Cannabis Job Tip for December: Vetting Cannabis Employers

M&F Talent is partnered Grower’s Network to help aspiring and established cannabis professionals understand the best avenues for success in this exciting new industry. As such, throughout the year, we are offering a “Cannabis Career Tip of the Month” for the readers at Grower’s Network. Here is what we had to say about vetting potential employers in December 2018:

Ideas for Vetting Potential Employers in the Cannabis Space

As an industry leading cannabis recruiting agency, M&F Talent has an inside look at the challenges faced by job searchers in the cannabis space. To this end, M&F Talent takes great pride in helping professionals understand their place in this exciting new industry with their choice of cannabis jobs.

On both personal and professional levels, the cannabis industry is an extremely exciting thing to be a part of. For many who work in cannabis, there is an inherent pride in helping shape the industry into something great. Yet, the entire market is comprised of startup businesses. As such, it presents many challenges not seen in more established lines of work. Therefore, looking for both cannabis jobs and hydroponics careers can be a daunting task.

Due to the absolute novelty of the cannabis job market, it presents a great deal of volatility when it comes job security. Much of this workplace instability is due to an inherent lack of organization in the cannabis industry. Within this new market, new companies are scrambling to develop functioning businesses. Also, there are a good deal of business owners and investors with inflated plans of “getting rich quick” in the industry.

As a result of the instability of the cannabis space, it is vital that job searchers vet their potential employers. To this end, doing some preemptive research about a business can help people better understand what sort of company it is they may be working for. In a similar vein, approaching a job interview with a critical awareness of the market can be helpful. The hope being, taking some extra precautions can save some serious heartache in the end.

With the above ideas in mind, here are some great avenues to explore in vetting cannabis employers:

Don’t be Afraid to Ask Tough Questions

An extremely effective way to avoid taking the wrong job in cannabis is to simply be up front during the interview process. This often means asking tough questions like: “why did the last employee in this role leave?” or “what sort of turnover rates do you have?” It may seem somewhat daunting to press a potential employer on these tough questions. However, the best employers should respect applicants for being up front. In the event they seem agitated by your questions, its probably a red flag that they have something to hide.

Talk to other Employees

After the initial interview phase, some of the more astute job searchers will request to speak to other employees at a company in deciding if the business is a fit for them. With this inside information, applicants can get a feel for their potential co-workers. They can also get a glimpse at the general morale of the workplace. These people’s demeanors should be pretty telling about the business as a whole.

Funding

A major theme seen among dissatisfied cannabis industry employees has to do with the funding behind an operation. Namely because, the industry is plagued by startup business owners who cannot pay their employees on time, if at all. As such, doing some internet sleuthing on the financial state of a potential employer is never a bad idea. In fact, prior to starting a job search, we often encourage candidates to research what cannabis companies have rece

ntly received funding. With this critical approach, job searchers can target those businesses who have ample liquidity to handle payroll. On a similar note, those cannabis companies who have received funding have been thoroughly vetted by their financiers, which generally says a good deal about their internal organization and business model.

 

This article originally appeared on the Grower’s Network in December 2018.