The Best Ways To Hire Reliable Automotive Technicians
It goes without saying that finding automotive experts today is more challenging than ever. In addition to fewer bright-eyed technicians entering the job market in the twenty-first century, there is a talent pool that is disillusioned and jaded as a result of years of mistreatment and underappreciation. We are dealing with what is frequently referred to as the automotive mechanic shortage, as once-enjoyed workers have started to hate their careers.
However, even if it occasionally seems unattainable, finding qualified technicians isn’t hopeless. Simply knowing where to look, how to spot great talent, and, of course, how to keep them once you have them in your shop are all that are required. You’ll have a much more planned and successful approach to recruiting automotive technicians if you follow these instructions step-by-step.
Review your pay schedule
Make every effort to create a welcoming workplace before you can begin attracting qualified candidates for auto technician positions. Start by analyzing your wage structure if you want to learn how to hire qualified automotive mechanics. Nothing turns a prospect off faster than a broad sliding scale or a vast range of compensation without a specific revenue estimate. Technicians want to know how much money they can anticipate making per week, month, and year, just like any other prospective employee. It’s never a bad idea to use a consistent pay structure based on billable hours. Decide on a reasonable minimum demand, such as 40 hours in a 40-hour workweek. But you can always provide them incentives to do better, like paying them more per hour for working 45 hours in a week instead of 40.
Both flat-rate and hourly compensation have advantages and disadvantages; your decision should be based on your priorities. A flat rate structure may encourage upselling to bring in more business, but it may also cause technicians to speed through their tasks. Hourly compensation may improve work quality, but it may also reduce incentives for your technicians and demotivate your shop’s staff as a whole. Finding the best pay plan for your circumstances depends on how different pay plans perform in various circumstances. Pay plans may alter over time, which is probable and acceptable, but there should never be any doubt. And those adjustments ought to be infrequent. Consider it from their perspective: You would begin to lose faith in the company if your boss frequently changed the way you were compensated. Make every effort to provide an equitable compensation structure for all of your automotive professionals.
Make technology updates
Consider what you have to offer as you plan how to find qualified automobile specialists. Any dealership or shop will also profit from its extensive selection of modern technology. It will be much simpler to recruit qualified specialists if you have the financial means to purchase modern diagnostic and shop equipment. And this goes beyond merely providing online appointment scheduling. To hasten the repair procedure, you should spend money on updated OBD diagnostic software and connections. The essential components of various diagnostic solutions vary, but they all aid car professionals in performing their duties more quickly and effectively. It would also be a good idea to research mobile app development to provide the tech in your shop. There’s an app for that, as they say, and the vehicle repair industry is no exception. Apps can be used by technicians to obtain manufacturer reference manuals, find information about parts, and more.
For example, the vast majority of makes and models are covered by the over 60,000 OBD2 code descriptions in the AutoCodes app. To facilitate the procedure, a different program called RepairBuddy provides thorough auto-assembly diagrams on an interactive display. Additionally, it has a library of color-coded wiring schematics and a selection of video tutorials to help specialists complete challenging repairs. These technical advancements aim to improve the efficiency of every repair done that day, not simply the lives of the technicians who use them. It’s crucial to consider investing in technology as an investment in the future success of your organization because more repairs mean more money on the bottom line. It benefits both parties.
36 Resources to Aid in Locating Reputable Automotive Technicians
After making every effort to build a successful dealership, including reviewing your pay structure, updating your technical capabilities, and updating your technological offerings, you may begin hiring top-notch automotive mechanics. You can use a ton of resources for your recruiting quest, both offline and online. It can be challenging to check every item off your list, but it would be a good idea to complete as many of them as you can.
Jobs Page on a website
It’s imperative to begin the process of hiring an automotive mechanic by posting your tech job postings in the “About Us” or “Careers” section of your company website. Make a top-notch job description and put it here. Make it thorough and engaging, emphasizing everything that makes your dealership unique. Later on, you can adapt this description for career websites. The fact that these listings are very simple to find is what matters most. Make sure your website is organized so that technicians looking for possibilities can locate this part easily. The Google for Jobs algorithm, a key element in the visibility of your tech hiring ad, depends on having these job postings on your website.
Jobs on Google
The majority of individuals have probably come across Google for Jobs without even recognizing it. A potential technician can use the search term “automotive technician jobs in Chicago” to look for employment. This query activates Google for Jobs, which generates the native Google widget that can be seen below:
The user is brought to Google for Jobs when they click “100+ more jobs,” which is located at the bottom of the preview window. This application gathers job postings from well-known employment boards like Indeed and Linkedin. Posting your position on as many websites as you can will help you make the most of this Google integration. The technician hiring ad on your website will be the sole source of information for each of those particular posts. You’ll see that when you click on one of these specific job listings in Google for Jobs, Google still tells job seekers to apply on websites like Glassdoor and ZipRecruiter. But in this case, it’s crucial to consider the user experience. You want to make your postings as accessible as you can since technicians will search Google first. The task of putting out each of these individual postings to your prospects is handled by Google for Jobs. Think of them the items at a restaurant.
Regular Job Boards
As was already said, there are several websites available for advertising jobs that you can utilize to advertise your hiring. Utilize the variety of alternatives available by posting jobs on any of these websites, which all make the process pretty simple. If you don’t already have a profile, you’ll need to create one on each website. After that, creating the job posting itself should be easy. The job description you used for your internet advertisement can be reused.
Here are several places to check out for jobs:
Craigslist
ZipRecruiter
Indeed
Monster
Glassdoor
Wellfound
SimplyHired
Jora
CareerBuilder
Jobs in the Automotive Industry
Additionally, you should advertise employment openings on all the automotive-specific job websites you can discover. Going directly to the source is quite advantageous, even though generic employment sites are crucial. Examining the various job listings on these websites will show you that they are more thorough and industry-specific. Feel free to modify the job description to reflect this type of experience, adding extra information as necessary.
The following list of 10 job boards focuses on the automotive sector
Vehicle News: www.autonews.com
Mechanic: autotechnician.org/classifieds
Automotive Jobs: AUTOjobs.com
the website technicianandmechanicjobs.com
Jobs in Auto Repair: AutoServiceJobs.com
Job Central for Vehicles: www.jobcentral.com
Tech support: NeedTechs.com
Fleet Employment: FleetJobs
Automotive: www.autocare.org/jobs
Careers at the Automotive Service Association: asashop.org
Although some websites may produce fewer results than some of the most well-known job boards, they offer a far more focused, targeted approach. Reaching out to both narrow and large employment boards gives you a multifaceted approach and opens up as many opportunities as you can.
Pages on social media
Social networking is a useful resource that you should always use. Despite the fact that these websites weren’t created expressly for job advertising, numerous companies nevertheless utilize them to advertise job openings. Especially to tap into their personal networks as resources, service managers, fixed ops directors, and general managers routinely post employment opportunities on LinkedIn. Your reach will increase even if you simply share your job postings on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Instagram. You may easily create hiring ads in video form on video-sharing websites like YouTube and TikTok to promote your enterprise and announce your need for assistance. Additionally, you may locate particular threads and groups devoted to automotive jobs on message board communities like Reddit and Discord. The Reddit communities r/MechanicAdvice, r/Automotive, and r/AutomotiveLearning have several worthwhile threads.
Here are 8 message boards and social media sites where you might want to consider posting job openings:
YouTube
TikTok
Discord
Additionally, you want to confirm that your dealership has a Facebook Business account set up. Instead of just reposting posts from other websites, you may natively publish job vacancies on Facebook if you have a business account. The “Jobs” section can be found by selecting the “More” option from the drop-down navigation bar. Then you can select “Create a Job” to create your hiring advertisement by hand. This advertisement would only be seen to prospects that visited your company’s profile directly, yet it still broadens your audience. Always, more candidates equate to greater visibility.
Google Ads and social media
You can use a paid promotion on Facebook, Linkedin, and Google in addition to organic social promotion to bring job opportunities to your attention. It can be difficult to get a handle on how to use these digital adverts at first, but just like anything else, it becomes simpler with experience. To identify various types of candidates, you can experiment with the targeting of the adverts. There are many different targeting criteria that can be changed to produce various outcomes. You can target people based on their demographics, income level, geography, hobbies, jobs, and behaviors. Additionally, you can directly target advertisements to users of your website or social media platforms. You can set up that specific type of retargeting to operate automatically. As a result, whenever someone visits your website, they will then be offered an advertisement for whatever it is that you are marketing. Additionally, you can develop what is known as “lookalike audiences.” These are audiences that don’t follow your company but have a lot of the same interests as the followers. How much time you invest in learning about digital advertising will determine how successful you are. You’ll discover what works best as you test out additional targeted variants.
Groups on Facebook and LinkedIn
Facebook and LinkedIn Groups are another resource that has been relatively overlooked. Online, there are countless Facebook and LinkedIn groups all devoted to particular topics. Service managers, service advisers, shop managers, and even technicians all have their own groups. Make every effort to join these organizations and look for talent. While some groups may allow job listings, others might want you to conduct all business promotions through direct messages. In any case, using this technique will help you keep your ears to the ground. Facebook offers back-and-forth conversations with employment possibilities, which may be a very useful tool in contrast to more conventional job search platforms.
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