AgCareers.com just completed our second “Take Your Kids to Work Month” photo contest. In it, we asked parents working in agriculture to take their child or children with them to their place of employment for a day or a portion of a day so that their kids could see firsthand what their parents do. The main goal was to educate kids about careers in agriculture. We received nearly 60 submissions, all posted to our Facebook page, and awarded all children who participated a free “Future AgCareers.com Job Seeker” t-shirt.
Though our contest has concluded, there is no reason why you can’t still take your kids to work for the day with you. Here are three reasons why you should take your kids to work with you.
Last Friday AgCareers.com presented a webinar for employers, Why do Smart People Make Unethical Decisions? Ethics expert Chuck Gallagher discussed human dynamics when it comes to ethical decisions, the phases of “The Unethical Continuum” and establishing a road map to keep employees’ behavior between the ethical lines.
Gallagher said that our intentions create our behavior, but the culture of an organization should create a system to help keep people between ethical lines. He shared The Ethical Continuum:
The founders and team within AgCareers.com have worked very hard to establish strong and synergistic relationships with industry organizations and associations from the start of the business. One such relationships is with the National FFA Organization. AgCareers.com is proud to be the “Strategic Career Success Partner” of the National FFA Organization and its Foundation. Our relationship allows the 610,000+ students and 10,000+ teachers/FFA advisors access to real career opportunities and internships on demand. The National FFA Organization is a systematic education and experience platform for young people to identify their life passion and develop the necessary skills to achieve their career goals. More specifically, the National FFA Organization is an integral part of agricultural education by helping make classroom instruction come to life through realistic, hands-on applications. FFA members embrace concepts taught in agricultural classrooms nationwide, build valuable skills through hands-on experiential learning and each year demonstrate their proficiencies in competitions that showcase real-world agricultural skills. FFA makes a positive difference in the lives of students by developing their potential for premier leadership, personal growth, and career success through agricultural education. Today’s FFA has evolved in response to expanded opportunities available in agriculture and its needs to hire skilled and competent employees for more than 300 careers. The organization helps students prepare for careers in business, marketing, science, communications, education, horticulture, production, natural resources, forestry, and many other diverse fields.
Jim McCallagh has been working in the ag-industry since for over 35 years, and is currently the Vice-President of National Sales and Marketing at Sevita International, based out of Inkerman, Ontario.
I recently spoke with Jim about his experience using AgCareers.com for their job posting advertising.
Could you tell me a bit about Sevita International and PROSeeds as a company?
Sevita International is a leader in the seed export industry, who recently combined with PROSeeds as a domestic brand for seed sales. PROSeeds sells both GMO and non-GMO soybeans. The non-GMO soybeans are grown under contract to be delivered back to PROSeeds. At that point the seed is cleaned, packaged, and exported under Sevita International.
How do you expect Sevita’s hiring needs to change in the coming years?
We’re always looking for new people, both within PROSeeds as agronomists or sales reps and other support people. We’re also looking for people with an ag-industrial type background that has experience in seed cleaning plants, or export cleaning plants. Our expectations under PROSeeds is to continue to grow and place 2 more agronomists within the next few years.
What’s your impression of the resumes that come to you through AgCareers.com?
We end up with quite a few that are a very good match of the qualifications, then there is a second set where the match is close but not 100 percent, and then there are sometimes a few where the match isn’t really there. Although, I’d say that in terms of percentage — over 60% of the resumes that we get are a good match.
When recruiting or exploring careers within a specific industry (such as agriculture), recruiters and jobseekers have many options when looking at online tools. When specifically discussing job boards, there are many generic job boards that cater to all industries and there are niche job boards that work within a specific industry such as AgCareers.com. Many job boards, both niche and generic, have information about market trends, tools to help both jobseekers and employers among other resources. The AgCareers.com the job board is a useful tool in examining the current labour market within agriculture. In addition to job postings, AgCareers.com also provides salary data, market research, internship program data and career profiles, which all provide a comprehensive review of the labour market and trends within the agriculture industry.
Bonnie Johnson, AgCareers.com’s Marketing Associate who works out of the Ames, Iowa office, is celebrating five years with the organization this week. Bonnie shares what her work involves and memories from her time with AgCareers.com.
What do you do on a day-to-day basis?
I coordinate AgCareers.com email marketing and help job seekers with their inquiries. I also analyze data from our site to support branding efforts for AgCareers.com and employer partnership clients. Other duties include surveying job seekers and employers and analyzing and interpreting that data. I do some writing and other marketing communications. I also handle market research projects.
We recently had the opportunity to attend the Women in Agribusiness conference in Minneapolis, Minnesota. What a great experience to bring together women within the industry for education and exceptional networking. Here are just a few of the main observations that we took away from this enlightening event.
