Kinsa Group Blog

At Kinsa Group, we realize how critical it is for you to stay on top of the latest trends, newest products, and most recent scientific innovations affecting the food and beverage industry. 

To make it easier for you to learn about relevant industry events, here are a few links to comprehensive 2010 calendars:

1. Meatingplace.com’s 2010 Event Calendar and 2011 Event Calendar provide links to dozens of food industry-specific conferences, expos, training workshops and forums.  Accessing these calendars requires signing up for free membership to meatingplace.com.
2. The American Beverage Association provides a directory of 2010 meetings and conferences specifically for beverage industry professionals.
3. BNP Media has several comprehensive calendars of events that include links to global trade shows, summits and expos for the food, beverage, and packaging industries:

            Master Calendar of Events

            Snackfood & Wholesale Bakery Calendar of Events

            Beverage Industry Calendar of Events

            Food & Beverage Packaging Calendar of Events

 Kinsa Group - National Recruiters for the Food & Beverage Industry

Kinsa specializes in recruiting professionals, executives and senior-level managers for the food and beverage industry.  Our promise is to deliver the talent who most optimally fit your company’s philosophy and culture.  By focusing on the best interests of both parties – and by drawing on food industry experience and assessment expertise – we are able to offer the best hiring solutions.  Contact us today.

Help your recruiting service service help you.

Continuous improvement should be a goal of any business relationship – your relationship with your recruiting company is no exception.  Help your recruiting service deliver better results by providing them with frequent, measurable feedback.  By letting them know what they’re doing right, as well as how they can improve, you can make your recruiting even more efficient and cost-effective.

Ask internal staff who interact with your recruiting firm during the hiring process to periodically fill out a simple report card.  It can evaluate quality of fills, ease of working with the recruiting specialist, timeliness of service, etc.  Then, share the feedback with your recruiting firm.  They will use the information to identify opportunities for improvement, to further customize the service they deliver, and to make your job as easy as possible.

Here are a few sample questions to consider:

The Recruiting Firm

1. How well does the recruiting firm understand the food & beverage processing industry?
2. How valuable is the recruiting specialist during the initial phases of the search (e.g., position specification, determining a salary range, developing a recruiting strategy, etc.)?
3. How well does the recruiting firm meet your expectations?
4. How would you rate the recruiting firm’s service, as compared to other firms you’ve used?
5. How would you rate your recruiting specialist (service, industry knowledge, professionalism, etc.)?

The Candidates

1. How well do the candidates referred fit the requirements of the available position?
2. How well qualified are the candidates to work in the food and beverage industry?
3. How would you rate the candidates’ attitudes (i.e., willingness to accept the position offered, professionalism, etc.)?
4. How would you rate the interview-to-hire ratio (number of candidates referred to find the right individual)?

How well are we doing?

Kinsa Group specialists are experts in recruiting for the food & beverage industry.  Our goal is to provide you with the “ideal match” – talent who optimally fits your company’s philosophy and culture.  We want to know what we’re doing right and where we can improve.  Please contact us with your feedback, so we can deliver even better results for your organization.

An effective mentoring program provides a wide range of business benefits:

• Facilitated onboarding.  Mentoring speeds up the process of bringing on new hires as well as redeploying existing employees into new lines of work.
• Increased employee satisfaction and retention.  Research has shown that employees who participate in mentoring programs have higher job satisfaction and reduced turnover.
• Improved employee productivity.  When employees are mentored, they can get answers to common problems quickly – without wasting time on rediscovering or re-inventing solutions.
• Effective career growth / succession planning.  Mentoring programs help employees reach their full career potential, grooming them to fill key roles as part of an organization’s succession plan.
• Knowledge management and retention.  Mentoring promotes effective knowledge sharing, to reduce the risk of losing critical skills and knowledge when employees leave.

Obviously, mentors can play an important role in ensuring your company’s continued success.  But while identifying a budding protégé may be straightforward, identifying a potential mentor can be more complex.  Whether that person is you, one of your managers, or an outside expert, a mentor should possess the following professional and personal attributes:

1. Senior-level business experience.  To provide guidance, the expert should have several years experience working in senior corporate positions.  At a minimum, the expert should be a professional peer to the protégé.
2. Interpersonal and political “know-how.”  The expert ought to be proficient in handling all sorts of complex interpersonal dynamics within the context of office politics.  To be an effective trainer, the expert must be able to help the protégé navigate the tricky political waters of his organization.
3. Integrity and confidentiality.  Professional development involves discussing high-level, strategic, off-the-record information, as well as sensitive personal issues.  Honesty and discretion are essential when broaching these confidential topics.
4. Organizational and personal insight.  The expert must have an in-depth understanding of the company’s objectives, needs and hierarchy.  Equally, he must also appreciate the protégé’s strengths, weaknesses and goals.  To achieve professional development goals, the trainer must align both the company’s and the protégé’s interests.
5. Flexibility and ingenuity.  When egos, ambitions and agendas collide, sparks fly.  What works for an organization one day may be thrown out the window the next.  An expert trainer must be able to shift gears, develop solutions on the fly, throw out tactics that prove ineffective and come up with new ones – fast.  He must be comfortable dealing with uncertainty to navigate a corporate environment rife with change.

Need a promising protégé?  Looking for your next mentor? Contact us today.  As a national food and beverage industry recruiter, Kinsa can provide the talented individuals – from R&D directors to food service sales managers to process engineers - your organization needs.

Have you ever noticed that some people always seem to end up climbing the career ladder faster than everyone else?  While it could be because Mom or Dad is the boss, more than likely it’s because they work hard and follow these five tips:

• Always display a positive attitude.
  Your attitude can be a powerful self-fulfilling prophecy.  If you have a negative attitude, 9 times out of 10 you will fail.  But, if you bring a positive attitude and display confidence, strength, and determination, you WILL be successful.
• Stay educated.
  The best way to ensure success is to stay one step ahead. Research your industry. Know what’s happening and what the experts say will happen. Look for trends. When you find them, start to train yourself in these areas. Knowledge is power.
• Create a personal elevator pitch.
  First impressions mean a lot.  If you only had 30 seconds to convince someone you were a hard-worker and a leader, what would you say and do?  Plan this ahead of time; you never know when it will be needed.
• Learn to network.
  Unfortunately sometimes it’s not what you know, but who you know (at least to begin with).  Learn to network. You can even network within your own company. Invite co-workers to lunch. Take the time to walk by someone’s office to say hello. And actively seek out opportunities to network outside of work by joining organizations, groups, etc.  You start by seeking out your local chamber of commerce to learn of upcoming events.
• Be open to new opportunities.
  Read trade publications. Listen to people in your network.  When a new opportunity presents itself, don’t sit back and wait.  Take the initiative to inquire more–and don’t be shy!

And speaking of new opportunities, if you’re in the market for a new job or just curious about what is out there, please call us today.  As national recruiters specializing in the food & beverage industry, Kinsa Group offers a variety of excellent career opportunities.