Recruitment
We have something in common with companies working within agriculture and the green transition: ‘We need people!’ It is getting more and more difficult to find colleagues with knowledge and experience in agriculture, and this applies to all job categories. It also applies to a great extent to students, not just with us at the university but also in study programmes for agricultural technologists, etc., so we cannot just lean back and expect the problem to resolve itself over time.
For companies this can mean a lack of earnings if you cannot produce in step with demand and develop new products/new guidance where there is a need. For us it means more pressure of work if positions cannot be filled, but it may also mean something for the quality of our work and for our productivity.
It is my impression that we are generally pleased with our place of work – in both Foulum and Flakkebjerg, and with the current focus on ‘green transition’ we can only say that we contribute to solving quite fundamental societal challenges. But are we good enough at informing the outside world about this? Recruitment is not just for the professional recruitment agencies. It also means a lot that we talk about the exiting work that we have – in all job categories. Just now during the summertime we have a good opportunity to show AGRO at various seminars and ‘Open Day’ events, theme days, summer schools and even the celebration of a 25-year anniversary. So use the chance; perhaps you are helping to recruit our next new colleague by talking about all the exciting things we do.
We can hope that Campus Viborg will be a draw; we expect it to be, but it will take some time yet before there are graduates from the new study programme – and they will be in great demand. In AGRO’s business committee we want to contribute to including business collaboration in the study programmes. This may be in the form of theses, minor reports or cases based on development activities or problems from collaborative projects.
Students can be the source of new business collaborations, and funding is available for example via Innovation Fund Denmark for industrial Ph.D. and industrial postdocs.