those people wouldn’t consider the assignment.

The goal is to get to the realistic talent pool as quickly as possible.

Are you seeing companies change how they use contract staffing?

Ray: Yes. We’re seeing companies consider contract staffing, even those that have traditionally focused more heavily on direct hiring.

I think a lot of that comes down to necessity. Companies need to keep their options open and consider different ways of bringing people onto their teams.

Not every workforce need has to be approached the same way. If you have a defined project, an immediate need, or a position at a remote job site, contract staffing may provide another way to access the talent you need.

The important thing is to start with the work that needs to get done and then determine which hiring model makes the most sense.

What would you tell a hiring manager planning projects or outages for 2027?

Ray: Start earlier than you think you need to.

If you know you’re going to need project managers, construction managers, project controls professionals, schedulers, commissioning specialists, engineers, QA/QC or safety professionals in 6 or 12 months, that conversation can start before you have an open requisition.

The earlier we understand the project, the earlier we can start looking at the talent market: Who has the experience? Who is likely to be available? Who will travel? What are people looking for in their next assignment?

Then, if we see a potential issue with location, availability, rate, schedule, or a particularly tight skill set, we can address it before it becomes an urgent hiring problem.

Workforce planning shouldn’t begin when you need someone on-site. It should begin when you know you’ll need them.

What should be on your 2027 workforce planning checklist?

Ray’s perspective points to three questions energy hiring managers should be asking now:

• Who in the market can actually do the work, and how many of them would realistically consider your assignment?
• How does your opportunity compare with the other projects competing for those same people?
• Is your hiring process ready to move forward before the candidate has a reason to go elsewhere?

Those questions are difficult to answer from résumés and job postings alone. They require ongoing visibility into the people doing the work and the projects competing for them.

For more than 25 years, FootBridge has specialized in recruiting for energy and other technical industries. Our Energy team works these searches every day, giving us direct insight into the talent companies need, the assignments candidates will consider, and the factors that can make a difficult search even harder.

If you have a project, outage, or workforce need on the 2027 calendar, now is the time to start the conversation. The earlier FootBridge understands what’s ahead, the more time our team has to assess the market, identify potential constraints, and begin building the talent pipeline your project will require. Have an upcoming project, outage, or workforce need? Talk to the FootBridge Energy team now.