“Opportunities are endless. There is so much within the cannabis umbrella from a career path standpoint.”Blake Wilkerson, Quality Control Supervisor, Good Day Farm
FlowerHire focuses exclusively on six-figure cannabis jobs and has filled more than 49 different job titles in 2021 alone.
If you, your daughter, mother, or best friend stuck in some dull cubicle have been looking into cannabis career paths, now is the time to get into the industry. Here’s why.
A career path for everyone
When most people outside of the cannabis industry think about cannabis jobs, they mostly think about retail associates, budtenders, or growers. Many people don’t realize that cannabis has an extraordinarily diverse span of job types and functions.
According to Grandview Research, the cannabis industry is expected to grow a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 25.5% from 2022 to 2030. With this tremendous growth and the need for specialized knowledge, the opportunities are, truly endless.
There’s a cannabis job for almost every type of professional. The industry has verticals in retail, agriculture, manufacturing, finance, consumer-packaged goods, and more. Since cannabis requires specialized domain knowledge, there are also ancillary businesses that sell goods and services specifically to the industry – for example, software, lighting, and management consulting. This means many jobs in the cannabis industry without working for a cannabis company (the common industry vernacular is “not touching the plant”).
Blake Wilkerson, Quality Control Supervisor at Good Day Farm, says, “Opportunities are endless. There is so much within the cannabis umbrella from a career path standpoint. So many different ways to move forward in a career path. So much more than what people would think. Such potential to take your career in a multitude of directions riding the ‘Green Boom.’”
Expediting incomes and careers
Because the legal industry is still in its infancy, most people who are getting hired in the cannabis industry are working in cannabis for the first time. Once people in their first cannabis job get the cannabis domain knowledge to know their specific function within a cannabis company, they can rapidly grow in their cannabis careers and get paid more.
Cannabis employees tend to take ownership and are excited about helping the industry and companies mature. This jumpstarts peoples’ careers and increases the potential for upward mobility in cannabis is greater than in traditional industries.
Working is like dog years because of how rapidly the industry evolves and changes – two or three years in cannabis is like 21 years in a traditional industry. It’s common for employees with two or three years of cannabis work experience to get big pay raises when they move to their second cannabis job. While they may make a lateral move initially getting into the industry, they’re much further along in their career from where they would have been if they never entered the industry.
Job security
Since the industry will continue to grow, there tends to be more job security than in traditional industries. Even though there is a temporary dip in the industry and some companies are facing layoffs, the annual Leafly Jobs Report, produced in partnership with Whitney Economics, states that there was a 33% increase in cannabis jobs in a single year.
This cyclical downturn has not singled out cannabis. Some of the world’s most stable and successful companies are also having layoffs. Layoffs can happen in any industry. The opportunities available in cannabis are widespread. And in cannabis, even getting laid off, the growth pace of the industry presents opportunities out there that may not exist in other businesses.
Making a difference
If you ask, most people will describe that they want to make a difference in the world through their work. And as the cannabis industry brings plant medicine to the world and normalizes a plant that has been institutionally and legally demonized and wrongfully put people in jail for decades, cannabis workers are passionate about the plant and feel more fulfilled in their work. This provides a stronger sense of a work-life balance.
The cannabis workplace culture is unlike any other industry. The industry feels like an opportunity to build culture as opposed to sludging through life as a drone. People are here to work hard, build connections, and impact the world – there are passionate and forward-thinking people at every level of cannabis organizations.
The symptoms are clear. Days dragging at the job. No connection to co-workers. Clockwatching. Career malaise. Maybe a career in cannabis is just the career prescription.
Reach out to a FlowerHire cannabis recruiter for a cannabis job.