How to Apply to Hershey Company

Key Takeaways

Hershey uses Workday as its applicant tracking system (hersheys.wd5.myworkdayjobs.com); create a single, complete candidate profile and tailor each application carefully because keywords and structured fields are parsed against the job requisition.
The company is structured around three segments (North America Confectionery, North America Salty Snacks, International) plus enabling functions (Finance, IT, HR, R&D, Supply Chain); call out segment-relevant experience explicitly.
Hershey is uniquely controlled by the Hershey Trust, which funds the Milton Hershey School; this drives a long-term, values-led culture and an enduring commitment to Hershey, Pennsylvania as headquarters.
The interview process is competency-based, behavioral, and culture-forward; prepare crisp STAR examples for results delivery, collaboration, consumer focus, and growth mindset, and weave in genuine motivation for Hershey's purpose.
Final rounds for commercial, marketing, finance, supply chain, and analytics roles almost always include a case study, presentation, or work sample; structured thinking and a clear, defensible recommendation matter more than the perfect answer.
Hershey's culture is values-driven, results-oriented, and tightly knit, especially at the central Pennsylvania headquarters; resumes and interview answers should foreground measurable impact paired with humility and collaboration.
Many corporate roles expect significant time at the Hershey, PA headquarters (typically a hybrid schedule with set in-office days); signaling openness to relocate or commute is a strong differentiator for non-local candidates.
Compensation is competitive with Mondelez, Mars, Nestle, and PepsiCo / Frito-Lay, with annual incentive plans, long-term equity (RSUs and PSUs) for managerial and above, robust 401(k) match, generous parental leave, and well-known perks like a free product allocation.
Tailor your resume to the specific segment and function: Confectionery (heritage brands, scale, retail execution), Salty Snacks (growth, M&A integration, faster pace), International (emerging markets, route-to-market, joint ventures), and Corporate (deep functional craft) each weight different experiences.

About Hershey Company

The Hershey Company is an American multinational confectionery, snack, and food manufacturer headquartered in Hershey, Pennsylvania, founded by Milton S. Hershey in 1894. With approximately 21,000 employees worldwide and reported net sales of more than $11 billion, Hershey is one of the largest chocolate and confectionery companies in North America and a constituent of the S&P 500 (NYSE: HSY). The company operates three reportable segments: North America Confectionery (the largest by revenue, anchored by Hershey, Reese's, Kit Kat in the US under license from Nestle, Hershey's Kisses, Jolly Rancher, Twizzlers, Almond Joy, Mounds, York, and Ice Breakers), North America Salty Snacks (SkinnyPop popcorn, Pirate's Booty, Dot's Homestyle Pretzels acquired in 2021, and Paqui), and International (sales of confectionery and snack products outside North America, with notable footprints in Mexico, Brazil, India, and the Middle East). Hershey is unique among Fortune 500 companies in its ownership structure: the Hershey Trust Company, which funds the Milton Hershey School for underserved children, holds the controlling voting stake. This trust-based structure shapes the company's long-term orientation, community focus, and headquarters' enduring commitment to the town of Hershey, Pennsylvania, often called 'Chocolatetown USA,' which includes Hersheypark, Hershey Lodge, the Hershey Theatre, and the Giant Center. Culturally, Hershey is known for being values-driven, performance-oriented, and steeped in heritage; the company's purpose, 'making more moments of goodness,' threads through brand campaigns, philanthropy, and employee programs. Compensation is competitive against peers like Mondelez, Mars, Nestle, and PepsiCo's Frito-Lay, with strong base, annual cash incentive, and long-term equity components for managerial and above. Hershey has been investing aggressively in its salty snacks portfolio, digital transformation under the Advancing Agility & Automation (AAA) initiative, advanced analytics, e-commerce capabilities, and cocoa supply chain sustainability through Cocoa For Good. Recent strategic moves include the integration of Dot's and Pretzels Inc., expansion of better-for-you platforms, and continued investment in emerging-market growth, particularly India, while navigating historic cocoa price volatility in 2024-2025.

Application Process

1
Search and apply through careers
Search and apply through careers.thehersheycompany.com, which routes all applications into Hershey's Workday-hosted candidate site (hersheys.wd5.myworkdayjobs.com); create one Workday candidate profile and reuse it across multiple applications.
2
Initial application screen: a recruiter or talent acquisition partner reviews re
Initial application screen: a recruiter or talent acquisition partner reviews resume, application form responses, and any required questionnaire answers within 1-3 weeks of submission, depending on role volume and seasonality.
3
Recruiter phone screen (20-30 minutes) covering motivation for Hershey, resume w
Recruiter phone screen (20-30 minutes) covering motivation for Hershey, resume walk-through, salary expectations, location and relocation flexibility, work authorization, and high-level fit against the role's must-haves.
4
Hiring manager interview (45-60 minutes), typically behavioral and structured ar
Hiring manager interview (45-60 minutes), typically behavioral and structured around Hershey's leadership competencies; expect questions tied to results delivery, collaboration, consumer focus, and growth mindset.
5
Panel or cross-functional interviews (often 2-4 additional conversations) with p
Panel or cross-functional interviews (often 2-4 additional conversations) with potential peers, skip-level leaders, and key cross-functional partners (Finance, Marketing, Sales, Supply, R&D, or HR depending on the role); for many corporate roles this is conducted in a single onsite or virtual loop day.
6
For commercial, marketing, finance, supply chain, and analytics roles, expect a
For commercial, marketing, finance, supply chain, and analytics roles, expect a case study, presentation, or work-sample exercise in the final round; manufacturing and plant roles often include a site tour, safety briefing, and skills assessment.
7
Offer, background check, drug screen, and onboarding: Hershey conducts standard
Offer, background check, drug screen, and onboarding: Hershey conducts standard pre-employment screening including criminal background, education and employment verification, and drug testing in line with US state law; relocation packages are commonly offered for headquarters and plant-based roles.

Resume Tips for Hershey Company

recommended

Lead with measurable business impact: Hershey is a results-oriented CPG; quantif

Lead with measurable business impact: Hershey is a results-oriented CPG; quantify net sales growth, market share gains, gross margin improvement, cost-out savings, volume, distribution wins, or productivity metrics rather than describing responsibilities.

recommended

Mirror the exact keywords from the job description into your resume; Workday par

Mirror the exact keywords from the job description into your resume; Workday parses titles, skills, and competencies, so include phrases like 'category management,' 'shopper marketing,' 'demand planning,' 'trade promotion management (TPM),' 'SAP,' 'Power BI,' 'IRI / Circana,' 'Nielsen,' or 'Adobe Workfront' if they appear in the posting.

recommended

Showcase brand, P&L, or category exposure: even partial ownership of a SKU, segm

Showcase brand, P&L, or category exposure: even partial ownership of a SKU, segment, or customer is valuable; name the brand and result (e.g., 'Led Reese's seasonal innovation launch at top three mass retailers, +18% units YoY, $12M incremental net sales').

recommended

Highlight cross-functional and matrixed work: Hershey runs a matrix between bran

Highlight cross-functional and matrixed work: Hershey runs a matrix between brand, category, customer, supply, and finance; call out experience working across functions, with co-manufacturers, or across the field sales organization.

recommended

For corporate technology, data, and analytics roles, lead with platforms and out

For corporate technology, data, and analytics roles, lead with platforms and outcomes: SAP S/4HANA, Snowflake, Databricks, Azure, Power BI, Tableau, Anaplan, o9, Blue Yonder, Salesforce, and any productionized models or measurable adoption metrics.

recommended

For manufacturing, supply chain, and engineering roles at Hershey plants (Hershe

For manufacturing, supply chain, and engineering roles at Hershey plants (Hershey PA, Hazleton PA, Stuarts Draft VA, Lancaster PA, Memphis TN, Robinson IL, Reese plant Lancaster, Lebanon Valley Sales District, etc.), foreground TPM/lean/Six Sigma certifications, OEE improvements, safety record (TRIR), and CAPEX project management.

recommended

Keep the resume to 1-2 pages, use a clean ATS-friendly template (no tables, no i

Keep the resume to 1-2 pages, use a clean ATS-friendly template (no tables, no images, no two-column layouts, no text in headers or footers), save as PDF or .docx, and name the file 'FirstName_LastName_Resume.pdf' for easy recruiter triage.

recommended

For early-career and intern applications (Hershey's full-time leadership develop

For early-career and intern applications (Hershey's full-time leadership development programs in Finance, Marketing, Supply Chain, IT, and Sales are highly competitive), include extracurricular leadership, case competitions, consumer or commercial internships, and any CPG or retail experience; explicitly note relocation flexibility to Hershey, PA.

ATS System: Workday

The Hershey Company uses Workday Recruiting as its global applicant tracking system, hosted at hersheys.wd5.myworkdayjobs.com and surfaced to candidates through careers.thehersheycompany.com. Workday parses uploaded resumes into structured candidate profile fields (work experience, education, skills, certifications, languages) and matches them against requisition-level requirements, so completing the full profile rather than relying on the resume upload alone materially improves visibility to recruiters. The platform supports a single candidate profile that can be reused across multiple applications, saved searches and job alerts, internal mobility for current employees, integrated assessments, scheduling, video interviews, offer letters, and onboarding. Hershey uses both the standard external Workday career site and an internal Workday tenant for current employees pursuing internal moves.

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Interview Culture

Hershey's interview process has a distinct personality that candidates should be ready for: it is structured, behavioral, values-driven, and unusually focused on culture and long-term fit because of the company's heritage, trust ownership, and tight-knit headquarters community in central Pennsylvania. Interviewers are typically the hiring manager plus a panel of cross-functional partners and a skip-level leader, and they will move between competency questions, business judgment questions, and cultural alignment questions framed around Hershey's leadership behaviors and the company's purpose of 'making more moments of goodness.' Expect classic STAR-format behavioral prompts: tell me about a time you delivered a stretch goal under pressure, navigated conflict with a cross-functional partner, made a decision with incomplete data, coached an underperforming team member, or championed an unpopular but right idea. For commercial, brand, finance, and analytics roles, a case study or work sample is almost always part of the final loop: you may receive a brand brief, a category P&L, a pricing or promotion scenario, an innovation pipeline question, or a distribution gap analysis and be asked to recommend an action in 30-60 minutes, then defend it to a panel. Quality of structured thinking, clear narrative, and willingness to take a defensible position matter more than getting the 'right' answer. Sales candidates can expect role plays and headquarters customer-meeting simulations, often involving Walmart, Target, Kroger, Costco, or Amazon scenarios. Manufacturing, engineering, and supply chain candidates are typically evaluated against safety-first leadership, lean and Six Sigma fluency, and the ability to lead frontline teams; plant interviews often include a tour, gemba walk, and conversations with operators. Culturally, Hershey values integrity, humility, a learner's mindset, and 'good people doing the right thing'; arrogant, transactional, or overly aggressive answers tend to underperform. Bring opinions and numbers, but pair them with humility and clear acknowledgement of teammates and stakeholders. Interviews are increasingly conducted via Microsoft Teams for first rounds, with finals frequently held onsite at the East Chocolate Avenue or 19 East corporate headquarters in Hershey, PA. Decisions are typically communicated within one to three weeks after the final round, and recruiters proactively keep candidates informed; feedback for unsuccessful late-stage candidates is generally provided on request. Dress code for in-person interviews trends business casual, with business professional appropriate for senior leadership roles and plant PPE provided for any production floor visits.

What Hershey Company Looks For

Results delivery and commercial acumen: an instinct for what drives net sales, margin, and share, and the ability to talk fluently about pricing, mix, promotion, distribution, and trade investment in a CPG context.
Consumer and shopper obsession: genuine curiosity about consumers, occasions (seasonal, everyday, gifting, snacking), categories (chocolate, sugar confection, salty snacks), and channels (mass, grocery, club, drug, convenience, e-commerce).
Collaboration in a matrix: experience working across brand, category, customer, supply, finance, R&D, and regional teams without formal authority, and a track record of building durable cross-functional relationships.
Growth mindset and learning agility: openness to feedback, comfort with ambiguity, curiosity about new categories (salty snacks, better-for-you, international), and willingness to move across functions or businesses to grow.
Integrity and values alignment: Hershey's trust-based ownership and Milton Hershey School heritage make values fit non-negotiable; interviewers evaluate ethical judgment, humility, and a community-first orientation.
Analytical fluency: comfort with syndicated data (Circana / IRI, Nielsen, Numerator), Excel modeling, BI tools (Power BI, Tableau), Anaplan or o9 planning systems, and the ability to translate data into clear commercial recommendations.
Leadership and people development: for managerial and above, evidence of building diverse high-performing teams, coaching successors, and creating inclusive cultures aligned with Hershey's DEI commitments.
Resilience and pace: tolerance for a high-tempo, peak-season-driven business (Halloween, holiday, Easter, Valentine's, summer) where execution windows are short and operational rigor is non-negotiable.

Frequently Asked Questions

What ATS does The Hershey Company use, and where do I actually apply?

Hershey uses Workday Recruiting as its applicant tracking system. All applications flow through careers.thehersheycompany.com, which redirects you into a Workday-hosted candidate site (hersheys.wd5.myworkdayjobs.com). You create one candidate profile, upload a resume that Workday parses into structured fields (experience, education, skills), and can then apply to multiple roles using that profile. Make sure every section is completed in full because recruiters and the requisition matching engine search on these structured fields, not just the resume PDF.

How long does the Hershey hiring process typically take?

For experienced corporate hires, expect 4-8 weeks from application to offer when the process moves smoothly: 1-3 weeks for screening, 2-3 weeks for interview loops (recruiter, hiring manager, cross-functional panel), and another 1-2 weeks for final case work, references, and offer. Plant and manufacturing roles can move faster (2-4 weeks) due to local hiring urgency. Internship and leadership development program (LDP) processes are longer and run on a structured campus cycle, often taking 2-4 months from application to offer with structured assessment days.

Does Hershey sponsor work visas?

Hershey does sponsor work authorization for select roles in the United States, primarily for senior, specialist, hard-to-fill, or strategic technical and R&D positions (H-1B, L-1 transfers for internal moves from international entities, and TN for eligible Canadian and Mexican candidates). Entry-level, intern, and many commercial roles are generally hired locally with existing right to work. Always confirm sponsorship eligibility with the recruiter early in the process; some postings explicitly state whether sponsorship is available.

Where are Hershey's main offices and plants, and is relocation expected?

Hershey's global headquarters are in Hershey, Pennsylvania (East Chocolate Avenue and 19 East), with major US manufacturing sites in Hershey PA, Hazleton PA, Lancaster PA (Reese plant), Stuarts Draft VA, Memphis TN, Robinson IL, and several SkinnyPop and Pretzels Inc. plants in the Midwest and South. International offices include Toronto, Mexico City, Sao Paulo, Mumbai, Shanghai, and Dubai. Most corporate roles expect a hybrid presence at HQ in central Pennsylvania, so relocation is a common topic for non-local candidates; relocation packages are typically offered for eligible roles.

What is it like to work at the Hershey, PA headquarters?

Hershey, PA is a unique company town: the headquarters, Milton Hershey School, Hersheypark, Hershey Lodge, Hershey Medical Center, and the Giant Center are all within a small radius, and the company is deeply embedded in the community. Cost of living is moderate, commutes are short by big-city standards, and there is a strong outdoor and family lifestyle. The flip side is that the area is more suburban than urban, and people moving from major metros should weight this carefully. Many employees describe the HQ culture as collegial, long-tenured, and proud of Hershey's heritage.

What kind of compensation and benefits should I expect?

Hershey offers competitive base salaries benchmarked against Mondelez, Mars, Nestle, and PepsiCo / Frito-Lay, with annual cash incentive (One Hershey Incentive Plan or equivalent) targets that scale with seniority (typically 8-15% for early career, 15-30% for managers, and meaningfully higher for directors and above). Senior roles include long-term incentive grants (RSUs and performance share units) tied to total shareholder return and EPS targets. Standard benefits include medical, dental, vision, a generous 401(k) match, parental leave, well-being programs, tuition assistance, an employee stock purchase plan, and a recognized free product allocation of Hershey, Reese's, and salty snacks brands.

What are Hershey's leadership behaviors and why do they matter for interviews?

Hershey evaluates candidates against a set of leadership competencies anchored in the company's purpose ('making more moments of goodness') and values, with consistent emphasis on delivering results, leading and developing people, driving consumer-led growth, collaborating across functions, demonstrating learning agility, and acting with integrity. Interviewers are explicitly trained to score against these behaviors, so prepare two or three STAR-format stories for each, use the language directly when answering competency questions, and connect your answers back to Hershey's brands, consumers, and community whenever credible.

Will I have to do a case study or business exercise?

Yes, for most corporate roles in commercial, marketing, finance, supply chain, analytics, and IT, a case study, presentation, or take-home exercise is part of the final round. You may receive a brand or category brief, a P&L, a pricing or promotion scenario, an innovation pipeline question, a supply or capacity problem, or a data analysis task, and be asked to present a recommendation in 30-60 minutes. R&D and technical roles may instead include a technical presentation, sensory exercise, or scientific deep-dive. Treat the case as a chance to show structured thinking and CPG judgment rather than to find the single right answer.

What are Hershey's leadership development programs (LDPs) and how competitive are they?

Hershey runs structured early-career leadership development programs across functions including Finance (FLDP), Marketing, Sales, Supply Chain (SCLDP), Information Services (ISLDP), and Human Resources, typically 2-3 years with rotational assignments, mentorship, and accelerated promotion paths. These programs target high-potential undergraduates and MBA students, recruit from a focused set of partner universities plus open online application, and are highly competitive (acceptance rates well under 5% for many programs). Internship conversion is the most reliable entry point, so target the summer internship the year before graduation.

How should I follow up after applying or interviewing?

After applying, allow 2-3 weeks before following up; you can monitor the application status directly in your Workday candidate profile under 'My Applications.' After an interview, send a concise thank-you email to the recruiter and, if appropriate, the hiring manager and panel within 24 hours, referencing one specific topic from the conversation and reinforcing fit with Hershey's purpose. Avoid repeated check-ins; Hershey recruiters move at a steady pace and will reach out as soon as a decision is made. If you are unsuccessful at a final round, you can request feedback, which is generally provided thoughtfully.

Open Positions

Hershey Company currently has 291 open positions.

Check Your Resume Before Applying → View 291 open positions at Hershey Company

How to Apply to Hershey Company

Key Takeaways

About Hershey Company

Application Process

Resume Tips for Hershey Company

Lead with measurable business impact: Hershey is a results-oriented CPG; quantif

Mirror the exact keywords from the job description into your resume; Workday par

Showcase brand, P&L, or category exposure: even partial ownership of a SKU, segm

Highlight cross-functional and matrixed work: Hershey runs a matrix between bran

For corporate technology, data, and analytics roles, lead with platforms and out

For manufacturing, supply chain, and engineering roles at Hershey plants (Hershe

Keep the resume to 1-2 pages, use a clean ATS-friendly template (no tables, no i

For early-career and intern applications (Hershey's full-time leadership develop

ATS System: Workday

Interview Culture

What Hershey Company Looks For

Frequently Asked Questions

Open Positions

Related Resources

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