How to Find the Best Employees for Your Marijuana Cultivation Site

How to Find the Best Employees for Your Marijuana Cultivation Site

Businesses across the US are finding it increasingly hard to find the right employees amid an employment crisis that’s seen millions of Americans quit their jobs this year in what’s been dubbed “The Great Resignation.”

Many businesses are now waking up to the fact that having the right employees and treating them well is a precondition for success.

Recruitment challenges are especially acute in the legal cannabis sector owing to how new the industry is which means many people do not have experience of working with marijuana. For cannabis growers in particular, the problem is perennial as labor requirements fluctuate in relation to harvest times.

Many marijuana companies hiring staff when it’s harvest time simply react to these challenges as they arise. But making the effort to properly vet a candidate prior to recruitment could save your business a lot of time and help you retain their services for the following harvest, which means less recruitment challenges in the future.

With this in mind, here are some simple strategies to try out when interviewing candidates to make sure you’re not wasting each other’s time.

Be sure to ask open-ended questions to encourage conversation, help put the candidate at ease and give them the chance to showcase their communication skills. It’s also a good idea to ask pointed questions about specific work problems or scenarios to get an insight into their judgment and decision-making abilities. This is your best bet for accurately predicting how they will behave in the role they’re applying for and whether they have the right temperament for the job.

Here’s a few sample questions you could try in an interview to get the best insight into a candidate’s suitability.

For instance, if you want to know whether the person is a team player or works best on their own, you could ask “How much oversight and guidance do you want from a boss?”

If you want to know what they think makes them stand out as a worker, you could try “What would your previous co-workers say about you?”

Quizzing candidates on your business is another good way of determining their interest levels. Simply asking whether they are familiar with your products and what they know about them will reveal to you whether this is just another short-term gig for them or if it’s something they see themselves doing long-term. Similar to this, be sure to ask them about their understanding of the role and what they’ve done in the past that would demonstrate their suitability.

These are just starting off points to consider when preparing for candidate interviews. The key is to take the time to think about what exactly you are asking your candidates so you can learn as much about them as possible before making hiring decisions. Doing this is no guarantee of getting the right employees, but it makes it a lot more likely and this, in turn, could provide your marijuana grow business with more stability to help it succeed.

About Brian Ellis

With 6 years' experience in business journalism, Brian is the person we turn to for anything related to the business of cannabis. His news coverage spans topics including marijuana business and finance. Brian's work features on marijuanareferral.com, marijuanamerchantaccount.com and marijuanainsuranceagent.com.