Thanks for the input.
I just wanted to see where the shortages are to ensure I had a career for life.
It seems, there isn't so much a lack of appliactions but more the quality of application - what would you say is most important when looking for a good technical/QA person?
Thanks.
Over the time that I've worked in the food industry, it has become ever more complex and demanding on the technical front. This is potentially true of other manufacturing sectors, but as those of us who are still working flat out whilst everyone else is on lockdown can confirm, food is pretty resilient as an industry because people always need to eat. It's not what I'd intended to do for a living, but it certainly seems fairly reliable as a long-term career 
The main things I want to see when hiring staff are confidence, interpersonal skills, and a reasonable base level of scientific aptitude.
As Zanorias said, confidence is somewhat essential because people in our jobs are required to do the right thing even if it is unpopular, and I can guarantee that it will sometimes be very unpopular. Ideally you need to be able to hold your own and communicate difficult subjects with other teams, managers, production people etc who may be senior to you, without taking it personally but also without being arrogant or getting angry, and this is where the interpersonal skills come in. It’s not easy, not everyone has the character to do it well, and even then it usually takes some practice. The staff I have at the moment who I would choose first for promotion are the ones who are best at this, because the management side of things requires ever more of these types of discussion.
The basic scientific aptitude is just the easiest base to start learning from, IMO. I’d never expect a junior hire to know all of the relevant science behind our products, their safety rationale, applications, processing etc., but I do want someone who will learn this enthusiastically and relatively quickly. In an ideal world they’ll pick it up to the extent that within a few years I can free up some of my time by assigning them to research new areas/ideas and present to me, and I am only able to do that if I am convinced that the person has a pretty good ability to read standards, regulations, published research etc thoroughly, take in the salient points etc. Again it’s not a skill that everyone has, and I’ve interviewed (and worked with) a lot of people with science-based degrees who seem to be lacking in this area.
