Insider Q & A: Chris Hoyt on How to Get a Job at Pepsi

Chris Hoyt is a Talent Engagement & Marketing Leader at PepsiCo. He’s also known as “The Recruiter Guy.” PepsiCo offers the world’s largest portfolio of billion-dollar food and beverage brands, including 19 different product lines that each generates more than $1 billion in annual retail sales.

We sat down with him for a conversation on recruiting, working at PepsiCo, and best practices on finding a new job.

You recruit a lot on social media, but have also gone on the record as saying that sourcing candidates via job boards is also a good idea. How does a candidate get your attention?

This came up recently when I responded to an article that alleged that job boards were at the end of their usefulness – which I disagree with completely.  Job boards will continue to evolve as they have for years, in an effort to keep up with, and balance, the needs of both jobseekers and employers.  Because of this, job boards still aren’t something that jobseekers around the world should remove from their plan of attack when looking for employment.

At PepsiCo, we work hard to strike a balance between both traditional and progressive recruiting tactics, because we know that there is no cookie cutter approach to recruiting for such a diverse stable of talent.  At any given time this year we’ve had over a thousand jobs available around the world.  In our search to hire what we hope is the best and the brightest we know that our efforts can be a combination of ‘smiling and dialing’, real-world networking, brute sourcing and social recruiting.

Getting the attention of a talent acquisition professional at PepsiCo has gotten easier over the last year with our explosion into social and mobile recruiting.  And while resumes are still important, they’re not necessarily what a sourcer or recruiter is going to see first.  Job seekers that manage their online footprint, how they are portrayed and how they’re engaged, on various social and professional networks like Twitter or LinkedIn could find it makes all the difference.

What types of jobs is PepsiCo hiring for right now?

Wow, that’s a loaded question.  I mean, this morning we had over 800 jobs posted in just the United States and Canada which covered a range of jobs – from Drivers and Warehouse workers to Marketing Managers, Scientists and Finance professionals.

What’s been really exciting for us over the last year has been the update to our career site that allows job seekers to create automated search agents that notify them of jobs based on their key interests or preferred work location.  We even took that technology and incorporated it into our Facebook fanpage and recent mobile applications released for iPad, iPhone and Droid called Possibilities.  So no matter what type of job someone is interested in, they can receive custom updates quickly and easily.

What don’t job seekers know about working at PepsiCo that they should know?  Do you hire for any PepsiCo subsidiaries as well? (For example, McGraw Hill also includes Standard & Poors…)

I think one of the things that job seekers might miss at a glance is the sheer variety of brands and products that sit within the PepsiCo umbrella.  We have over 19 different brands that earn over $1 billion in revenue yearly – including Pepsi, Walkers, Tostitos, Aquafina and more.  But in addition to these we have an amazing array of other products like Rice-a-Roni, Cap n’ Crunch, Sobe and others that are incredibly successful.  So when you think of all of these products, you might assume that we’re a company of just manufacturing and marketing people.  

The truth is that we’re made up of over 300,000 game changers and mountain movers that handle incredibly complex challenges related to any aspect of our business.  You’re a Finance major that loves Mountain Dew? We’ve probably got a job you’d love to take on right out of college.  You’re a part-time athlete that can’t get enough Quaker Oats and has a passion for sustainability? I’d bet we’ve got something that would keep you pretty fired up. 

Any bad assumption that you’ve seen job seekers make in applying for jobs with PepsiCo?

I think that often job seekers assume that at large companies there isn’t anyone on the other end of the application system – and that it’s all completely automated or that they’re submissions won’t ever be seen.  But while we do have a system that helps us to more quickly find qualified submissions, there is a real recruiting team at PepsiCo that wants nothing more than to find the best match for each job available.  A well constructed bio, resume, skillset – whether online or offline – still goes a long way.

Do you have any “never do” tips for individuals in working with recruiters? What are your pet peeves?

It’s funny – I just had a bit of discussion on Google+ about this exact topic.  I think that my biggest pet peeve with anyone, not job seekers specifically, is a sense of entitlement.  For a lot of people it is incredibly tough to find a job right now – the right company, the right location, the right pay, etc.  And this can understandably weigh on anyone.  But when a job seeker applies for any job they should remember that being qualified doesn’t necessarily mean the same thing as being the most qualified.  So the assumption by a job seeker that they are entitled to an interview just because they meet the qualifications is a tough thing to swallow at any level.  
The fact is that even if recruiters wanted to interview all 1,000 qualified job seekers that apply to their job, they can’t always do so.  And even if they did, they’re only able to hire one of these people.

It’s why connecting outside of the application process is so important for both job seekers and recruiters.  It’s why having a visible and living profile that showcases your expertise and engagement with industry peers is much more powerful than is sometimes thought.  We’ve taken huge steps over the last few months to create active LinkedIn groups related to specific job interests like Finance, Human Resources, Sales and others.  We’ve expanded our engagement channels to be more visible to job seekers around the world by including recruiters from other parts of the globe to engage people online.

Are there any questions I haven’t asked that I should be asking? What’s the question, and what’s your answer?

How does someone learn more about PepsiCo as an employer?

I don’t give the standard response to this that most recruiters provide which is, “go do your homework.”  I believe that pulling up a company’s Wikipedia page or heading to their corporate page is 101 – and it’s typically pretty boring.  I encourage job seekers to look past the “corporate sell” of basic benefits and stock history. They should be looking for the bigger picture.  At PepsiCo we’re making this easy with things like our People of PepsiCo page that shows employees talking about what’s possible for them in AND outside of work as a member of the PepsiCo family.

Our employees are becoming widely available in networks like LinkedIn and are now actively sharing stories about our company in their status updates directly from our internal newsfeeds in the hopes that you’ll talk with them about what’s going on.

Look for these things. This is a level of authenticity that makes an employer worth really looking at.

Use it now—actionable—advice for job seekers:

Manage your social footprint and engage the company you’re interested in learning more about.