Specialist roles filled in a town where the skills did not live.

A specialized manufacturing operation in Orillia needed people the local market does not produce: plant and R&D metallurgists, a manufacturing engineer, a capital projects manager, an engineering and facilities manager, plus the safety, IT, HR and finance roles that keep a technical plant compliant and running.

Each search started from a thin local pool. The candidates with the right technical skills and industry experience lived in the GTA, in Hamilton, in Sudbury, in other provinces. Posting locally and waiting was not going to fill niche seats.

We widened the map before we lowered the bar. Each role was sourced across Ontario first, then nationally, with role-specific screening for the processes, standards and plant conditions this operation runs.

Relocation became part of the search rather than an afterthought. Candidates who were open to moving were told early what Orillia offers, what the commute and the cost of living look like against the city, and what the move would involve, so the people who reached interview had already decided the town was possible.

For the strongest candidates we helped structure the offer around the move, so relocation support was a line in the agreement rather than a negotiation at the end.