Meet Karson Humiston of Vangst

Today we’d like to introduce you to Karson Humiston.

Thanks for sharing your story with us Karson. So, let’s start at the beginning and we can move on from there.
I had the idea to recruit talent in the cannabis industry in 2015, when I was about to graduate from St. Lawrence University. At the time, I was running a student travel company, so I had a large network of students and recent graduates all looking for jobs. After surveying the students, I realized they were very interested in jobs in the cannabis industry. I decided to explore the industry so I went to an industry tradeshow to speak to cannabis companies about their hiring needs. I found that hiring was a huge pain point for them.

A lot of the same tools used by mainstream industries weren’t made available to cannabis companies and finding quality professionals who were able to see past the stigma of cannabis was challenging. The types of positions that were available in the cannabis industry, even in 2015, we’re crazy to me. On the spot (seriously, I made business cards that day), I decided to start a cannabis recruiting company, originally named ‘Gradujuana,’ where I could connect college students and recent grads with jobs in the emerging cannabis industry. I got my start with interested companies at that very first tradeshow, and since then, I’ve built the team who has helped me build all of what Vangst has become today. Through years of learning, and via multiple channels including our 1:1 expert recruiting services, live career fairs, our GIGS temporary talent sourcing platform, and, most recently, our FREE self-service digital talent matching platform, we’ve helped more than 700 connect companies connect to high-quality, ready-to-work cannabis talent.

We’re also now seen as not only the leading cannabis talent network but also one of the premier voices in cannabis when it comes to expert industry insight. Each year, we produce quarterly reports, including our Annual Salary Guide, Women In Cannabis Report, and Hot Jobs in Cannabis Report, that are read and downloaded by tens of thousands of cannabis industry insiders. My team and I are also extremely passionate about social equity – we believe in providing jobs, training, and guidance to those individuals who have been negatively impacted by The War on Drugs and on whose backs this industry has also been built. We plan on expanding our social equity efforts significantly in 2020 and beyond, and this cause is something our entire team rallies around. I built Vangst because I wanted to be on the forefront of the mission to make the cannabis industry thrive, and I plan on us staying there, no matter what comes next.

Has it been a smooth road?
When you work in the cannabis industry, there’s never a day without challenges! We fight every day to help remove the unwarranted stigma surrounding the cannabis industry through community relations, education, and a focus on promoting the numerous positive impacts of the plant and the industry at large – on a human scale and also a macroeconomic scale. The cannabis industry also obviously operates under much stricter regulations than most industries, and those regulations also change every day. We work hard to stay compliant and up-to-speed with an ever-evolving landscape and it’s a key priority to ensure we can help our clients do the same.

The most recent obstacle we’ve faced is obviously the impact of COVID-19; this crisis has turned so many industries upside down, including cannabis. Companies are facing hiring and staffing challenges they’ve never had before, including a dramatic spike in the need for reliable short-term staffing solutions, and many job seekers affected by the shutdown of other industries like hospitality, restaurant, and retail are looking to find new career opportunities in cannabis, which has been deemed as an essential business in most legal states. We’ve responded by accelerating the planned launch of new self-service digital talent matching features on our redesigned website, and offering these features completely free of charge for cannabis companies and job seekers. Our mission is to get cannabis to work, and we believe Vangst can play a critical role in helping the industry stay on its feet when support is needed more than ever.

Please tell us about Vangst.
Vangst is the premier talent resource for the cannabis industry. Our solutions combine smart technology and human know-how to match leading cannabis companies with vetted and verified candidates. From temporary to full-time positions, cultivation to the retailer counter and across teams of 10 to companies of 1000, we bring full-service expertise to every aspect of cannabis hiring. We give companies a competitive edge by placing the industry’s top talent in difficult-to-fill positions while also navigating the challenges of state-by-state regulations. We help start careers, advance careers and empower both companies and employees with not just job placement, but also industry education and training. Our mission is to help the entire industry succeed with smarter technology, unmatched knowledge and a network of talent that gets cannabis to work.

Vangst is different from other recruiting companies out there, whether they specialize in cannabis or not because we’re a team who believes passionately in advocating for the plant, knowing every single in and out of the business, and being true cannabis experts and thought leaders in every sense. We go beyond just “recruiting;” we are a community for every person who helps power the cannabis industry, and we are a source of knowledge, support, and insight for anyone who wants to build a career or a company in cannabis.

What are your plans for the future? What are you looking forward to or planning for – any big changes?
The biggest change is the very recent launch (on 4/20/2020) of our free digital talent matching features on the all-new Vangst.com! In 2020, we also plan on expanding our social equity impact in the U.S., expanding the scope of the career and company-building services we offer through initiatives like the Vangst Expert Network and candidate education programming, and providing new tiers of value to our clients through enhanced candidate vetting and verification offerings.

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