Challenging to find staff who have hunting experience. Is hunting declining in interest.

[Ben Lamb]

That's pretty much what we do but it's not ideal having one person at the company who has hunted at all.

We hired a new welder today. From LA originally. Raised by his mom. Never hunted. Big Broncos fan.

Welders are a strange breed. None of them are normal. It's the flux. At least he had the good sense to get out of LA.

Good luck with the hire!

 

[Potsie]

Welders are a strange breed. None of them are normal. It's the flux.

@brockel did you get a new job???

 

[SAJ-99]

Interesting feedback.

The hunting experience is really helpful for a variety of reasons, especially office staff. Even the guys fabricating really need to know the difference in what animals each bracket is for and for custom work. For office staff when they talk to hunters it's really needed to have some sort of experience to be able to answer questions about different animals or just have conversations with taxidermist. For the marketing help we have found that people with no hunting background don't really understand hunters or how to do things like put together a newsletter, do promotions, etc. We end up having to make a lot of corrections because they just don't know what they are talking about. Things like knowing September is archery season in many states. One of our old marketing people once put a domestic sheep pic on our website not realizing it was not the same as a bighorn sheep.
Stuff like that.

The reality is a small business owner needs to wear meany hats. There is no good way to avoid that. It's why people often choose to be employees.

 

[brockel]

@brockel did you get a new job???

I’ve always been a better grinder than a welder. My projects will show that I’m not lying.

 

[PrairieHunter]

The reality is a small business owner needs to wear meany hats. There is no good way to avoid that. It's why people often choose to be employees.

Yep. I meet very few young people who want to run their own business these days.

My issue is I have another business that is expanding globally and I just have not put a whole lot of focus on this one lately.

I realistically should sell this business and let someone who has a passion for hunting and being in the industry run with it.

 

[brymoore]

Having just got back from 2 weeks off to hunt and leaving Friday for another week off hunting, I’d recommend finding non-hunters. Those hunting guys are always skipping out on work to hunt.

 

[shb]

I QUIT my job for hunting season one time.


Jobs are plentiful.


Good tags?......not so much.

 

[PrairieHunter]

Having just got back from 2 weeks off to hunt and leaving Friday for another week off hunting, I’d recommend finding non-hunters. Those hunting guys are always skipping out on work to hunt.

The nice thing is we build up inventory all summer so it's actually ok for the fabricators to leave some during season. Office staff is a different story.

 

[270.Rose]

I kinda feel like that's what's going on here as well. More overall hunters due to older non residents coming out West for a hunt but an overall drop in hunting interest for young people.

I think (at least in our area) that the drop in interest is partly due to it being harder to find private land owners willing to let a youth come and hunt, because the outfitters have things so locked up, and the swarm of out-of-staters all over public land. I know a number of parents of teens who have told me outright that they would love to take their kids hunting more but they can't get access to the places they hunted when they were that age, because the land changed hands and an outfitter moved in. And dealing with the nonresidents every year is almost enough to put me off and I already love hunting for lots of reasons. We take our boys hunting and we expect that they will be hunters too when they are old enough, but it's hard on kids to hike five miles in a day only to have someone come waltzing through scaring everything in earshot. And we live in an area that's considered good for hunting. I can't imagine how hard it would be for a parent in an area with limited public access.

 

[2rocky]

Interesting feedback.

The hunting experience is really helpful for a variety of reasons, especially office staff. Even the guys fabricating really need to know the difference in what animals each bracket is for and for custom work. For office staff when they talk to hunters it's really needed to have some sort of experience to be able to answer questions about different animals or just have conversations with taxidermist. For the marketing help we have found that people with no hunting background don't really understand hunters or how to do things like put together a newsletter, do promotions, etc. We end up having to make a lot of corrections because they just don't know what they are talking about. Things like knowing September is archery season in many states. One of our old marketing people once put a domestic sheep pic on our website not realizing it was not the same as a bighorn sheep.
Stuff like that.

Sounds like you need to hire someone to train your staff about hunting and just hire the right people to do their assigned tasks?

Are you willing to make that investment?

I also think someone with some animal anatomy knowledge would be particularly effective as well.

Send me a pm if you would like to discuss it..

 

[Cornell Cowboy]

Hello,

Has anyone else had challenges finding people with hunting experience to work at their hunting/outdoor related business?

I own a company called Skull Bracket in Laramie and we are finding that few people we interview have any hunting experience. Most of the young men who have worked here the last few years seem to have been raised by their mothers and have never hunted. The women simply never had an interest it seems. Quite shocking living in Wyoming.


And even outside Wyoming we have also been trying to find a gig worker to help with our Amazon listings and do some SEO work on our website through the summer. We have talked to at least 25 people on freeup, fiver, etc We have yet to find anyone who has any hunting experience. Seems that few of these "professionals" ever get out in the woods.

It's weird as in some ways like drawing tags it seems like hunting is more popular (or just commercialized) than ever, but on the other hand I see signs that hunting is seeing a decline when almost nobody we interview in Wyoming has hunted.

Thoughts?

I'm a bit surprised. As the department head in one of the engineering departments at UW I can say that within our faculty, easily more than half hunt and within the students in the department I would guess it's higher than that (at least among the guys). I'm not sure what fields you're looking at, but I think the number of students that hunt within engineering and ag is pretty high. When I go to any of my hunting spots, it sure doesn't look like we have declining hunting numbers. Maybe you are somehow selecting a non-representative pool of applicants.

 

[Nick87]

Those hunting guys are always skipping out on work to hunt.

You sound a lot like my boss.

 

[GTwolfer]

Hello,

Has anyone else had challenges finding people with hunting experience to work at their hunting/outdoor related business?

I own a company called Skull Bracket in Laramie and we are finding that few people we interview have any hunting experience. Most of the young men who have worked here the last few years seem to have been raised by their mothers and have never hunted. The women simply never had an interest it seems. Quite shocking living in Wyoming.


And even outside Wyoming we have also been trying to find a gig worker to help with our Amazon listings and do some SEO work on our website through the summer. We have talked to at least 25 people on freeup, fiver, etc We have yet to find anyone who has any hunting experience. Seems that few of these "professionals" ever get out in the woods.

It's weird as in some ways like drawing tags it seems like hunting is more popular (or just commercialized) than ever, but on the other hand I see signs that hunting is seeing a decline when almost nobody we interview in Wyoming has hunted.

Thoughts?

In Texas it takes $1000's to hunt.Its pretty much order your trophy and we'll move em out of his pen. The all destroying feral hog can't be hunted for less than a few hundred dollars.

 

[Forkyfinder]

In Texas it takes $1000's to hunt.Its pretty much order your trophy and we'll move em out of his pen. The all destroying feral hog can't be hunted for less than a few hundred dollars.

In Montana - we have the same thing with elk. They dont JUST complain about property loss though - they hire lobbyists who gleefully and blatantly lie about realities, especially wildlife, in our capital. I guess i shouldnt just say they "hire" lobbyists - they start fake 501c3s fronting as conservation orgs operating as a lobbying company.

Here in just a few short months - you and your family can pay 1k+ to shoot a cow elk off of a pivot in the dead of winter.

 

[PrairieHunter]

I'm a bit surprised. As the department head in one of the engineering departments at UW I can say that within our faculty, easily more than half hunt and within the students in the department I would guess it's higher than that (at least among the guys). I'm not sure what fields you're looking at, but I think the number of students that hunt within engineering and ag is pretty high. When I go to any of my hunting spots, it sure doesn't look like we have declining hunting numbers. Maybe you are somehow selecting a non-representative pool of applicants.

I have one UW engineer working for my other business, High Plains Biochar. He has never hunted.

What department do you work in? We have tried working with UW engineering but never had much luck as biochar was not much of a focus until recently so we do most of our work down at the CSU Powerhouse facility and with CSU Spur in Denver.

I think we have had 2 UW students that did summer help for us that did some hunting.

Shop help is normally men in the 20's and 30's who have some sort of welding training or background. More of them seem interested in trucks, engines, women, etc than hunting.

Office help is normally people in their 30's who have some sort of degree or college classes in most cases.

This article really highlights the issue.

A Concerning Trend: Support for Hunting on the Decline - Bowhunter

National surveys suggest eroding public approval.

www.bowhunter.com

 

[PrairieHunter]

This also seems to indicate a downward trend.

https://wildlife.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/wsb.1578

 

[Gellar]

I opened up a job for an office manager yesterday. I work for a local government agency that manages public areas and we have a pretty large visitors center as well. Some of our public areas we manage allow public hunting. I would love to find someone who hunts for multiple reasons. We currently have 4 full time staff members, 2 of whom are active hunters, 1 is married to a pretty active hunter, and 1 is from California originally and takes every opportunity to tell people that, if you get what Im saying. We field a lot of questions from visitors to the center, over the phone, via the internet and just at our areas we manage as to hunting regulations, how to obtain licenses, where they can hunt, etc. I feel if we were to hire a person who has at least a basic knowledge of hunting it would allow us to offer better service to the public when they inquire with general questions. That being said, its not a requirement nor a question that will even be asked in the interview process. Since I began my career I feel the demographics in our field have changed substantially where in the beginning almost all the males and most of the females were hunters or married to a serious hunter. Now I would guess that less than 1/4 of the women and probably 1/2-2/3 of the men are hunters. I even know other hunter education instructors who are not hunters.

 

[Cornell Cowboy]

I have one UW engineer working for my other business, High Plains Biochar. He has never hunted.

What department do you work in? We have tried working with UW engineering but never had much luck as biochar was not much of a focus until recently so we do most of our work down at the CSU Powerhouse facility and with CSU Spur in Denver.

I think we have had 2 UW students that did summer help for us that did some hunting.

Shop help is normally men in the 20's and 30's who have some sort of welding training or background. More of them seem interested in trucks, engines, women, etc than hunting.

Office help is normally people in their 30's who have some sort of degree or college classes in most cases.

This article really highlights the issue.

A Concerning Trend: Support for Hunting on the Decline - Bowhunter

National surveys suggest eroding public approval.

www.bowhunter.com

I'm in Mechanical Engineering.

I think across the country in general hunting is in decline, but I haven't seen that here in Wyoming.

 

[JakeB]

You are probably not offering a high enough salary to hire a hunter. Have you priced tags/everything lately? Idk what you are paying but if you bump it up enough you will get your pick of candidates.

What you are looking for exists, it’s just a matter of you affording them.

Fast, cheap, done right? Pick your 2.

A small business owner in my home town is always fussing about lack of candidates. He thinks he can start top notch guys out at $15 hour with basically no benefits and have them lined up. Not a chance.

We aren’t living in the 80-90’s anymore.

 

[PrairieHunter]

You are probably not offering a high enough salary to hire a hunter. Have you priced tags/everything lately? Idk what you are paying but if you bump it up enough you will get your pick of candidates.

What you are looking for exists, it’s just a matter of you affording them.

Fast, cheap, done right? Pick your 2.

A small business owner in my home town is always fussing about lack of candidates. He thinks he can start top notch guys out at $15 hour with basically no benefits and have them lined up. Not a chance.

We aren’t living in the 80-90’s anymore.

Definitely not a $ thing. We get plenty of quality applicants starting people in the $25-$30 range.

It's noticing that young people we hire are not hunting at the same rate of previous generations. Lots of young men who are raised by their mothers and never were exposed to hunting. As well as observing that the kind of people who do e-commerce, marketing, graphic design, etc type work do not seem to hunt much in general.

In the 80's and 90's young people simply had a lot more interest in hunting compared to young people in the 2020's. The data in those articles highlights this shift.