Strategic recruiting at PTW during trades talent crunch

Canada's energy sector faces a historic talent crunch, with a hiring requirement of approximately 72,600 workers projected by 2035 – a figure combining 18,400 new direct jobs and the replacement of more than 54,200 workers eligible for retirement, according to the National Labour Market Outlook to 2035 released by Careers in Energy, a division of Energy Safety Canada.

The scale of that recruiting challenge means no single strategy will solve it, but talent acquisition needs to be a key part of business strategy, says Kristina Gardiner, Director of Talent Acquisition at PTW Energy Services in Calgary.

“There’s no one right answer,” says Gardiner. “It’s going to be a varied approach. It’s going to require agility.”

Gardiner joined PTW Energy Services – one of the largest electrical and instrumentation services providers in western Canada, serving sectors from oil and gas to renewables, nuclear, petrochemical, and agriculture – in May 2026. Her mandate is to build a professional talent acquisition function for a company whose workforce fluctuates between approximately 1,800 and 2,100 employees depending on active projects and job demands, she says.

Building strategic talent acquisition from the ground up

Gardiner says she’s focused on fundamentals: clear communication, defined expectations, and helping her team understand the full scope of what talent acquisition can contribute to the business.

"They're your first line of sales calls," she says of the talent acquisition team. "They're your first touch point of getting people to know your business."

The pace at PTW demands responsiveness from her team, according to Gardiner. Projects can stall, then restart with little notice, needing people quickly. Gardiner describes a scenario that captures the environment well.

"We were paused on one project for a little bit, and all of a sudden we got the go ahead today," she says. "It's like, ‘Okay, let's mobilize, let's go’ – it's having those really good relationships where I can call someone and say, 'I need you on site tomorrow morning' and you're like, ‘Okay, let's go.’"

Deep talent network

That kind of agility depends on cultivating deep networks with workers before positions open, says Gardiner. The strategy is less about reactive job posting and more about building a reliable pipeline of people who already know and trust the company. The challenge is industry-wide: More than 3 in 4 Canadian companies struggle to hire qualified workers, according to a 2025 ManpowerGroup Canada Talent Shortage Survey.

Gardiner's longer-term goal is to shift talent acquisition from a transactional function to a strategic one in the organization – and she believes that shift begins with proving what professional recruiting looks like in practice.

"We have an opportunity to professionalize talent acquisition as a function at the table and really show what good recruiting can be," she says. "Moving that from transactional to strategic – educating the business, showing what can be done with professional talent acquisition and recruitment teams."

The foundation, she says, is deceptively simple: follow through. "It's do what you say you're going to do,” she says. “It's the handshake, it's the word, it's the bond."

What the next generation of trades workers wants

With a significant portion of Canada's skilled trades workforce approaching retirement age, Gardiner is thinking carefully about how PTW's employer brand speaks to younger workers. The structural shortfall of skilled tradespeople projected over the coming decade is one of the most pressing issues facing energy sector employers across western Canada, and competition for that talent is intensifying.

The answer, Gardiner says, is not simply competing on wages. It’s about understanding what different generations entering the workforce actually value – and building a targeted employer value proposition (EVP) around those needs.

"It might not just be about salary – it might be work-life balance, it might be the benefits,” she says. “So really understanding what the needs and the wants and the desires of that next workforce is – is it opportunity? Is it a good leader, a strong leader? – and shifting our focus to targeting the different generations and having a different kind of value proposition for that."

Her concern goes deeper than compensation. As experienced trades professionals retire, she wonders who will train and lead the workers who follow them.

"Who's the next generation to lead these new trades?" she asks. "A lot of the skilled trades that we have in the field right now are going to be retiring or leaving soon."

AI as a tool, not a replacement

AI is reshaping the talent acquisition function, and Gardiner sees genuine value in it – within limits. She points to job postings, candidate sourcing, and crafting targeted messaging for different trades as areas where AI delivers real utility.

But she is firm about one thing: technology can’t replace the relationship.

"AI cannot build the relationship with a candidate," she says. "It can give me an overview of what experience that candidate has, but it can't tell me how they're doing and how their weekend was."

AI screeing can miss trades experience

She’s particularly cautious about over-reliance on AI-driven resume screening. In trades recruitment, where applicants may have extensive hands-on experience that doesn’t translate neatly onto a page, automated screening risks eliminating strong candidates, she says.

"I hesitate to rely solely on AI for candidate recommendation or candidate dispositions in an applicant tracking system (ATS) software," she says. "I still like to see a set of eyes on there to read it, because we know people struggle with resumé writing."

Her caution reflects a broader gap in the market. According to ADP Canada's 2026 HR Trends Report, 75 per cent of large Canadian companies view AI as essential for competitiveness – yet only 13 per cent are actively prioritizing hiring for AI skills. That gap makes particular sense in a trades-heavy environment, where roughly 85 per cent of PTW's workforce are field professionals rather than knowledge workers, according to Gardiner.

"The AI readiness isn't going to necessarily work for somebody who's welding in the shop," she says. "It's going to be on a department-by-department basis."

On AI governance, Gardiner believes HR departments have a window to get ahead of regulation – establishing internal best practices before federal legislation arrives.

Don't let process hinder progress

Gardiner believes that the leadership qualities that matter most in strategic recruiting right now go back to her roots in change management and continuous improvement.

"Nothing is constant but change," she says. "Don't let process hinder progress – we have to move the needle, even if it's one per cent every day."

Widening skills gaps across Canadian industries mean that HR leaders who are nimble and genuinely focused on relationship-building may hold an advantage that no algorithm can replicate. For Gardiner, the immediate priority is a principle that sounds simple but requires sustained discipline: do what you say you’re going to do – hire by hire, relationship by relationship.