The annual AgCareers.com HR & Food Roundtable welcomed a full house this afternoon with record breaking attendance nearing 230 people. The largest event dedicated to human resource professionals recruiting for the agricultural and food industries, this year boasted 70 first timers, 115 different ag companies were represented and 34 different universities and associations were represented.
I had the opportunity to speak with Spell, president of AgCareers.com, about this year’s event and I asked him why this event keeps growing each year. He said that it’s because they work hard to bring out of the box thinking to the attendees through the speakers, 
workshops and networking events. However, he cautioned that they would like to keep the event intimate and would prefer to limit the growth to 250 people to keep the level of participation at its highest and most effective level.
To kick off the opening session, Spell, gave the attendees some updates on the organization’s major efforts. For example, Spell noted that this year they have 7 percent more jobs on the website in 2014 than in 2013 for the same time period. In addition, there has been an 11 percent increase in applicants, or close to 90,000 applicants applied for jobs on the AgCareers.com website this year to date with 12,000 applications per month. This, said Spell, is a 9,000 net increase in new applicants through the end of July and they are continuing to work hard to continue increasing this number. AgCareers.com also has seen a major increase in its social media presence. Snell said there have nearly 23,000 followers on various social media sites.
Snell also shared a few other key accomplishments in the past year:
- The AgCareers.com annual salary survey has 75,000 employees represented in CDR. This goes beyond salary and in to benefits and perks as well. There are 11,000 participants in Canada across the industry as well.
- More than 100 ag companies have participated so far this year in their HR review.
- The AgWarriors program now has over 600 resumes from individuals who have served in the military.
I asked Spell what was next for the organization. He highlighted several great initiatives that will launch later this year or early in 2015. For example, they will be refreshing the site and with the new look will come new communities targeting passive talent, those not actively looking for new jobs but would consider a new opportunity, as well as a space for people in the consultant world.
To learn more, stay tuned for more stories from the event. Also, get the recap of last year’s successes and this year’s upcoming initiatives by listening to Eric Spell’s interview here: Eric Spell Interview
View the 2014 AgCareers.com HR & Food Roundtable photo album.