Skilled Trades Recruiting: A Smarter Approach Using Labor Intelligence and Military Pipelines
Skilled trades recruiting is broken — and most TA leaders know it. The same job boards, the same spray-and-pray tactics, and the same unqualified pile-ups that eat recruiter hours and inflate time-to-fill. Scott Haas has spent 25 years doing it differently. A former Marine Corps infantryman turned HR and recruiting leader, Scott built a data-first approach to skilled trades recruiting that uses labor intelligence heat maps, military hiring pipelines, and trade school partnerships to fill roles in under 38 days. On this episode of GoHire Talks, he breaks it all down.
Key Topics Covered
- How Scott went from Marine infantry to leading skilled trades recruiting at BGIS
- What labor intelligence heat maps reveal that Indeed never will
- Why the skilled trades workforce deficit is the biggest hiring crisis no one is funding correctly
- How to frame recruiting decisions as a P&L argument — not an HR request
- The trade school partnership playbook: pick 5, show up, become the go-to employer
- How Power BI unified four messy ATS data sources into one clean time-to-fill dashboard
- Why the military is an untapped pipeline for skilled trades roles
From Marine Infantry to Skilled Trades Recruiting Leader
Scott Haas didn’t take a linear path into HR. After leaving the Marine Corps, he moved through private security, then regional HR management, then cybersecurity — eventually landing at BGIS, where he built out recruiting for data centers, critical infrastructure, and commercial facilities. The throughline was always skill and trade. “I saw the writing on the wall 20 years ago with the skill and trade deficit. You can either sit on the side complaining, or you can do something about it.”
His military background shaped his recruiting philosophy in ways a traditional HR career path never could. Discipline, adaptability, and reading the terrain before committing — all of it translated directly into how he approached talent acquisition strategy.
Labor Market Heat Mapping: Skilled Trades Recruiting Without the Guesswork
One of the most powerful tools Scott deployed in skilled trades recruiting was labor intelligence through Lightcast (formerly EMSI). Before his team ever posted a job or reached out to a candidate, they mapped the local talent supply. How many people hold this certification? What companies do they work for? What direction does traffic flow in this metro area — and where does that put the most technicians each morning?
“We know we can’t compete with these five companies, but these other companies we’ve never heard of — let’s go after them.”
In one example, a Tulsa, Oklahoma opening required five candidates with a specific certification. Heat mapping revealed only 30 people in the area held it — and all 30 were employed, many for decades. The data made the case clearly: stay local and fail, or relocate someone with transferable skills and win. “It’s better to have a person in the seat earning money, even if the profit’s a little less, than nobody in the seat earning no money.”
Recruiting as a P&L Function — Not an HR Ask
Scott’s approach to making the relocation argument is a masterclass in speaking CFO. He didn’t plea for budget. He built a business case. Here are the numbers: 30 people hold the cert locally, all employed. Probability of converting enough from active sourcing: low. Cost of a six-month open role vs. a relocation package and signing bonus: run the math.
This is what most skilled trades recruiting teams miss. They frame hiring problems as HR problems. Scott framed them as P&L problems — which is the only language that gets leadership attention and budget approval.
Labor intelligence data from Lightcast also fed directly into business development. Sales teams at BGIS started bringing HR into proposal meetings to get regional salary benchmarks and competitive comp data. “When does recruiting have a seat at the table for business development proposals?” For Scott’s team, the answer was: always.
Skilled Trades Workforce Deficit: The Crisis in the Numbers
The gap in skilled trades talent is not new — but it’s accelerating. Scott has been watching it for two decades. The infrastructure investment being driven by data center expansion, power grid upgrades, and reshoring is creating demand that the current pipeline of tradespeople simply cannot meet.
“The future millionaires are gonna be the ones going into the trades because of the deficit.”
His military hiring strategy extends to bridging the military-to-civilian gap as well. Scott’s team mapped out which military MOS codes and Navy ratings translated directly to skilled trades roles — creating a reliable, underutilized pipeline that most corporate recruiting teams ignore entirely. Organizations like Hiring Our Heroes (through the US Chamber of Commerce) offer free career fairs and resources that make this accessible even for teams with limited budgets.
Trade School Recruiting Partnerships: The Playbook
Trade school recruiting partnerships are one of the highest-ROI moves in skilled trades recruiting — and one of the least scaled. Scott’s approach is practical and repeatable:
- Pick your top five schools — don’t spread thin across 20; you won’t give any of them real attention
- Find alumni in your workforce — they give you credibility at career fairs that corporate branding can’t buy
- Show up consistently — every career fair, every pizza party, every barbecue; the companies that become go-to employers are the ones that keep showing up
- Offer something small but meaningful — even a $200–$500 book scholarship in your company’s name builds brand recognition
- Host reverse career fairs — bring students to your facility so they can see what the work actually looks like
- Work with workforce development programs — local Workforce Development Councils connect companies to trade school funding, apprenticeship programs, and Work Opportunity Tax Credits (WOTC)
Scott’s team captured over $200,000 in WOTC credits from hiring at a single location — a number most recruiting leaders never see because they don’t know it exists.
Data-Driven Time-to-Fill: From Chaos to 33 Days
Skilled trades recruiting timelines are notoriously hard to measure — especially across acquisitions. When BGIS merged two companies and simultaneously migrated to Oracle Recruiting Cloud in 2024, Scott’s team had four disconnected data sources and executives demanding one unified dashboard.
The solution: Power BI. They interviewed ops, HR, payroll, and leadership separately to understand what each group needed to see, built a single dashboard template, and automated the feed. The result: a clear, reliable picture of time-to-fill across skilled trades roles in major metro areas — 33.5 to 38 days, varying by season.
“It all comes down to the data. Otherwise, you’re looking at 60 days.”
Why AI Won’t Replace the Skilled Trades Recruiter
Scott and Jonathan addressed the AI question head-on: can a prompt replace what Scott does? The answer is no — not because AI isn’t powerful, but because the judgment calls in skilled trades recruiting are deeply human. Knowing which Lightcast data points matter. Selling a candidate on Tulsa by asking if they love fishing. Understanding which military MOS codes translate to HVAC technician work. Those aren’t queries. They’re years of pattern recognition combined with relationship capital that no model can replicate.
Where to Start in Skilled Trades Recruiting
For HR and TA teams just getting into skilled trades or military hiring, Scott’s recommendations are practical:
- Military hiring: Start with Hiring Our Heroes (hiringourheroes.org) — free career fairs nationwide, organized by the US Chamber of Commerce
- Workforce development programs: Search “[your city or county] + workforce development” — these groups connect employers to trade schools, apprenticeship funding, and WOTC credits at no cost
- Trade school partnerships: Pick five schools, show up consistently, and make it relational — not transactional
The GoHire Talks Interview Transcript with Scott Haas
The following is an edited transcript of the GoHire Talks interview with Scott Haas.
[00:00:00] Jonathan Duarte: All right. Welcome everyone. So today we’ve got a great guest for you. A very different type of recruiting we’re gonna talk about. This is Scott Haas, a former Marine. And what I really wanna talk about is military transition. Scott is literally and figuratively been on the front lines of recruiting — from hiring mission critical data center teams to using heat maps on a local basis to find the people you’re looking for. Welcome, Scott. Give us a little bit of intro about yourself.
[00:00:46] Scott Haas: Thank you. I’ve been in human resources and recruiting for 25 years and just always wanted to figure out a way to make it easier for others, especially for the veteran community. I remember the transition process for me was a bit of a headache, and anything I could do to remove the proverbial landmine, I would.
[00:01:20] Jonathan Duarte: How’d you go from military transition to mission critical? Everyone’s talking about data centers right now because of the trillions of dollars being pushed into it. And then how’d you move from data center security to trade skills? That’s a big jump.
[00:01:52] Scott Haas: So I was Marine Corps infantry, so there’s no direct line. A lot of left turns, a lot of right turns. I got into private security and learned I wanted to expand that footprint. I worked for an automotive company out of the Port of Tacoma covering the West Coast as a regional HR manager, doing recruiting for automotive and rail, and that was the door that opened up everything. I leveraged workforce development programs for King County and Tacoma Pierce, got interconnected to all these different groups. I enjoyed the skilled trades. I saw the writing on the wall 20 years ago with the skill and trade deficit — you can either sit on the side complaining, or you can do something about it.
[00:04:26] Scott Haas: “There are huge deficits. There’s not enough youth going in. The future millionaires are gonna be the ones going into the trades because of the deficit.” It’s not just data centers — it’s shipbuilding, aerospace, automotive, maintaining power grids. There has to be huge positioning for youth to get into these programs.
[00:05:42] Jonathan Duarte: Someone mentioned that more money has been put into infrastructure in the last couple years because of the power grid requirements for data centers. It’s the biggest GDP investment since the railroads.
[00:06:28] Jonathan Duarte: There’s another part of the market people aren’t talking about — HVAC companies and electricians whose owners are in their 50s and retiring in 10 years. If not sooner.
[00:08:20] Scott Haas: The heat map stemmed from conversations over and over with executives about needing really catchy job descriptions to lure people in. Unemployment’s low — that’s not what’s gonna lure them in. And the other part: how many candidates are in the area? Is there a viable head count worth going after? In Tulsa, Oklahoma, we needed to hire five candidates with a particular certification. There were 30 people there. All 30 were working and had been with their companies for years, some of them decades.
[00:09:36] Scott Haas: “It’s okay — what are other similar certifications out there that we could replicate, and maybe they will pay for the testing for a person?” I wanted to make the argument: here are people with transferable skills, but we need to relocate them. They said they didn’t have the budget. “We’re gonna keep recruiting for six months and not have anything, or we spend the money now, relocate somebody, have them test out, and they can be gainfully working in short order.”
[00:10:32] Jonathan Duarte: You just did what most recruiters fail to do consistently. You created the business plan. This is a P&L issue. When you plead your case by numbers, that’s the language of a CFO.
[00:11:16] Scott Haas: And finding people with transferable skills — we’d even look at the economics of one city to the next to sell it to somebody. You love fishing or hunting? Take a look at this location. Finding what motivated them to relocate. And even with heat maps in big cities — where’s the flow of traffic going? Where are most of the technicians? Which companies are they working at? “We know we can’t compete with these five companies, but these other companies we’ve never heard of — let’s go after them.”
[00:12:31] Jonathan Duarte: What’s the technology you use for heat mapping?
[00:12:34] Scott Haas: The company was originally called EMSI. They’re now Lightcast. They’re a great resource.
[00:13:12] Scott Haas: The other byproduct was the sales and business development team — when they went out for proposals, they started coming to the HR team. “When does recruiting have a seat at the table for business development in their proposals?” They wanted to know average salaries in those regions. We’d look at Lightcast, then ZipRecruiter, Indeed, whatever job boards, and see what comp said there. Now we have actionable information to make appropriate decisions to ensure the bid wins.
[00:14:05] Scott Haas: It’s getting leadership to understand that. Understanding the tools, selling the location — some people are content where they live and you have to upsell the area. “What’s your intrinsic motivation? I love the outdoors. Oh great, this location is perfect.”
[00:15:54] Jonathan Duarte: How long is it taking to recruit skilled trades roles right now?
[00:15:54] Scott Haas: We had two acquisitions and a new ATS rollout all in the first six months of 2024. Four different data points — two companies, BGIS Taleo, and Oracle Recruiting Cloud. Executives wanted one report and nothing matched. We used Power BI. Met with each group — ops, HR, payroll, executives. Built one template. Every time we fed Power BI, it put it in the template. For skilled trade roles in major metro areas, we could fill within 33.5 to 38 days, depending on time of year.
[00:17:19] Jonathan Duarte: That’s cool. But it all comes down to the data. Otherwise you’re looking at 60 days.
[00:17:24] Scott Haas: We tied ourselves into technical colleges, trade school programs, private and nonprofit. We tied into local bases. We knew which bases produced the most skilled trades roles. We knew which military jobs — Marine Corps and Army MOS codes, Navy ratings — translated directly to civilian roles over here.
[00:18:40] Scott Haas: “The successes I’ve found: pick your top five schools. Find out who in your workforce is an alumni — it gives you credibility.” Have a conversation with the CFO about a scholarship. Even $200–$500 for books in your company’s name. Participate in every career fair. Do reverse career fairs — have people come to your site. “You have to maintain consistently. It’s like a garden, constantly nurturing those relationships.”
[00:21:22] Scott Haas: You gotta make sure you have recruiters that have the same philosophy. Not just post, pray, and screen resumes. That is so outdated. It was outdated a long time ago.
[00:21:57] Scott Haas: For military hiring, Hiring Our Heroes through the US Chamber of Commerce is a great resource. Most career fairs are free. For skilled trades — look at your local workforce development groups. Search your city or county, something will pop up. And the best part is it’s free. They’re tied to funding resources with local community colleges and trade schools. There are also Work Opportunity Tax Credits. I was able to capture over $200,000 in tax credits for one location from the hiring we did.
Connect with Scott Haas on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/scottghaas/