The image of chemistry harms talent acquisition

“Do you feel guilty?” – a woman asked me at a networking event. – Guilty of what? I replied. “What does your company do for the environment,” she replied irritably. We were in New York and when the woman I was talking to mentioned that she worked in finance, I replied that I worked in the chemical industry. It was enough to make her angry.

What about all the good things we do? The chemical industry is leading the transition away from fossil fuels, has played a key role in the fight against COVID-19, and is ensuring a steady, profitable food supply. The interaction was telling, and I realized something important: the chemical industry has a huge marketing problem.

I’ve heard countless stories of people scratching their heads when telling others they work in the chemical industry. The general population has no idea how important chemistry is in everyday life. Our industry remains largely hidden from the public, and most people do not realize how often they interact with chemicals or chemical byproducts in their daily lives.

Our industry is best known for unfortunate and heartbreaking crises, including factory explosions and incidents that pollute shared resources. The public is confused about the purpose of the chemical industry, and worse, believes that it only harms society. However, the work our industry does is important to the future of humanity. This fundamental information asymmetry between the positive impacts of the chemical industry on our world and the lack of public awareness continues to harm our industry.

Today, society still sees the chemical industry as a negative for society. This negative perception hinders the industry’s progress in myriad ways, including poor investment from capital markets and oppressive regulation. This negative perception also harms the chemical industry’s ability to attract talent. As our industry grapples with existential threats of the future, including food and water shortages, climate change, and future pandemics, it is imperative that we attract the brightest minds.

In academia, students also fail to see the opportunities that the commercial chemical industry presents. At Women in Chemicals, a nonprofit I co-founded, women echo this sentiment on our Woman of the Week podcast. The vast majority of women we talk to say they came into the industry unintentionally, and it’s rare to hear a woman seek out our industry as a career opportunity. This is a huge disadvantage for our talent pool.

I also got into the industry by accident. My undergrad was in chemistry and my major was business. That sounds like a pretty ideal fit for the chemical industry, but industry wasn’t really in my area. When I applied for jobs in finance, technology, and consulting on my college’s career center website, I also applied for a job in logistics. I didn’t get it, but a leader in the organization saw my technical background and offered me a job in sales. I took the role because I wanted to forget about job hunting and get back to enjoying my senior year of college.

Fortunately, I have since become a more critical decision-maker, but unfortunately our industry has not become more visible to potential talent. If a person studying chemistry is not aware of careers in the chemical industry, how can we expect to find the talent we need to run the many functions of our companies?

Strengthening our industry for future success means we must address this issue of visibility for the next generation of talent entering the workforce. To help address this issue, Women in Chemicals makes the industry more visible to students in their formative years. We partner with organizations such as the Chemical Educational Foundation (CEF) to introduce chemistry to students in kindergarten through eighth grade, and our Careers in Chemicals program introduces high school and college students to the chemical industry and all the potential career paths available. We have plans for a college recruitment initiative.

While this is a start, it is not enough. Our industry must take a coordinated and collaborative approach to our marketing problem. We must play an active role in demystifying society’s negative perception of the industry as a whole and demonstrating its value to the public. We need to do a better job of telling our story, sharing our victories and promoting ourselves to the next generation as the industry of choice for employment.

Amelia Greene is global product manager at Wego Chemical Group and co-founder of Women in Chemicals, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization whose mission is to empower women in the chemical industry.

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