Technician hiring: How to leverage job boards and other resources

Start with job boards

Let’s assume you know what you’re looking for, ranging from an apprentice technician who fits with your culture to a shop manager with a team-first mentality. One way to find that person is to go through a recruiter, but that comes with a cost. Another option is to develop programs with schools, but that is a long-term approach and doesn’t help in a pinch. But you don’t need to look further for recruitment help than beyond your own bays.

“Your best-quality candidate usually come through employee referrals,” asserted Jane Clark, SVP of operations at NationaLease.

While there is software to help shops manage their employee referrals, she added, in-person referrals tend to lead to candidates that are hired more often and stay longer.

But you can also do it yourself by posting to job boards.

For shops that take this route, there’s a wealth of different places to turn to. Your options include Indeed, LinkedIn, ZipRecruiter, WrenchWay, and countless others. Jacob Leach, a sr. mobile diesel technician with Fleet Services by Cox Automotive, said that during his job hunt, he made an account on most job boards. He found his current position with Cox through Zip Recruiter. But beyond the free plans many job boards offer (for hiring one position with a limited posting time), costs can stack up fast. Some job boards may have you pay per click and will allow you to set a budget for your spending, while others may offer a per-day or flat rate. For instance, LinkedIn provided an example of a $10 daily budget for a job post that runs for 30 days, leading to a cost that will be $300 or less. Zip Recruiter offered a similar option of paying per day or with a flat, 30-day subscription rate, with the cheapest plan starting at $299 for one position.

The job board problem

While job boards can offer shops an easy way to reach new hires, they are not without their faults, explained Christopher Lawson, founder of Technician Find, a candidate-sourcing company for shops that can help guide managers by creating job postings, geo-targeted social media ads, and social media posts. It also includes an online forum for shop owners to discuss recruiting and retention. But in launching his company, Lawson identified a flaw with recruiting technicians from job boards specifically.

“We were trying to find technicians who were out looking for work,” Lawson explained. “And what we needed to do is, instead of chasing the same technicians around job boards with all the rest of the shops, go to where the working technicians were.”

Lawson argued companies focused solely on posting on job boards will fall into a money sinkhole. If they can’t find someone quickly, they have to keep paying more for boosted or sponsored postings until they do, falling victim to the sunk-cost fallacy.

“The facts are, if a technician is good, they’re skilled, they have a good attitude, and they want to work, they’re already working,” Lawson added. This leaves shops needing to reach technicians who aren’t just pursuing job boards, but might be considering a move if the righ topportunity came along.

“You really have to think beyond the job board,” Lawson advised.

Your website and job postings

But job boards aren’t the only place a shop should be posting their open positions. Your company website landing page gives potential hires a consistent place to check for jobs if they’re interested in your shop. The trick is to make sure the listings clearly explain the role and what you’re looking for.

“We always start with the ads,” said Technician Find’s Lawson. “The ads are really important, and you have to talk about what’s important to the tech.”

For technicians that are already in a shop, Lawson noted that good ads come from the intersection of three areas: Respect, growth, and money. In talking to technicians, Lawson found that those are the main reasons they may want to leave their shop, so conversely, it can help draw them to a new location, too. These points can help guide shops when writing their job posts.

“You have to write an ad that is focused on what’s in it for them, and you have to be honest and genuine, and show what your unique benefit is,” Lawson said.

And the same criteria applies to new technicians as well as experienced ones. At WyoTech, Barlow said the school encourages its students to look for shops that offer mentorship opportunities, further education, and exposure to new tasks and equipment (growth), as well as those that emphasize collaboration and teamwork (respect).

“A healthy shop culture values respect, open communication, and shared goals that will make them feel like a part of the ‘team,’” she said.

NationaLease’s Clark also noted that it’s best to keep job postings as engaging as possible.

“Remember that job posting is an advertisement,” Clark warned. “You lose a lot of people if you [only] post the job description, because the job description, by its nature, is kind of a dry, technical document.”

Instead, consider putting what’s fun or interesting about your shop at the top of your posting, such as career advancement opportunities. Marketing departments and sales departments can help here, too, she said, because “they’re the ones out on calls, they know what sells.”

It is worth noting, Clark added, that a shop may have more success splitting up the information they post about a position between what’s on the job board and what’s on the actual application site, which can have a lot more information.

“You have a very short time to get people’s attention,” she stated, citing a LinkedIn study that showed most job postings have about 14 seconds to convince an applicant to apply. “If in [14] seconds, they’re digging through the duties and responsibilities, you’ve lost them already.”

This doesn’t mean you shouldn’t provide your applicants with information. Wrench Turner’s Taylor said that one of the “greatest things that I’ve seen from an attraction standpoint” in the industry was a document that a shop posted along with the position that provided an overview of the organization. This document included notes about the store, leadership, the geographic area, income, local demographics, and more. It even broke down the average income in the shop and how many average hours techs worked, the tools available, and how much training technicians went to.

“Without having that piece of material that’s done all of the hard work for a technician or service advisor or a salesperson, they wouldn’t know,” Taylor emphasized.

On hiring veterans

Another hiring resource that shops may overlook is the veteran community. But the men and women transitioning back to civilian life present a great opportunity with a little extra work to make sure shops understand what veterans have to offer, and visa versa.

“What would be great is to work with veterans groups as well, because a lot of veterans are coming out of the armed forces with a lot of great skills,” explained Jane Clark, SVP of operations at NationaLease. “And sometimes it’s the translation issue.”

Matt Trapp, VP of Operations, Fleet Services by Cox Automotive, said his company is working with the military on programs to help prepare veterans who are already looking to transition back to civilian life.

“We do try to look at areas where they are working with their hands and with tools in maintenance already, because they can fast-track into the organization and start from day one,” he explained. But that doesn’t always have to be the case. Trapp noted that veterans don’t have to be mechanically inclined, as long as they’re willing to learn, they can catch up in Cox’s FleeTec Academy.

For more examples, both Averitt and Ryder have worked to employ vets, capitalizing on service members’ attention to detail, timeliness, and teamwork. And many veterans already have at least some mechanical training and respond well to solid leadership.

And if a shop isn’t working with the military itself, “[in] certain communities there are a lot of veterans resources to help bridge that gap, to make sure that everyone is speaking the same language and understands the skill sets [they have and need],” Clark stated.

Shops should keep in mind that when adding a veteran to the shop, they may need a bit of extra support and flexibility, especially if they’re resettling their family or need some help getting started with tools. Some veterans may also have a difficult time readjusting to civilian life. But with open communication between the veteran and management, the camaraderie and support of a shop can be helpful, too.