Every hiring problem in infrastructure looks different on paper. A role that's sat open for months because nobody wants to relocate. A candidate who's been at the same company for years and doesn't know how to make the jump. A position so niche that internal recruiting and other agencies have both given up. What connects them is that they all get solved the same way: by a recruiter who knows the infrastructure and energy sector well enough to know exactly who to call.
Below are three recent placements from our team, one led by recruiter Dex O'Donnell and two by recruiter Jack Baker, that show what that looks like in practice. Real clients, real numbers, real outcomes.
A Project Manager had spent six years at the same company without ever making a real career move. He wasn't unhappy exactly, just stuck, the way a lot of good people in transmission and distribution get stuck when they don't have a recruiter actively looking out for them.
Dex O'Donnell placed him with Energy Erectors, MasTec's transmission and substation group, in North Carolina. It was his first proper career move in six years, and the offer came together within a week of that first call. He's been thriving with his new team ever since.
The strongest proof of a good placement isn't the offer letter, it's what happens afterward. In this case, the candidate's manager's manager reached out to InfraRec directly with another open role, unprompted, just to say what a good find he'd been. That's the kind of feedback loop we're aiming for on every search, whether it's a single hire or a full multi-hire build.
As the candidate himself put it:
"Dex was incredibly knowledgeable, resourceful, and punctual within the energy utility industry. He was upfront and honest, and genuinely cared about the wellbeing of his clients. Dex helped connect me with my current employer and has helped change the trajectory of my career. I could not recommend Dex enough." Project Manager, Energy Erectors / MasTec
A VP of Estimating at an Ohio-based civil contractor came to us after months of frustration. Internal recruiting hadn't worked, and the external recruiters they'd already tried weren't even delivering resumes. By the time they called InfraRec, they'd all but given up on filling the role.
Civil estimator positions are known across the industry as some of the hardest to fill, which is exactly why a generic recruiting approach doesn't cut it. Jack Baker led the search using InfraRec's retained model and got to work immediately. Within two weeks, the client had five qualified profiles for the position, more candidates than months of internal effort and a previous agency had produced combined.
The strongest candidate moved quickly through the process, received an offer within a week, and started within two weeks of accepting. Search to start, the whole thing took about a month, for a brand-new client with no prior relationship with our team. If you're running into the same wall on a civil construction hire, it's worth talking to us about what's actually happening in that talent pool before writing the role off as unfillable.
A Florida-based client had a different kind of problem: a remote project site that engineers simply didn't want to relocate to. It's a common issue in field-based infrastructure work, where the best technical fit on paper often isn't the best fit for the actual location. The site had gone unstaffed for months.
Jack Baker found the missing piece: a Project Engineer from North Carolina who'd always wanted to live in that part of Florida. Because the location was a genuine draw rather than a compromise, the process moved fast. He had an offer within three days, with a $45,000 pay increase on his previous role.
He liked the move enough to refer a close friend and former colleague. That candidate had an offer within a week, with a $30,000 increase of his own, giving the client two committed engineers, both well matched to the site and to each other, for a role it had struggled to staff for months. Combined, the two placements added up to a $75,000 pay increase across both hires.
It's a good reminder that candidate referrals aren't a nice-to-have, they're often the fastest route to your next hire, especially once the first placement is a genuinely good fit rather than just an available body.
Different sectors, different problems, same pattern: a recruiter who understands the role well enough to move fast, and a search built around fit rather than just filling a seat. Whether that means reactivating a candidate who didn't know they were ready to move, working a niche technical search that other agencies had already given up on, or finding someone who actually wants to live where the job is, that's the work.
If you've got a role that's stalled, whether it's in renewables, transmission and distribution, civil, solar, or field services, our client services team can walk you through how a permanent search, a multi-hire build, or a temporary placement might solve it. Get in touch and tell us about your hardest-to-fill role, or learn more about who we are and how we work.
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