Hiring Trends Q3

Settling back in after August. Everyone took some vacation and is well-rested. Production has yet to accelerate to fall pace. Right? Wrong! Summer 2018 has been extremely busy in renewable energy hiring. August was the single most productive month this year for EnergeiaWorks interviews with our customers. If you read last month’s Outlook, you recall that summer brought the largest demand to fill positions, with EnergeiaWorks tasked to 36 new job searches, and the work flow progressed well into August.

We scheduled 60 interviews for 25 unique searches, both figures above our monthly average, and broke internal monthly records for 2018. Given the atypical summer hiring demand, I’m predicting a great finish to the year. This optimism contradicts last year’s Q4 when hiring, at least in solar, came to a halt with the module tariff issue.

Last month, I reported that 2018 salaries are down compared to previous years. However, EnergeiaWorks has seen a new trend developing due to under-budgeted salaries coupled with escalated hiring demand. With rapidly rising staffing needs in areas such as large-scale solar development, PV engineering, and O&M, the actual salaries negotiated are greatly surpassing the original budgeted figures.

Keep this factor in mind when you’re building your team and looking for talent. Get great candidates through the interview process fast and make a good offer before you lose that candidate to a competing company. Time can be the difference between landing an ideal candidate or not.