When it comes to looking for a good recruit in sales and marketing for your brewery, hire for a cultural fit and hire based on attitude and work ethic says KettleHouse Brewing‘s Suzy Rizza.
“You can train skills,” the brewery’s co-founder said, noting that the second largest brewery in Montana does still find it difficult to acquire new talent given the growing competition in its area.
The same goes for Mad River Brewing, located in Blue Lake, California.
“It’s hard to maintain talent as there are a lot of good brands to work for so people have more options for employment to stay in the industry,” said the brewery’s Marketing Director Tera Spohr, “so you have to be competitive with your offerings or they may find a position with another company.”
Rizza said when the brewery does have an opening, they hire a Human Resources company to sift through the resumes that come in to help narrow the field for that marketing or sales position.
“We do a phone screening interview, then one or two in-person interviews,” she said.
When it comes to looking for quality talent in those pools, Spohr said that Mad River has found a unique source for finding sale rep help.
“A lot of times hiring a sales rep that works for one of your distributors can be a good thing,” she said. “That distribution house still gets the sale of your beer and so long as everyone is open you can create an even better relationship with the distributor because that rep already knows the policies and procedures, but is working only for you now.”
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