Power and Energy Industry Recruitment Firm
About Sarah
Sarah Nickell
Sarah Nickell is currently the Senior Partner and Vice President of Power Careers LLC. She joined Power Careers after building and running one of the most successful electrical power distribution, power transmission, and power generation recruitment desks in the nation. While working for one of the largest recruitment franchises in the world, her practical approach to technical recruitment and heavy background in Human Resources (with SPHR certification) paved the way for her to become an expert recruiter in the power and energy niche. Over the span of 10 years, she has established herself as a “Go-To” entity in the power, energy, battery, data center and renewable fuels recruitment sectors.
Sarah grew up as an only child of an Army Officer and German mother, exposing her to many different areas of the United States and Europe. Sarah spent her early childhood in Germany as a bi-lingual Army brat and also lived in Kentucky, Indiana, New York, Texas, and Ohio. Sarah went on to pursue a bachelor’s degree with distinction from Purdue University in Industrial Psychology and worked on her master’s degree at Capella University focusing on Business and Human Resources. Sarah and Jeremy also have three teenaged children and now reside in the Indianapolis Indiana region.
Sarah began her career in Human Resources in the early 90’s working for companies in the manufacturing and electrical sectors like Kirby Risk, Siemens and Saint Gobain. These early career opportunities helped Sarah obtain a practical approach to the needs of her clients and really dig down deep into the idiosyncrasies of an employer’s recruitment needs, especially for hard-to-find technical candidates. While working for Saint Gobain, a unionized multi-national French based company, Sarah became the youngest person in this fortune 500 company to receive her SPHR (Senior Professional of Human Resources) certification at the age of 26. She also established herself as a trusted member of her corporation’s’ contract negotiation team and was recognized for her outstanding achievements in plant safety and contract interpretation.
After meeting her husband Jeremy, Sarah transitioned into executive HR leadership roles within the healthcare continuum. In her late 20’s Sarah became the HR Director of a 2,000 employee hospital system and by the time she turned 30, she was a VP of Human Resources for an even larger hospital system with HR responsibilities for over 6,000 employees. Her passion for HR leadership and recruitment combined with her entrepreneurial spirit led her to start and grow her own recruitment firm and HR consultancy. Sarah’s individually developed assessment products have helped employers in the electrical power, energy distribution and healthcare sectors use performance assessments to dial into more successful recruitment outcomes. Sarah is also a Certified DISC trainer/administrator and has an established reputation for helping employer teams understand their strengths, weaknesses and who to hire to make their operations better.
Sarah and Jeremy now own and manage Power Careers LLC together. She truly enjoys and excels at working with employers to identify, attract, assess, and evaluate the right talent pools. This includes being exceptionally keen at technical vetting, leadership assessment and overall compatibility for benefits and compensation alignment. All her customers end up being repeat customers and rely on her industry connections and HR background for more than just recruiting. She continues to grow the company while also enjoying attending her children’s sporting events and traveling with her husband when time permits.