The Aberdeen-based international brewer and operator is throwing the usual recruitment rules “out of the window” in its search for the next intake of BrewDog protégées.
The graduate jobs market is set to exceed the pre-recession 2007 peak to its highest level and so BrewDog is aiming to sweep aside the “bland hopefuls” with its new recruitment tactic.
Beer-loving university leavers will have to convince friends to put up a strong argument for their employability in a half-minute video pitch to make the candidates eligible for the two-year-long graduate scheme.
Either business or production
Successful graduates will work in either business or production and will rotate through different departments of the Ellon headquarters in Aberdeen.
Co-founders James Watt and Martin Dickie, who have been friends since school, were recently awarded MBEs in the Queen’s Birthday Honours earlier this month in recognition of their services to business.
Of the graduate scheme, Watt said: “We made a pledge when we started BrewDog, to invest in beer and people in equal measure.
“We’re looking for beer-obsessed punks who want to help us on our mission to make other people as passionate about great beer as we are.”
‘Blow s**t up’
He continued: “We blow s*** up, we stick it to the man, and we’re committed to investing in the next generation of incredible, driven talent. If that sounds like you, we want to hear it from the person who knows you best – your best mate.”
People director at BrewDog Allison Green pointed out that the UK’s top employers had received 13% more graduate applications this year compared with 2015.
She added: “It can get tedious applying for jobs, the spiel becomes quite flat and rehearsed, and that’s why we thought we’d shake things up and recruit people via their best friends’ pitch.”
It is hoped the calibre of candidates will be high because interest in craft beer has boomed. More than 300 new craft breweries opened in the UK last year.