Clean Energy Hiring Trends: What Companies & Candidates Need to Know

Nico: The industry at large is in growth mode, I think we can say. Certainly there are it’s not without doldrums or down quarters, but it feels like there’s always a cycle of turnover in, not just in the corporate world, in the startup world, and everyone is constantly looking for that one part of the capital stack that is hardest to uncover, and that’s the human capital. So today we’re going to talk about the levels to the game, as it were, of personal branding, building your career, skill stacking, and what it looks like from the perspective of one of the preeminent headhunters and recruiting firms in the industry, Dylan Green. Catherine, I would love to sort of touch on the topic around this concept of headhunter. One of the things that I find a lot of folks struggle with is, there’s two sides to the human capital problem. One is, how do you find folks to work at your company? And the other is, how do you find that perfect company to work for? How do you help companies get comfortable with the reality that they may not have the internal capacity to find the right talent for the position? And in particular, in the time period or velocity necessary?

Catherine: Yeah, that’s a really good question. I mean, it depends on the company. It depends on the talent acquisition, internal talent acquisition, obviously. Some companies are better at it than others. But I do feel like a lot of the TAs tend to do more volume-based recruitment, sort of more low, I would say lower level, but more junior entry-level positions, where they probably bring in a headhunter or an agency is more at the senior level. And I think what you’re paying for usually is someone that already has the network, right? So I’m not sort of going to market and trying to find a project finance person from scratch. There’s already sort of a starting point there because I’ve been doing this for so many years. And so that speeds up the time. And what’s interesting as well about the dirty word that is diversity that I’m affiliated with is that it’s also when you’ve built a network of diverse candidates, then it becomes, I don’t want to say easier because it’s never easy, but you are able to more readily have people that are diverse in your network that you can tap into.

Nico: Well, I’m glad that you brought it up. I was going to ask about, you’ve effectively built your platform, your career on diversity, equity, inclusion, which in the last three months has become a little bit of a pariah sort of dirty word. How do you handle the discussions internally with companies that already acknowledge we have been still perpetuate as an industry, a predominantly white male sort of facing industry? How do we approach an ethical sort of diversification in our workforce? And what’s been your experience over the last three months within those conversations?

Catherine: Yeah. I mean, I’m not going to lie, it was pretty terrified to focus on two areas, DEI and clean energy. So I was a little nervous about how it was going to go. I’m 44, I’m going to be a woman, I think for another 35 years. So it’s not really like a trend for me. And so I think what I’ve noticed is kind of what I thought would happen, which is that the companies that I love to work with that are already diverse, are still going to be recruiting diverse candidates. And the companies that had a PE company that was sort of like, you must recruit diverse candidates that will begrudgingly do it aren’t. So it’s not really come as that much of a surprise who’s stayed committed to it and who is happy to let it go by the wayside quietly.

Nico: I’m glad to hear that. There is a lot of talent coming into the industry. I like to think of, in our industry, there are kind of layers to who does what in the industry. Project developers build a pipeline of projects in the way that you build a pipeline of candidates. IPPs look to project developers that have a mature, robust pipeline of projects they can buy, they can onboard. Talk to me a bit about what you’re seeing in the marketplace right now from that pipeline perspective. What’s the talent that is seeking entry into the industry at the moment? And where do you see maybe the nexus of attention from your clients that are seeking talent?

Catherine: I guess I’ll tackle the first question about people who want to come into the industry. I do feel like the past few years, there’s been a lot of people that want to come into the industry. I think that has petered off a little bit. There’s so much bad press about what we’re doing. I think that you probably have a little bit of nervousness. Not that there’s not a commitment to clean energy, but is that a safe industry to be in? And I would say just a little bit petering off. Nothing crazy. What I’ve also seen is probably people who are somewhere and maybe have been looking at something, maybe would be open to looking at something else or probably pausing a bit, staying where they are. Which I don’t actually think is necessarily a bad thing. Because I feel like sometimes we do, and maybe I shouldn’t say this as a recruiter because you want people to move, obviously. But I do think that sometimes we move too frequently. And I mean to say for a little longer isn’t always necessarily a bad thing. What I have tried to do with the business and what I have seen in the clean energy economy as a whole is I’m trying to move away from just being focused on one technology, like solar for example. So there definitely seems to be an increase in companies that have an AI capability that they’re trying to sell to utility companies. For example, bringing back that sort of, I won’t say bringing back, but more of hiring around that sort of SaaS based software product. And then I think also there seems to be a real digging in by some areas as to what they’re going to focus on. So for example, New York. New York is hiring like crazy and building infrastructure, for example. So because their laws are heavily regulated that you have to be energy efficient. And that’s not going anywhere for the moment anyway. So I don’t know if that answers your question. There was quite a few questions.

Nico: Yeah, it does. And then where do you see? So I guess a question if you’re trying to come into the industry is you want to know what are the skills that clients are seeking in candidates. And I’m curious at what level in seniority folks are hiring right now.

Catherine: That’s a good question. So I mean, I again focus more at the senior level. So I’m not overly certain what sort of appetite companies have at the more junior level to hire. I will say that the skill sets I get asked for the most are very finance related. So I do a lot of finance recruitment skills like tax equity and project finance, M&A, modeling, being able to run a deal, being able to run a transaction is huge. And then the other thing I get asked for is what everyone wants, which is the sales people. So originators, developers, people that have that portfolio of contacts and who can bring business into their companies.

Nico: Are we still an industry that is very much sort of stealing from one to work at the other? And like you said, folks, they’ll work for a couple of years here, get a better job offered to do the same job in another company. Or are we seeing folks being recruited more from outside of the industry, bringing skills from outside of the industry?

Catherine: Yeah, I’m still not seeing people from outside the industry coming in. I will say there are exceptions. There are totally exceptions to this. But for the vast majority, I do not see us still as an industry that is bringing in a lot of people from outside of the industry. I do see companies from outside of our industry where they’ve been successful, setting up like a technology, for example, coming in and then having an interest and an appetite into how they can capitalize on what they’ve done in other industries in our industry.

Nico: But to be clear, this isn’t that there aren’t candidates coming in from the outside of the industry. This is our industry not looking for them. They’re not asking. They’re specifically saying, I want someone who has this experience, project developer, originated for someone else for the last five years. I want to hire skills instead of train skills or find transferable skills.

Catherine: Absolutely. Yes. I mean, that’s the trend. Well, the other trend I’ve noticed as well is because so many companies are now owned by PE firms. There’s definitely a frustration in senior leadership of being under the thumb. So I have seen quite a lot of people who’ve been in the industry a long time who are spinning out to do their own thing with their two or three other kind of colleagues that they’ve known and thinking, I can do this just as well without having all the pressure of the PE backing. So that’s something I’ve seen quite a lot in the past six to nine months I’ve seen a lot of that.

Nico: But even still, those are a lot of firms that are being spun up as like we’ll call a boutique, maybe development or project finance shops that have embodied experience, have worked for large platforms, IPV’s, et cetera. When you do encounter folks that are coming in from outside the industry, what are some of the critical elements that you find are compelling for your clients that move them towards someone from outside the industry versus finding an internal candidate?

Catherine: I think when it comes to sales, if you can convince a client that this person has sold B2B, they’ve sold a SaaS product to a corporate and now they should be able to sell a SaaS product to a utility or something that’s more climate related. There might be some appetite there. I think sometimes real estate people come from a real estate background. Some of my clients might be open to that sort of finance background. And then project management, I think project management, I have some incredible project managers who have oil and gas backgrounds, incredibly complicated oil and gas backgrounds who would just absolutely love to get into solar.

Nico: And what keeps them from getting into solar?

Catherine: People want to hire people from solar. Do you know the expression: nobody ever got fired for hiring IBM.

Nico: Exactly. Go find me someone from a name brand developer.

Catherine: But we get critical about people jumping around.

Nico: Exactly. And we create our own inflation, which is I think the bigger issue. And I’ve had conversations with friends in the industry who are actively trying to hire from outside the industry so that we aren’t continually creating this internal inflation. We’re literally paying the same person a 10% or 15% increase every two or three years. And the next thing you know, we’ve internally created a tech one position that we’re paying 30% more three years down the road. Talk a bit about building that personal brand. I think I would love to hear you focus on clients that you’ve seen successfully build a personal brand and leverage that into the industry from outside, maybe from oil and gas, maybe from software, real estate, tech field. What are some of the core elements of building that personal brand that you’ve seen succeed in getting people noticed where they maybe didn’t have the requisite solar experience but were able to break through nonetheless?

Catherine: I mean, I think if you’re trying to get into the space and you don’t necessarily have the experience, my number one suggestion in building your brand would be networking. I mean, networking is just incredibly important. And also just looking, giving yourself sort of KPIs. There’s a lot of people who say, nobody hires me, I can’t find a job. It’s like a bottomless pit when I send in my resume. And it’s like, okay, but how many LinkedIn connections do you have? How many networking events have you gone to? And so I do think that we are a very networky industry. And so I think by having a focus on that, which can be hard for some people, like if you’re an introverted person. This is going to be a tough task. But yeah, that would be my answer.

Nico: You mentioned that networking is a core strategy. I think that a lot of folks do sort of, there’s a fear of networking. Is there something that you have found is particularly successful around networking, online, in person?

Catherine: Yes. Never asking people for anything. So be a giver. Like people, I think the way I started out was always trying to help other people. And then as a result of that, and that can be hard when you’re trying to get into the industry and you need people, right? So how do you do that first? Like how do you offer something to someone in the beginning when you don’t necessarily have anything to offer, right? But people always say to me, like, what can I do to help you? And I’m always sort of taken aback by that question, because the actual fact is, my whole mindset is to try and help other people. I just really believe in karma. Just helping people because it’s the right thing to do. I’ve got people into the industry where I’ve not gotten anything from it because I know that once that person’s in, they’re going to do, oh my goodness. There’s someone I got into the industry and she’s gone on to do amazing things. And as a result, she has just brought a lot of incredible work and stuff and opportunities to me, but I never would have thought that I was just doing it because it was the right thing to do.

Nico: One of the things that annoys me, we talked a bit about social media, is folks who only use LinkedIn for job search, and they only show up on LinkedIn because they’re in that needy mode, like now I’m looking for jobs. So I suddenly started using this LinkedIn thing. Is there a cadence that you found really works for folks to be present on LinkedIn without it feeling like it’s overtaken their life?

Catherine: That’s a really good question.

Nico: I could do this for a living.

Catherine: You’re right. I think sometimes we have a tendency when we’re not looking for a job to just get our head down and focus on what we’re doing and not pick our head up and look around, which is a huge mistake. And so I think that’s probably how you get away from just poking your head up when you need things, is just constantly having a dialogue with people. And again, like you said, not just relying on LinkedIn, but doing things like this. This is in person. I’m going to be off LinkedIn for a few hours today.

Nico: Obviously, folks like us use LinkedIn as a marketing tool because we want to be known for something. And things I tell people around personal brand that I know is something that is a core part of the recruitment process is like, what is sort of part and parcel to transferable skills? What is that you want to be known for? What is it that you are going to do uniquely well inside of an organization and display that as a skill set on places like LinkedIn or Instagram, or find an opportunity to speak at conferences, like carve out a niche, even if it is something as simple as creating powerful presentations. If you’re in sales, that’s a core skill.

Catherine: Yeah, it’s funny. I look at a lot of resumes and I always say to people, don’t list responsibilities, list achievements. And I always say, if you’re going to leave tomorrow, what are they going to be like, oh, God, I can’t believe she left. It’s going to be so hard to do X. She was really good at X. And so I think that’s how you need to present yourself. This is my achievements. This is what I know for a fact that I can bring to the table to an organization.

Nico: Yeah. Well, what you bring to many of the organizations is more people to the table and more diverse candidates. I’m always grateful to see not only the content that you all are producing through the Dylan Green podcast, The Green Light, I think everyone should subscribe to, but also the tremendous work and commitment that you’ve made to DEI and helping diversify our industry.

Catherine: Thank you for that. Well, I always say that what I try and do is present a rainbow of profiles. So I’m not looking to discriminate against anyone. I’m just wanting to produce a rainbow profile to make the best person win.