I was the Campus Activation Specialist for Labatt, and was recruited for the ABInBev’s talent program straight out of McGill, so I have insider info here.
We’re taught at AB InBev, the most valuable age demographic for the beer industry is LDA (legal drinking age) to 25 years old. That’s when people decide what beer they are likely to default to for the rest of their life. So it’s an enormous priority for alcohol companies to know how to connect with this young demographic.
Alcohol companies are smart enough to know that their 33 year old brand managers are not in tune with what the college kids are finding cool these days, and that a 50 year old sales rep might not be someone the fraternity bros want to negotiate with, so they rely on having young, reliable staff to connect with the young target demo.
In Canada the drinking age is 19 (18 in some areas), which means the alcohol companies can legally activate around college campuses, and that they can have college kids working for them as their college job. Tons of young Canadians work as bartenders. Not to mention the 10,000 hours of drinking a Canadian college kid will organically have under their belt when they graduate.
By the time a Canadian student graduates university at 21ish years old, they might have had 3-4 years of experience working professionally in the alcohol industry. Their American counterparts, at the exact same 21 years old, wouldn’t have legally even been able to step foot in a bar.
When you compare CVs it’s clear as day why North America recruits out of Canadian universities. Canadians have a 3-4 years of alcohol experience over the Americans of the same age. The industry needs to place these new grads in important roles right away to win with LDA-25, so they don’t have time to wait for the Americans to get experience.