Sevita International Finds Success with AgCareers.com

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.

Without having dedicated HR staff, is a niche, ag-focused, job board important for Sevita’s postings?
 
Absolutely, the benefit with AgCareers.com is as per the name – an ag-focused site is really important. It ends up meaning that for the most part the applications that we’re getting are a really good fit.

Your new Marketing Communications Coordinator, Emma Lackey, applied through AgCareers.com. You received a lot of resumes for that position, what stood out about Emma? 

With that position, we had 2 really close candidates. They both lived around here and knew people in our organizations and the farms that they were from. Emma had really strong English skills and is a university graduate who is from a farm. We’re going to have to provide some training to Emma because she doesn’t have the software skills that the other candidates had; but really for me it was also her level of maturity that stood out.

Do you have any other final thoughts or impressions on AgCareers.com you’d like to add? 

We have had several hires since we came to AgCareers.com. Prior to hiring Emma we hired Neil through your site, he’s a Regional Sales Manager in South Western Ontario. We’ve been very satisfied and we’d certainly recommend that any employer in the Ag-industry looking for qualified people should post with AgCareers.com; in fact we’ll probably be posting again within the next week.

Hear Emma’s side of the story and learn about her new role with Sevita International. You can find success with AgCareers.com just like Sevita International has. Visit AgCareers.com and post a job.