Talent Management: Insights into Recruitment in the SME Environment

Demographic change is a development that is increasingly presenting companies with challenges.The German brewing industry's workforce is largely made up of older, well qualified employees who are likely to leave the labor market in the coming years.The brewing industry is also facing falling sales figures.Most breweries can be classified as small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs).Against this backdrop, the question arises as to whether the German brewing industry is still attractive enough to gain enough young talent and how they are currently being recruited.To determine this, both future employees (target audience 1) and employer representatives (target audience 2) were interviewed.As comparable studies with numerical data were available for target audience 1, a quantitative research approach was pursued here.As this does not apply to target audience 2, a qualitative approach was pursued for this group.The aim of this article is to gain an insight into how recruitment is implemented in brewery industry and how this process could be improved.The methods of recruitment for future employees are still very traditional (job advertisements and network).No evidence of employers using headhunters or active search strategies could currently be found in this industry.Nevertheless, every brewery should continue to plan staff replacement with care, as the upcoming generational change could make it more difficult to recruit new employees.