Rural Roots, Real Careers with Tractor Supply Company
Melissa Kersey on rural careers, curiosity and the jobs students do not know exist
When students hear "Tractor Supply," most of them picture one job. Melissa Kersey, Executive Vice President and Chief Human Resources Officer at Tractor Supply Company, spends a good part of this episode widening that frame.
Tractor Supply is headquartered in Tennessee and operates roughly 97 stores across the state. Behind those stores is a company that employs merchandisers, marketers, cybersecurity analysts, supply chain leaders, media teams, pharmacists and, through its VIP Petcare acquisition, veterinarians. "We have almost any job you could imagine," Melissa told hosts Ben Sterling and Graham Thomas. The paths into those jobs are wider than students expect. Tractor Supply hires about 100 interns a year across distribution centers and its Nashville store support center, runs co-op programs in engineering and IT that earn college credit and keeps a team focused entirely on college recruiting. That team visits community colleges such as Columbia State alongside larger campuses.
Melissa’s own path started as an hourly team member at 14 and moved through Target, Alltel, Walmart and McDonald’s before she joined Tractor Supply in 2020. Her advice to students reflects that route: do not pigeonhole yourself, and do not assume a career moves in a straight line.
"I would not worry about how you get into Tractor," she said. "I would more worry about getting in, and then we can help grow your career."
She named the skills she watches for now, and none of them are job titles: relentless curiosity, comfort with AI, sound judgment, strong communication, emotional intelligence, humility, problem solving and resilience. Public speaking came up more than once, which is familiar ground at tnAchieves, where every new team member goes through a public speaking series each fall.
Education is part of the equation, though not a requirement. A team member can run a store or lead store operations at Tractor Supply without a degree. For team members who do want to keep learning, the company recently opened up its tuition assistance so that part-time and full-time team members can pursue degrees and trade certifications that are not tied to their current role. "We do not ever want that to be a barrier for our team members," Melissa said, adding that the company is comfortable with that investment even when a team member eventually moves on. Stronger team members build stronger communities, and Tractor Supply builds its business around them.
That community investment is not abstract. Every store manager is given funds to support the place where they live, and the company backs 4-H, FFA, county fairs and rodeos because those institutions belong to its customers. tnAchieves serves roughly 90,000 students across 67 counties, and many of them live in the rural communities where a Tractor Supply store anchors the local economy. Asked what organizations like tnAchieves and employers like Tractor Supply owe students, Melissa started with trust and shared responsibility. "Everybody that is in a job today or in a career today needs to understand part of their responsibility is giving back," she said. "The colleges cannot do everything."