The Roles Everyone Needs, But No One Can Find

Ask hiring managers across energy, manufacturing, industrial construction, and data centers which hard-to-fill roles are giving them the most trouble, and you’ll hear many of the same titles.

• Superintendents
• Commissioning professionals
• Project controls specialists
• Safety personnel
• Engineers
• Project managers.

At FootBridge, we see these positions come up across industries that may otherwise seem very different. A data center project, manufacturing expansion, power project, and industrial facility may be competing for professionals with many of the same core skills.

Then the hiring challenge starts. New projects can be announced. Facilities can expand, and capital investment can increase. But the pool of experienced people able to execute that work doesn’t expand at the same pace. And when several projects need the same talent at the same time, a difficult search can quickly become a project problem.

Why Are These Hard-to-Fill Roles So Challenging?

In the searches our recruiters support, the challenge is finding someone whose experience matches what the project actually requires. Take a Superintendent search, for instance.  A client may not simply need a Superintendent. But they may need someone with electrical experience, experience managing specific subcontractors, or the ability to relocate to a project site. Every additional requirement makes sense individually. Together, they can dramatically reduce the candidate pool.

The same thing happens with Project Managers, Engineers, Safety professionals, Commissioning Managers, and Project Controls specialists. The hard-to-find candidate is often not the person who can do the job. It’s the person who checks every box.

Superintendents: Experience Gets Specific Quickly

Superintendents are a good example of how quickly a broad talent pool can diminish. 

Clients need field leaders who can coordinate contractors and solve problems as they happen. But that’s usually only the beginning of the search.

• Electrical or mechanical experience may matter. 
• Mission-critical experience may be preferred. 
• The project could require someone who has worked inside an operating industrial facility.
• Travel or relocation may be necessary.

Suddenly, the search isn’t for a Superintendent anymore. It’s for a very particular Superintendent, and other projects may be looking for that same person. Our recruiters are very skilled at knowing if the relevant experience exists.

Commissioning: Competition Peaks When the Project Can’t Wait

Commissioning talent creates a different challenge. Commissioning professionals are needed across data centers, power generation, manufacturing, industrial facilities, and other technically complex projects. Their backgrounds don’t always translate perfectly from one environment to another, but there can be significant overlap.

A client that requires candidates to have already commissioned the same type of facility may be competing for a very small group. A client willing to evaluate adjacent experience may have a much larger talent pool. Knowing which requirements are essential to project success and which can be learned matters because commissioning often happens when schedules leave little room for error. Discovering late in the project that the team is understaffed can create a hiring problem at the worst possible time.

Project Controls: Software Experience Isn’t the Whole Story

Project Controls is another area where resumes can look similar, but experience can vary widely. A Scheduler may know Primavera P6. A Cost Engineer may understand forecasting. But software proficiency alone doesn’t tell you whether someone understands the realities of a complex industrial project. The strongest candidates understand what is happening behind the schedule or cost report.

They recognize how engineering delays affect procurement and how procurement affects construction. They also understand the project, not just its numbers. That combination of technical capability and project experience makes experienced Project Controls professionals valuable and hard to replace.

Safety: Location Can Be Just as Important as Qualifications

Safety searches demonstrate another reality of industrial recruiting. Sometimes the challenge isn’t the skill set. It’s everything surrounding the opportunity. A Safety Manager may meet every technical requirement and hold the certifications a client wants. But will that person relocate? Are they willing to travel? Does the rotation work for them? Is the project duration attractive enough to justify leaving their current position? These questions matter across many of the searches FootBridge supports.

Industrial, energy, manufacturing, and data center projects aren’t always located where the largest pools of candidates live. Therefore, employers aren’t only competing on compensation. They’re competing on location, schedule, project duration, travel expectations, and the overall opportunity. Ignoring those factors can make a candidate shortage look worse than it actually is.

Engineers: The Best Candidate May Come From Another Industry

One of the biggest opportunities we see in difficult searches is transferable experience. Employers understandably want candidates who have already worked in their exact industry. Sometimes that’s necessary. Sometimes it isn’t.

An Electrical Engineer coming from power generation, utilities, oil and gas, chemicals, manufacturing, or another industrial environment may have experience that translates extremely well to a data center or another growing market. The same can be true for Mechanical Engineers, Controls Engineers, Project Managers, Superintendents, and other technical professionals.

The question shouldn’t always be, “Has this person worked on this exact type of project before?”

Sometimes the better question is, “What have they done that proves they can succeed on this project?”

Changing the approach can open a search to experienced professionals who would otherwise never make it through the initial screening process.

Project Managers: Look Past the Title

Few titles illustrate this problem better than Project Manager. Two candidates can have the same title and completely different careers. One may have managed engineering and procurement. Another may specialize in field construction. One may have worked primarily on greenfield projects, while another has spent years managing capital improvements inside operating facilities. With that in mind, our recruiters dig into what candidates have actually managed.

• What was the scope? 
• What phase of the project were they involved in? 
• What disciplines did they oversee? Did they manage contractors? 
• Were they responsible for schedule and budget? 
• What type of facility were they working in?

Those details tell us far more than the title itself.

The Biggest Advantage May Be Starting Earlier

We also see another pattern in difficult searches. If a critical person needs to be onsite immediately, candidates who need to give notice, finish another assignment, relocate, or evaluate multiple opportunities may effectively be unavailable. Starting earlier changes the conversation. For positions likely to be difficult, employers can start discussing staffing needs before the requisition becomes an emergency. Recruiters thus have time to identify professionals who aren’t actively applying for jobs, understand when people may be coming off other projects, and start conversations before the competition does.

Hard-to-Fill Doesn’t Always Mean There’s No Talent

When a position stays open, it’s easy to conclude that there simply aren’t enough qualified people. Sometimes that’s true. But other times the talent exists, and the search itself needs another look. That’s when our recruiters go back to the client and ask: 

• Are there too many mandatory requirements? 
• Are there transferable skills from another industry? 
• Is interest limited because of location?
• Are travel expectations competitive enough? 
• Did recruiting begin early? 
• Is the company relying primarily on candidates who are actively applying?

Those are important questions because the answer isn’t always “find more candidates.”

Sometimes it’s looking differently at the candidates who are already out there.

For more than 25 years, The FootBridge Company has specialized in recruiting professionals across energy, manufacturing, industrial facilities, power and utilities, oil and gas, renewable energy, civil construction, and mission-critical projects.

Working across those markets gives our recruiters visibility into something that becomes increasingly important where skills overlap.

The industries may be different. The projects may be different. But many compete for the same experienced people. Knowing where to find those people and recognizing relevant experience when you see it can make the difference between a position that stays open and a project that keeps moving.

Have a position that’s becoming harder to fill than expected? Talk with The FootBridge Company about your hiring needs.