Oklahoma State University’s College of Agricultural Sciences and Natural Resources is a sponsor of this year’s North American Ag & Food HR Roundtable being held next week in Springdale, Ar. Coordinator of Student Success in the College of Ag at OSU, Amy Gazaway, shares why the AgCareers event is important for universities and agribusiness recruiters alike.

“For the last 13 years I’ve been working with students and alumni and helping them with career exploration, career planning and also job searching. The Roundtable event really helps me as a university professional know what the industry concerns are and what the industry needs are and be able to better prepare our students to meet some of those concerns and needs. When recruiters are on our campus throughout the academic year there focus is very much on the recruitment of students and connecting with students. And with all the activities going on while they are here we don’t always have time to sit down and talk about those concerns. The Roundtable provides a great opportunity for me to network with those employers, hear their concerns and have some of those deeper conversations. It also gives me the opportunity to meet new recruiters from new agribusinesses that we haven’t developed a established relationship with.”

“This year we are very happy to be one of the sponsors of the conference. We are providing transportation. There will be three, what we on campus call BOBs, or Big Orange Buses. They will transport attendees to different events throughout the conference. We are also providing giveaways and bags that will give a little attention to OSU’s accomplishments and different industries we have worked with. We also have a larger contingency of OSU staff that will be attending this years conference.”

This will be my first Roundtable, but AgWired was there last year. Check out our photo album for the 2011 North American Ag & Food HR Roundtable.

Listen to or download Cindy’s entire interview with Amy here: Interview with Amy Gazaway