Progress in catalysis is driven by society's needs. The development of new electrocatalysts to make renewable and clean fuels from abundant and easily accessible resources is among the most challenging and demanding tasks for today's scientists and engineers. The electrochemical splitting of water into hydrogen and oxygen has been known for over 200 years, but in the last decade and motivated by the perspective of solar hydrogen production, new catalysts made of earth-abundant materials have emerged. Here we present an overview of recent developments in the non-noble metal catalysts for electrochemical hydrogen evolution reaction (HER). Emphasis is given to the nanostructuring of industrially relevant hydrotreating catalysts as potential HER electrocatalysts. The new syntheses and nanostructuring approaches might pave the way for future development of highly efficient catalysts for energy conversion.