Continuing our series of Best Practices to help you recruit students with the “best fit” for your organization, the IFMA Education Foundation, through our PEOPLE FUTURE 2025 initiative, found that companies who cast a wider net are able to be selective in identifying and recruiting the right talent and increase their odds for success.
So many companies believe there is a need to hire talent who already knows the foodservice industry and is familiar with the types of products they manufacture, market, and sell. While there is a benefit in finding this kind of talent, the reality is that narrowing your search during an increased demand for talent will not yield candidates that best fit your organizational needs—the talent pool is simply not deep enough.
In our previous articles we discussed the need to engage deeper, stressing the importance of being thoughtful on where your engagement is going to give you the greatest return. If you are limiting your engagement and recruiting in a specific area like hospitality, you are likely missing the opportunity to attract skilled talent for your broader organizational needs. In the hospitality example, going deeper and recruiting from majors beyond hospitality and building relationships with business schools to create exposure your company and the foodservice industry, can open up the largest base of potential talent given that 21% of all majors a part of the business school.
Too many companies believe that sales and marketing, or operation teams, are the drivers of success, however we have yet to see a company that excels without excellent accountants, human resource professionals, administrators and other key positions. Creating awareness of your company and going deeper in recruiting in these other areas can deliver the quality talent required throughout your organization.
Don’t limit your options!
Who are your customers? What do they look like today? What will we they like tomorrow?
As you consider where you need to go engage, it is critical that you take a look at your organization and ask some important questions. Do you embrace diversity in talent, do you embrace diversity in thinking, and are you open to change? If the answer to any of these is no, you may have just uncovered the biggest risk to your future business. Be sure that your plan for acquiring talent addresses the need for diversity to assure you remain connected and able to best understand and serve the vast and diverse industry we are a part of.
As we have said in our previous articles, “Building a pipeline of talent is not easy, but it is one of the best investments companies can make!”
We would encourage you to go to the full library of tips we have pulled together to get you started, they can be found by clicking the links below:
If you do not know where to start, we are able to help you. As part of the work that PEOPLE FUTURE 2025 is doing, we are developing additional insights and tools for our member companies to use that are proven to work. We will be showcasing these at the IFMA Presidents Conference November 3-5 in Scottsdale where you will hear first-hand from those on the front lines. The educators, human resource and business leaders, along with recent graduates will convince you that coming alongside, investing, embracing and leveraging the work of our collective resources will position our industry and your company for a long term, sustained talent pool to assure our collective future.
Engaging early and building deeper relationships, with the right institution, is worth the effort!
If your company is interested in joining the People Future 2025 initiative or to learn more, please contact us at IFMA@IFMAworld.com.