Sick of bad interviews with candidates who aren’t the right fit for your shop? The problem may not be a lack of talent, but how you’re going about finding new hires.
While there are some great finds right out of school, the reality is that most of the best candidates are working for your competition. The question is, how can you get them to want to work for you?
“Most people aren’t looking for a job, they’re dealing with the job that they have,” Shawn Gilfillan, owner of the two-location Magic Lube & Rubber in New Jersey, says.
Knowing this, Gilfillan knew he needed to find a way to get these candidates out of their comfort zone to look at his shop. How? Reinventing his job postings.
Backstory:
Gilfillan has been in the industry since he left high school and worked for franchise and private shops before deciding he no longer wanted to answer to anyone else. He opened his own shop in 2003 when he was 27 years old.
“I was sick of people who didn’t value me as a tech,” Gilfillan says.
Gilfillan recalls a time when he was told to work slower because he was making the rest of the team “look bad.” He knew he did not want to run his shop or his team like this. At Magic Lube & Rubber, everyone gets a chunk of the profit and everyone has access to the financials.
“I want them all to be mini business owners,” Gilfillan says. “That’s what we want, someone that wants to own their own business and is winning at the game.”
Gilfillan has created a culture of success at his shop, but it didn’t happen overnight and it definitely didn’t happen by hiring just to fill a position.
Problem:
Up until a few years ago, Gilfillan was writing the typical job post—what he was looking for in a tech. He was able to find quality employees but the hiring process wasn’t ideal.
“The people we called in, it wasn’t always a good fit,” Gilfillan says.
He realized that if he wanted to improve the hiring process and create the culture he had always dreamed of, he was going to have to change how he was communicating in order to attract his ideal candidates.
Solution:
Gilfillan realized he needed to start communicating exactly what he was looking for in a candidate in order to weed through people that just wouldn’t be a good fit. Roughly three years ago, he enlisted the help of Chris Lawson from Technician Find to help overhaul his job postings. With Lawson’s help, Gilfillan realized he needed to make the position he was hiring for—not his shop—the hero of the ad.
“People want to know what they’re going to get out of it,” Gilfillan says. “Good people are already working so they have to be sold on coming to you. A lot of people we want are at shops and not that happy. When they see an opportunity that seems more fun, they’ll give you a call.”
What exactly does making the technician or service advisor the hero of the story look like? Instead of a long list of requirements for applying and why your shop is so great, write down exactly the type of person you’re looking for and what they’ll get out of coming to work for you. Gilfillan prides his business on its culture, so he really hypes that up in his ads. He hates the idea of “work” and wants the people that come to his business to apply to really enjoy what they’re doing. In his job postings, Gilfillan lists the benefits that the employee will receive, such as health benefits and a 5-day work week, and photos of the up-to-date equipment that the shop uses.
Aftermath:
While switching over to this type of job posting, Gilfillan was opening his second location. These new job ads allowed him to staff that entire location with five people and he found three others to work as his original location. All eight are still with him today.
Takeaway:
For those out there that are still doing the same exact type of job posting they’ve always done, Gilfillan wants them to take a step back and ask if it’s really working. Are they getting the type of candidates that they want?
“If you’ve been doing the same thing over and over and getting results that you’re not happy with, it’s the definition of insanity. If it’s not working for you, you have to try something new.”
The key, Gilfillan explains, is knowing exactly the type of person you want and clearly communicating that within your job posting and selling them on why they should want to work for you.
