By: Rick Pascual

A résumé gives hiring managers a useful starting point. It shows where someone has worked, the responsibilities they have held, and the technical experience they have developed throughout their career.

In dairy and beef, that background matters. Nutrition roles may require specific technical knowledge. Commercial positions often call for familiarity with the market and credibility with producers. Leadership experience can also be important when the person will be responsible for a team or a large territory.

Once those basic qualifications are established, the résumé has limits.

It tells us much less about how someone communicates with customers, responds when priorities change, works through disagreements, or earns trust over time. Those behaviours can have a significant effect on performance once the person joins the organization.

Define the Work Before Reviewing Candidates

Before discussing résumés, I encourage hiring managers to spend some time on the position itself.

The reason a role is open can influence what the business needs next. Retirement, growth, turnover, or a change in territory structure may all create an opening with the same title, yet the expectations behind that title can be very different.

One question usually brings the discussion into focus:

What should this person have accomplished twelve months after joining the organization?

A useful answer goes beyond broad goals such as increasing sales or supporting customers. It may involve developing specific accounts, rebuilding part of a territory, providing more technical support to producers, or improving coordination between commercial and technical teams.

Once those expectations are clear, the hiring team has a better basis for deciding which qualifications truly need to be present on day one.

Keep the Candidate Profile Grounded in the Market

Hiring profiles have a way of growing as a search develops.

The company may want extensive dairy or beef experience, strong customer relationships, product knowledge, leadership ability, relocation flexibility, and someone who can begin immediately. There may be a sound reason behind each request.

Together, those expectations can narrow the candidate pool quickly.

I think this is where hiring teams benefit from discussing priorities rather than treating every preference as a requirement.

Some qualifications have an obvious connection to the work. A nutritionist may need a particular educational background or formulation experience. A technical sales professional needs enough industry knowledge to have credible conversations with customers.

Other capabilities can develop after someone joins the company.

Being clear about that distinction gives recruiters more room to evaluate talented people without changing the standard for the position.

Use the Interview to Understand How Someone Works

Once technical qualifications have been confirmed, the interview should provide information the résumé cannot.

Broad questions about strengths, communication, or adaptability tend to produce broad answers. More detail comes from asking candidates to talk through decisions they have actually made.

A customer may have questioned a recommendation. A territory may have changed. An account may not have performed as expected. The candidate’s explanation of what happened, how they approached it, and what they learned can reveal a great deal about judgment and communication.

The same applies to internal relationships. Dairy and beef roles often require people to work across sales, technical service, nutrition, animal health, and management. How someone handles differences in priorities can matter just as much as the technical knowledge listed on the résumé.

References can provide another perspective. Questions connected to the responsibilities of the position tend to be more useful than a standard confirmation of employment. Former managers may be able to speak to follow-through, customer communication, response to feedback, or how the candidate handled difficult situations.

Taken together, those conversations help hiring managers see patterns that are difficult to capture on paper.

Review the Role Before Replacing the Person

A familiar title can make it easy to search for someone who closely resembles the employee who previously held the position.

The business may have changed since that person was hired.

A territory can become larger. Customers may expect more technical support. Product portfolios expand, and commercial teams may work more closely with nutritionists, veterinarians, or technical specialists than they once did.

An older job description may still contain the correct title while missing some of the work that now matters most.

Reviewing the responsibilities before launching the search can uncover qualifications that deserve more attention and others that no longer carry the same weight. A small adjustment to the profile may also introduce candidates who would have been overlooked under the previous criteria.

Build the Decision From More Than One Source

A hiring decision becomes stronger when several pieces of information point in the same direction.

The résumé establishes background. Interviews provide a closer look at judgment and communication. References can confirm patterns from previous roles. The hiring manager can then compare that information with the expectations established at the beginning of the search.

This is particularly important in dairy and beef, where relationships are often built over years rather than weeks. Technical knowledge can establish credibility, but maintaining that credibility depends on how someone communicates, follows through, responds to change, and works with the people around them.

Those qualities are difficult to summarize in a résumé.

A thoughtful hiring process gives us more opportunities to see them.

Final Thoughts

A strong résumé deserves attention because it helps establish whether someone has the background required for the position.

The rest of the process should provide a clearer picture of how that person is likely to perform within the organization.

For dairy and beef employers that starts with defining the work keeping expectations realistic, and asking interview and reference questions that connect directly to the role.