8 replies to this topic

[SoupsNStuff]

Would you rather hire a recent graduate with a Food Science degree or a high school graduate with 4 years experience as QA in a production facility? Based on personal experience, I know who I would choose...

 

Did anyone's undergraduate Food Science education have any classes dedicated to Food Safety and Quality? 

My alma mater's course offerings are so heavily skewed towards product development and research. It was pushed so much I felt like a failure when my first job out of school was a QA tech and all my friends went into candy development x)

 

Most of the useful knowledge I have came from post-grad paid training and a couple very good managers who took the time to teach. But if I didn't have that, I wouldn't have got as far in my career as I am now. I almost think HACCP certification should be mandatory to graduate. And root cause analysis....and internal auditing....and regulations.... 

[G M]

I think it's safe to say most 4-year degree programs are lacking when it comes to conferring practical skills.  They are largely treated as a measure of how well someone can learn, not what they learned.

[Scampi]

I think you'll find that the experienced person would be selected 99/100 times over the degree

 

Most of what we do CANNOT be learned in a classroom  AND we (more than likely) all share some key personality traits which most likely will not align with someone fresh out of school 

 

This is a great place for a user poll!

[SoupsNStuff]

I think you'll find that the experienced person would be selected 99/100 times over the degree

 

Most of what we do CANNOT be learned in a classroom  AND we (more than likely) all share some key personality traits which most likely will not align with someone fresh out of school 

 

This is a great place for a user poll!

 

Which key personality traits are you thinking? Neurotic? Anxious? Paranoid? I've been all that since high school   This is certainly the job for it. Overthinking is great for hazard analysis. 

[MDaleDDF]

Don't forget obsessive compulsive!  I'm pretty much like that about things, and it certainly aids in my work, as everything needs to be buttoned up air tight. 

I had absolutely no background in QA or food safety of any kind, but the owner of the business knew how neurotic I was and said "Trust me.  You're perfect for the job."    Lol.   He was right!

[Brothbro]

I took undergraduate courses in Food Science and my experience was the same, lots of push towards R&D and academic research. We did have a good spread of courses related to food safety and microbiology, but these jobs weren't really emphasized and the "gold standard" was to get some kind of product development job. My biggest gripe is just that the QA/Food Safety courses weren't taught from a very practical perspective. I wish it was more focused on hands-on experiences and troubleshooting scenarios, because that's what really makes or breaks a good QA department. I think if I designed the course, it would be fun to make the entire semester as a sort of case-study on a well-run plant. Start with what programs they have in place, what people handle them, and what that plant does when something goes wrong. 

 

That said, entry level QA jobs are much more available than entry level R&D/PD jobs. So new graduates with food science degrees usually end up in QA departments anyway.

[Scampi]

HAHAHA

 

Perfectionist tendencies (or obsessions), the ability to retain a tremendous amount of mental information without having to "look it up", high levels of organization (regardless of the current state of your desk --this comes in many forms), a desire to argue a point and not roll over when you know your right and perhaps the most import, a strong need for control, you know, over just about everything!!!!!!

[kfromNE]

Too many variables.

 

I was the educated person (two graduate degrees) hired from outside of the company with only 3 years of food manufacturing QC experience (I previous work experience was from the retail side of food safety). I beat out an internal employee with 15+ years working as a QC. I believe it very much depends on the position and the person.

 

As the Director of Quality Control - my graduate education taught me about the scientific portions of the job. So writing policies and understanding what the requirements actually say we need.  I added a lot of validation data to our processes. I do a lot of problem solving/research. My schooling taught me how to research well and find the best resources for what we need.  Another thing I did - took data we were collecting and interpreted it which wasn't done.

 

However my soft skills are what I believe put me ahead of the internal applicant. While I didn't have experience - in those first three years of my other job - I spent a lot of time learning and continually learning. I still do. Plus some of the personality traits mentioned above.

 

So if I had to hire a QC tech - I'd look at them equally. QC does require a certain skill set that you can't always teach. We have some great production employees but they are not the right fit for QC. An applicant's skill set does play a huge factor in hiring them or not. Also what my team needs.

Edited by kfromNE, 25 May 2023 - 05:37 PM.

[Gelato Quality Lead]

My undergrad is in Chemistry and I am currently pursuing a masters in Food Safety Regulation.

 

During undergrad, I had a few R&D positions and one Document Management position. Moving into food safety at my current job has been a completely new experience for me. I definitely would have been able to figure everything out in my current job without the graduate degree, but taking these classes has helped to expand my knowledge further into the reasoning and theory behind all the regs and science. I've also been able to learn about other regulated products and industries apart from gelato! 

 

I would say that either having hands-on experience or having a degree might not be a good determining factor in hiring. Depending on the specific responsibilities of the position, the company leadership/ladder, and the qualities of the person, it is very likely that both candidates will be able to succeed in the position equally.