When the Right Hire Isn’t Where You’d Expect

A few weeks ago, we kicked off two searches that looked nothing like our typical oil & gas placements.

One was a Senior Finance Manager in Regina. The other was a Project Manager for a Calgary real estate developer. Neither fit the profile most people associate with our firm — and that’s exactly why they’re worth talking about.

Because the best hire for your role might not come from your industry. And the sooner companies figure that out, the faster they’ll fill their most important positions.

Two Searches That Broke the Mold

The Regina search was for a senior leadership role — reporting directly to the CFO of a large-scale, asset-intensive industrial operation. Full P&L responsibility for Saskatchewan operations. 100% on-site. Plant-facing, performance-driven, and deeply operational.

This wasn’t a junior finance hire. It required a CPA, minimum 5 years of leadership experience, and someone who genuinely understands industrial cost structures, capital planning, and forecasting. The kind of person who can partner with operations and drive results in a production environment.

The Calgary search was different in almost every way. A long-standing real estate developer — decades in the market, delivering industrial, commercial, and hospitality projects — needed a Project Manager. What set them apart was their fully integrated model across development, construction, leasing, and property management. The PM would get exposure to the full lifecycle of a project, not just one piece of it.

On paper, these two roles have nothing in common.

But the hiring challenge was identical: find the right person when the right person isn’t obvious.

Why Companies Are Looking Beyond Their Own Industry

There’s a pattern I’ve been noticing over the past year. More of the searches coming to us don’t fit neatly into a single industry category.

The industrial manufacturer in Saskatchewan was open to candidates from mining, potash, steel, or energy backgrounds. The Calgary developer wanted a Project Manager with experience delivering complex projects — and the leadership qualities they needed looked a lot like what you’d find in someone who’s managed EPC work.

This isn’t random. It’s a response to a tight market.

When you can’t find the perfect candidate within your own industry, you start looking at adjacent ones. And when you do, you often find people whose experience translates better than expected.

The challenge is knowing where to look — and knowing how to evaluate someone whose background doesn’t match your job description word for word.

That’s where understanding what actually leads to successful hires matters. It’s rarely about checking every box on a requirements list. It’s about understanding what the role actually needs and recognizing those qualities in people who come from different paths.

What the Regina Search Taught Me

The Senior Finance Manager search was a good reminder that Alberta isn’t the only market where experienced talent is hard to find.

In Regina, the pool for this kind of role is smaller than it would be in Calgary or Edmonton. There are fewer large-scale industrial operations, fewer CPA-designated finance leaders with heavy-industry backgrounds, and fewer people actively looking.

But here’s what made the search workable: the company was genuinely open about where that person could come from. Heavy industrial, mining, potash, steel, energy — any production-based environment with strong FP&A depth was fair game.

That kind of flexibility is smart. It widens the search without lowering the bar.

In my experience, candidates who’ve worked in one heavy-industrial environment often adapt well to another. The financial structures are similar. The operational rhythms are familiar. The language is close enough that the learning curve is manageable. A finance leader who’s managed cost structures in an oil sands operation understands the fundamentals of doing the same in a potash plant.

The bigger challenge in a market like Regina is convincing strong candidates that the opportunity is worth it — worth the move, or worth staying. Location strategy matters in any search, but it matters even more outside major centers where the talent pool is inherently smaller.

The companies that win these searches are the ones that sell more than just the role. They sell the autonomy, the leadership exposure, and the impact you can have when you’re the senior finance person in a plant-facing operation — not one of fifteen in a corporate head office. That’s a compelling pitch for the right candidate. You just have to make it.

When Adjacent Industry Experience Is an Asset

The Calgary real estate developer search taught me something different.

On paper, this role didn’t look like something that would land on a recruitment firm known for oil & gas and engineering placements. But the company came to us because they needed someone who operates at a senior level — someone used to complex project delivery, tight timelines, and managing across multiple stakeholders.

That profile exists in abundance in Calgary’s energy sector.

Project Managers and Construction Managers who’ve spent years delivering facilities, pipelines, or industrial infrastructure have a skill set that translates directly to

commercial development. The technical details change. The project management fundamentals — scope, schedule, budget, stakeholder management — don’t.

What made this particular role interesting was the company’s fully integrated model. Development, construction, leasing, and property management all under one roof. For someone coming from an EPC or heavy-industrial background, that’s a compelling shift. You’re still managing complexity. You’re still delivering projects. But the environment is different, the pace is different, and for some people, that variety is exactly what they’re looking for.

There’s something else that mattered here. The role reported directly to a highly respected leader with a strong track record of mentoring. That’s not information that shows up in most job postings. But it’s what made strong candidates pay attention. I’ve written before about how storytelling matters in recruitment — and this is a case where the story of the company mattered as much as the job description.

What Hiring Managers Should Consider When Looking Beyond Their Industry

If you’ve been struggling to find the right person within your own industry, it might be time to widen the lens. But doing that effectively takes some intentional thinking.

Separate the must-haves from the nice-to-haves. For the Regina role, the must-haves were CPA designation, FP&A depth, and leadership experience in a heavy-industrial environment. The specific industry — potash, steel, energy — was a nice-to-have, not a requirement. That distinction opened up the candidate pool significantly without compromising quality.

Focus on transferable capabilities rather than identical experience. Someone who’s managed a $200 million capital project in oil sands can probably manage a complex commercial development. The technical details are different, but the fundamentals are the same. If you only look for people who’ve done the exact role in the exact industry, you’re working with a very small pool — and you’ll wait longer than you need to.

Sell the opportunity differently. When you’re recruiting from adjacent industries, you can’t assume candidates will immediately see the fit. You need to connect the dots for them. Show them why their experience is relevant, what they’ll gain from the shift, and what makes your company worth the transition.

Structure your interviews around the skills and behaviors that actually matter — not around industry-specific jargon that would unfairly screen out candidates who bring the right capabilities from a different background. A great interview evaluates judgment, leadership, and problem-solving. It doesn’t quiz people on acronyms they haven’t encountered yet.

What Candidates Should Know About Crossing Industries

If you’ve spent 10 or 15 years in one industry and you’re seeing opportunities in adjacent sectors, here’s what I’d tell you.

Your experience is more transferable than you think. A Process Engineer who’s worked in SAGD has skills that apply across industrial environments. A finance leader from energy has the operational depth that manufacturing and mining companies need. A Construction Manager from oil & gas has project delivery experience that real estate developers value.

The key is how you position yourself.

Don’t lead with industry-specific acronyms and assume the hiring manager will translate. Lead with outcomes. What did you deliver? What scale did you operate at? What problems did you solve?

I recently worked with a candidate who’d spent his entire career in energy. He was skeptical about a role outside the sector. But when we reframed his experience around project complexity, team leadership, and stakeholder management rather than SAGD-specific terminology, the conversation with the hiring manager clicked immediately.

In a market like Alberta and Saskatchewan right now, companies are increasingly open to candidates from adjacent industries. That’s an opportunity — but only if you present yourself in a way that makes the connection clear. The principles of positioning yourself for a new context apply whether you’re new to Canada or new to an industry.

Why This Matters for Recruitment Right Now

The broader point here is that the hiring landscape is getting less siloed.

Companies are more willing to look outside their traditional talent pools. Candidates are more open to opportunities in adjacent industries. And recruiters who understand multiple sectors are better positioned to make connections that wouldn’t happen through a job board.

That’s a significant part of what we do at DMA.

When a heavy-industrial company in Saskatchewan calls and says they need a finance leader, we don’t limit our search to people who’ve only worked in that exact industry. We look at the skills, the leadership profile, and the fit — and we draw from a network that spans energy, engineering, manufacturing, and construction.

When a Calgary developer needs a Project Manager, we know where to find people with the right project delivery experience, even if they’ve never worked in real estate before.

These connections happen because of relationships, market knowledge, and the ability to see potential where a database search might not. That’s what a boutique recruitment firm does differently — we’re not running keyword searches. We’re connecting people.

Ready for a Conversation?

If you’re hiring and struggling to find the right person within your usual talent pool, it might be time to think more broadly about where that person could come from.

If you’re a candidate with deep experience in one industry and you’re curious about adjacent opportunities, your skills may be more transferable than you realize.

At Debbie Mastel & Associates, we work across energy, engineering, manufacturing, construction, and industrial sectors. That cross-sector perspective is how we connect companies with candidates they wouldn’t have found on their own.

If you’re navigating a search that doesn’t fit the usual mold, I’m always open to a conversation.

When the Right Hire Isn’t Where You’d Expect FAQs