There are literally 1000’s of employers in the drinks industry in various categories, sizes and structures. It is clear that there are two key challenges facing employment;

• Employers attracting good quality talent and improving their brand
• Candidates understanding the job market and finding suitable roles

This of course is not unique to the drinks industry, but from our experience there is still a long way to go to address these gaps. The drinks industry does not have its own unique identity in the employment market. Drinks employment is mixed in with other sectors such as FMCG, hospitality sector, Travel Retail and so on. How many graduates see the industry as a standalone sector? Is this part of the issue in attracting talent? We think so. You just have to look at google ad words, ‘FMCG jobs’ gets circa 2m searches per month for UK, whilst ‘drinks industry jobs’ gets circa £16k! Now of course this is also due to the fact that the drinks industry is smaller than FMCG, but it is also an indicator of how it is not viewed as a sector in its own right.

Another challenge is that many job hunters are simply not aware of the vast array of opportunities and careers in the industry. Where would you go to find out more? If you wanted to find employers for craft beer, where would you go? If you want to find key employers for the wine industry where would you look? Do you want to work in the On-Trade, Wholesale, Grocery, Travel Retail, Route to market, Impulse and Convenience? Yes, there are many sources out there, but from years of our own experience and research it is a minefield!

Another area, which needs attention is how employers attract good quality talent. For example, the difference in quality, quantity and functionality of employers’ career sites is diverse. We are conducting our own research into employer sites, but it is already evident that many are not where they could be.

It should not be difficult for candidates to find you, search and apply for roles, but it is.

As a candidate you not only have to know who all the employers are, but you have to then register with them all and some of them are not user friendly, aesthetically appealing or reliable. Also, improvements need to be made at the back end so that employers have an efficient and reliable way of capturing potential employees, providing timely feedback (even if rejected) and registering them for the future to market to, which is such a missed opportunity.

This is only touching the surface of the employment challenges for the drinks industry, but one last point is that there is an assumption from employers that candidates will be considering them for their next job. We spend a great deal of our time explaining what companies are out there, including who recruit in-house only, how they are structured etc. You would be surprised that even some of the larger players are unknown to candidates or they just never considered them.

Two years ago we launched Liquid Careers, a dedicated drinks industry only job board and career site.

Liquid Careers was born out of the need for a dedicated drinks industry only job platform whereby employers could not only market their employer brand, but candidates could find all drinks industry roles in one place

The site has surpassed all expectations with now over 150 drinks industry employers registered and over 10k professionals registered.  Last month we had over 10k users and 2500 jobs! Watch the video to learn more.

There are a number of further projects underway for Liquid Careers including an in-depth resource area where you can learn about careers in the industry. We encourage you to register for job alerts as we get new jobs on the site every day and we are growing month on month.

Featured Employer

For many reasons pertaining to the above we also have Liquid Lounge, a drinks blog with a regular section known as Featured Employer. This has proven extremely popular and we have seen an exceptional response to these articles above all others on our blog. We give employers the chance to showcase themselves, following a number of set questions and we then publish this and promote it in our bi-monthly newsletter and across social media. Companies featured include, Pernod Ricard UK, Diageo, Britvic, Liberty Wines, Brown Forman, Carlsberg, Treasury Wine Estates etc.

If you would like to know more about featuring with us then please contact us for details contactus@liquidcareers.com.

Do you think more should be done to promote the drinks industry? Please contact us with your thoughts and ideas at contactus@liquidcareers.com.

We are also interested in partnering with organisations as we develop the site further so please get in touch to learn more. Contact me directly – Nina Young – nina.young@fluidfusionexec.com