You won’t find very much information on the AgCareers.com website about our Partnership Program. That’s because we don’t promote it like a product offering. In fact, we don’t promote it at all. It is designed as a true Partnership model, where an employer and AgCareers.com partner up to form an effective relationship. We make it a priority to understand recruitment strategy and the measurement of success before we even begin discussing the potential for an employer to participate at the Partnership level.
So what is the Partnership Program exactly? The AgCareers.com Partnership Program is the best way to connect with active and passive candidates within the ag and food industries. The core structure of the program allows employers to take advantage of unlimited job postings and resume database access; prime real estate for those jobs and employer brand; as well as the ability to customize recruitment strategy with additional resources only available to our Partner employers. So how do you know if your company would be a fit for the program? Answering “yes” to some of the following questions could mean that it might be worth exploring becoming an AgCareers.com partnership client:
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.
As the world’s population is on pace to reach nearly 10 billion people by 2050, the number of employers that continue to recruit international talent continues to increase. The demand for talent in areas such as IT, research, engineering, and large scale animal/plant production specialists challenges employers’ ability to rely solely on domestic talent pipelines. The increased hiring of “expatriates” in developing countries in recent years is contributing to the demand for international talent as well. An expatriate (also known as an expat) is a person temporarily or permanently residing in a country other than his or her citizenship. Increased growth of large scale farming operations & modern food processing facilities in developing countries like Russia, China, and parts of Africa will continue to lead to lucrative opportunities for adventurous talent in North America. AgCareers.com is host to numerous opportunities like this.
Below are 5 tips to consider when recruiting internationally for talent:
1. Sixty-four percent of companies who participated in the annual AgCareers.com Agribusiness HR Review estimate 1-5% of their current workforce will retire in the next 2 years. Talent doesn’t grow on trees but its growing at colleges & universities across the country!
2. Looking for local talent? According to CollegeBoard.org80% of students begin college in a state where they are a resident. Attending a campus career fair will give you access to talent who wants to stay in your area.
3. Think new grads lack knowledge? The millennial generation entering the workforce now is tremendously innovative. Just consider all the social media outlets and apps they’ve developed in the last 5 years!
4. In the 2015 AgCareers.com Internship Benchmark Survey49% of interns in the agriculture industry from across the country said they learned about their internship through career services/at a career fair.
There are many avenues to take when searching for candidates. In addition to posting a job on a job board such as AgCareers.com and receiving applications directly, another tool available to employers and recruiters is online resume databases. Many sites and job boards have databases that are searchable for employers, and both active and passive job seekers will upload their resumes. Active job seekers are those potential candidates who are actively applying to positions and networking within their industry to investigate opportunities. Passive job seekers are those potential candidates who would be willing to consider an opportunity under the right conditions, but are not actively applying to open job postings.
At AgCareers.com, we have a resume database that contains over 6,000 active resumes across North America. The majority of these candidates are individuals with agriculture experience and education, looking to move into another role within the industry. The AgCareers.com database asks candidates to select a maximum of 5 career types and 5 industry types when they upload their resume.
Memorial Day has come and gone for another year, yet remembering and honoring those who have served in our country’s armed forces should not be a single day event. Traditionally, this U.S. holiday has been a day to remember those who have died while serving the country, however it also provides the perfect reminder to honor service members and veterans still here.
One way we can do this is to help military men and women transfer back into their civilian life after deployments and/or service. As agricultural employers we have a great solution to assist — job opportunities!
Our preconceived notions often stereotype service member experience into things such as mechanical or other skilled trade expertise. While many do have these critical areas of expertise, this talent pipeline brings so much more to the table. Did you know, the military has over 7,000 job positions across more than 100+ functional areas and 81% of these jobs have a direct civilian equivalent?1
There are also many transferrable skills gained by serving in the military that service members often struggle to articulate. Here are just a few skills that we as agricultural employers want within our organizations that many veterans possess thanks to their service1:
