Subject: IFDA Project Meeting Summary 2/22/2021
From: Yanxi Zhou <[email-masked]>
To: Brian Junker <[email-masked]>
Cc: Malik Khan <[email-masked]>, Xiaofan Zhu <[email-masked]>, Zixia Luan <[email-masked]>, Lanyi Xu <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 22 Feb 2021 16:30:33 -0500

Hi Professor Junker,

Thank you for your suggestions and feedback on our interview questions! They really help our team rethink about our approach and goal for these interviews. Here is a summary of our meeting today:

Discussion Topics
We discussed our three main goals of IFDA in the project and dived deep in to the first goal. The three goals are:
Validate the hypothesis that competition for qualified candidates has been increasing, including from eCommerce companies
Get more job applicants 
Get better retention 
Ideal data needed to validate the hypothesis
We want to distinguish the demand hypothesis (changing demands of the products) and the migration hypothesis (a migration of the workers from food distribution industry to the eCommerce industry).
Ideal: Individual personal history of warehouse workers and drivers
Indirect data: The number of unfilled openings in the foodservice distribution industry vs. eCommerce
We might be able to find this data through government sources and data from IFDA members.
Suggestions on interview prep
Nailing down a short hypothesis/question and step back and think carefully about variables that we can collect 
Ideal data that might not be available → Indirect data 
Talking about variables that can answer the interview questions will also make it more concrete to our clients
Possible ways to characterize the “missing” applicants 
Matching data with data that are close to missing
Might a be difference between people who applied immediately vs. people who applied closer to the deadline — The characteristics of people who applied late might be similar to those who never applied 
Other tips
The anonymization of companies: Describe the companies' positions in the distribution of all IFDA members in terms of sizes and locations.
Further use of public data: compare BLS and client data to know whether the company is typical or not

Action Items/Our plan for the week
Schedule a meeting with Jamie
Practice interviews within the team, with Jamie and perhaps with Annika and Professor Junker (We will reach out to schedule that if needed.)
Explore the public data and understand what’s available
Rethink about our interview questions by brainstorming the variables we would like to have for all three goals
Conduct the interview with Performance Food Group
Send weekly status report to Professor Junker, Jamie, and Annika on Friday

We will continue to work on our interview preparation and reach out to you if we have any questions. Please let us know if you have any other feedback or questions. Thank you!

Best,
Yanxi