AI and Social Media Among Effective New Tools Used for Hiring in Agribusiness

When it comes to farming, the challenges affecting agriculture are well known: Weather, insects, disease, weeds, invasive species … the list goes on. There are numerous tools to combat those perennial threats.

One often overlooked challenge (at least by those not in the industry) is labor. And just like those problems there are tools that help fill holes in the job less stressful and more successful.

According to the human resources enterprise, SHRM, the cost of replacing an employee is roughly equivalent to six to nine months of the employee’s salary. Other organizations put that figure at twice the employee’s salary.

The ag industry is no exception.

Every year, CropLife^® magazine surveys the Top 100 ag retailers to learn about the issues they’re facing. Labor, with the exception of 2021 when COVID-induced supply chain disruptions peaked, regularly sits atop the list of concerns.

Thirty-four percent named labor as one of their ongoing concerns in 2023. In 2022, 46% listed labor as a major concern. In 2021, labor fell behind supply chain issues/disruptions, but still outpaced a variety of other issues.

What’s an employer to do? If the past few years have taught the market anything, it’s that technology can deliver solutions not available in the past.

Mark Waschek, President of Ag1Source, has spent nearly two decades helping agricultural companies find the right people. There are a number of tech tools available to make hiring easier. But, says Waschek, it takes more than placing an ad online to find the right person.

“One of the most valuable tools an organization can use to improve its hiring is free and used by nearly everyone every single day: Social media,” Waschek says. “The problem with social media with many organizations is they are likely using it wrong. Most organizations use social media as a way to let the marketplace know they have a job opening. Unfortunately, if you only post on social media when you have openings, the impression you are leaving in the market is that you have many openings and people do not stay with the company.

“It’s not about leveraging it to say, ‘Hey, we have an opening,’ Waschek says. “It’s about giving your organization an image of, ‘Wow, that looks like a great group to belong to. I might want to work there if they ever have an opening.’ It’s setting that mindset. And the same goes for the for Facebook and LinkedIn as well.”

Social Media

One of the easiest (and perhaps most misunderstood) tools is social media. The internet, specifically social media, offers a variety of potential hires insight into a company’s culture. Posting a job opening on social media opens your organization to a wide variety of candidates. What many companies don’t consider is that the internet opens your company to the rest of the world. What are you telling them?

“That’s why the trick to social media is not posting openings; it’s showing future employees how fun it is to work there,” Waschek continues. “If you highlight employees, showcase company events, share award meetings, or any other detail that provides insight into life as an employee, you give the viewers a very different perspective than if you only post job openings. The impression goes from a place that has turnover to a good place to work!”

Waschek suggests highlighting those employees that mirror the type of employee you want to hire.

“If 90% of your posts are about how great it is to work there, and everything you do for the community, and how our employees are being promoted, when you have an opening, people’s mindset is, ‘Wow! That looks like a great place to work. I should maybe take a look at that.’ It creates a different image.”

Understanding what an individual you’re interested in hiring is looking for is critical to successful hiring.

For example, “younger people want to join an organization that has a cause; it’s not about share price to them at that stage in life,” Waschek says. “Companies will start posting about what their employees do in the off time.”

The Right Fit

Using the internet opens your business to a host of potential employees. But knowing which of those candidates is the best fit can be a challenge. According to ResumeLab, 36% of people lie on their resume (and that was the low figure. A Forbes study found as many as 70% of people lie on their resume).

Considering the cost of replacing employees, getting it right the first time is critical. Technological tools can help with that aspect of the hiring process.

“Another tool that has been proven to improve hiring and retention with many ag retail organizations is the addition of a behavioral assessment as part of the hiring process,” Waschek says. “I’ve been recruiting in the ag industry for 19 years, and I can assure you that no other tool has more impact on hiring and retention than a tool to understand the behavioral style of the person you are interviewing. The reason it’s so valuable is simple. In a talent-short market, it’s easy to focus on what a person did in the past (resume and past success) in the interview and overlook ‘how’ they accomplished those things.”

There are a variety of reasons individuals leave their current company. They might join a company for a higher salary, but when it comes to looking for a new job, compensation is not the most important factor. A bad boss, carrying too big a workload, lack of recognition, broken commitments and relationship with coworkers rank higher than salary when it comes to employee retention.

For those reasons, and many more, ensuring new employees fit the culture is key. There are tech tools for that as well, Waschek says.

“There is a saying: ‘People are hired for what they can do and fired for who they are,’” Waschek says. “This means that most people are hired for their experience and what they should be able to accomplish. However, if their style in who they are and how they do things doesn’t align with the role, they aren’t going to last. Hiring good salespeople is a common example of this in retail ag. All too often, managers say: ‘I hired my competitor’s top person away, and they totally failed. I don’t get it?’

“Obviously, they hired the salesperson for what they could do (or had done) for the competitor but overlooked who they are,” Waschek continues. “This is often the case when hiring a person who has a large, successful territory with growing sales. They spend a large portion of their time serving high-value customers. Because of the ongoing growth provided by their good customers, they may not need to spend a lot of time focused on cold calling. They may get enough referrals they never need to cold call.

However, when they joined a new company, the leaders may have seen this as an opportunity to expand territory, which shifts this person from being relationship-driven to business development-focused.

“The style of the person who enjoys that territory and will excel in that environment is very different from that of a high-relationship person,” Waschek continues. “Utilizing a behavioral assessment before you hire can reduce hiring mistakes, which in turn has an immediate and positive response to employee retention.”

Artificial Intelligence

Many companies are figuring out how to incorporate artificial intelligence (AI) into their organization. It can certainly be used to help the hiring process. Traditionally, company postings are composed with a description of “must haves.” Waschek suggests letting AI help by turning the job description from a list of musts into one that is attraction-based.

“Think like you’re in the job — on this job you will get to do this, and you will have the opportunity to do that as opposed to bullet points, saying ‘you must,’ and ‘you will,’ he says. “Use AI technology to actually enable something that you’re already doing and making it better. Is great, and that’s the same thing with social media,” he says.

The hiring has been compared is often compared to a funnel where a wide range of employees are run through a series of interviews and the best candidates come back the bottom.

“The problem is, it’s not a funnel,” Waschek says. “It’s actually a screen. There should be some people that should be never let in because they culturally don’t fit, or they have different core values, they really don’t align with the organization and won’t. They won’t be happy there, and if they’re unhappy they won’t succeed. So I think just recognizing that in the process is really the biggest thing.”