Automotive Recruitment: n.The process of attracting, screening, selecting and training qualified people to work in an automotive dealership.

I started off with the definition of automotive recruitment because I thought it important to point out the four parts of any successful recruiting campaign, and they are:

1. Attracting the right people
2. Screening for top talent
3. Selecting the right people, and
4. Training for optimal performance.

In this post I will be sharing with you an exact blueprint for automotive recruitment success, in fact it's the same process that we use here at AutoMax Recruiting and Training, at dealerships all across the country, if you'd like to hire us to do the recruiting for you, you can contact us HERE. If you'd like to go it alone, just keep reading!

Attracting The Right People

Finding people to apply for a position at your dealership might sound easy, but if you're looking to attract more than just the people LOOKING for a job, you need to have a plan in place! Most dealerships, while trying to recruit people, post in two different places, the help wanted section of the local paper and on Craigslist. While the latter will give you a plethora of applicants the quality can be questionable, the former can be hit or miss.

What's the solution? It comes in two parts actually, the first part being reach. That's right, you want as many people as possible to see your automotive recruitment ad which means you need to post it on as as many different job boards as humanly possible. At AutoMax Recruiting And Training we use well over a hundred, as well as our own internal, SEO driven job board. We use Career Builder, Monster Jobs, Indeed, Craigslist, Simply Hired, and Jobster, just to name a few. We even use Twitter, Facebook, Google + and LinkedIn, again, just to name a few. The idea is to be everywhere because you want as many different people as possible to see which positions you are hiring for.

Now for the second part, and this is where the real art of placing an ad for your automotive recruitment campaign comes in and that is having the right copy! Copywriters us an acronym called AIDA, which stands for:

• Attention
• Interest
• Desire
• Action

The first part, attention, is all about writing a headline that will draw people in. A headline that will make somebody stop browsing and click on the ad to read more. Here are some examples:

• Looking For A New Career? Love To learn? Then We'll Love Filling Up Your Bank Account!
• Like Having Fun? Like Working With People? Do You Like Money? This Is The One!
• Tired Of Finding All The Wrong Jobs In All The Wrong Places?
• Does Your Old Job Have You Down In The Dumps? It's Time For A Change, It's Time To Make A Real Living!
• Can't We All Just Make A Living Doing What We Love? Everybody That Works Here Does!

While some of those may or may not be to your fancy I hope you get the point... GET THEIR ATTENTION!

The second part is interest, now that you have their attention it's very important that you get them interested in what you have to say. You do this by not sounding like every other automotive recruitment ad out there, it's important that you are both different and interesting.

Now that you are building interest you have to make them desire the position by telling them how it will fix a problem their having. Then, end with a strong call to action, which, of course, is to apply for the position. If you do all four of those things you are well you way to attracting the right kind of people.

A few more things to ponder:

• Be straight forward and to the point. Don't worry about telling them everything there is to know about the job, this leads to information overload and you miss out on one the biggest motivational forces known to man... curiosity!
• Write for a 5th grader. Use simple sentences.
• Use white space, that is, write using small paragraphs and bullet points whenever possible. Big blocks of text are boring.

Screening For Top Talent

Always invite everybody in for an interview, it's hard to get an idea of who the person is behind the resume without being belly to belly. This is a very important part of the automotive recruitment campaign because it allows you to get to know the prospective employee before you hire them. Sounds straight forward doesn't it, did that last sentence make you go duh!? I said it because I've been on enough interviews, while training, to see that most interviewers only interview because they feel obligated, not because they see it as a necessity. The interview process allows you the opportunity to dig in and find the level of aptitude you're looking for. Here are some questions to ask:

• Why are you looking for a career change? Money, is hardly ever the right answer, there are better motivators out there.
• What was your biggest success in your last job? This question will give you some amazing insight into what they feel is important.
• What was your biggest failure? Asking the inverse of questions you already ask will help you to dig deeper into the psyche of your would be employee.
• What would you consider your weaknesses to be?
• Your Strengths?
• How would your best friend describe you?
• What about your worst enemy?
• What do you do when your stressed out?
• How do you deal with conflict?
• How do you feel when somebody tells you no?

I know that some of these questions may seem a little odd but they are questions that require both thought and consideration and will go a long way to helping you figure out what makes the interviewee tick.

Screening

At AutoMax Recruiting And Training we use a video based screening tool called the Car Sales Simulator, and instead of going into great lengths about it, you can learn more about The Car Sales Simulator and how we use it during our automotive recruitment campaigns by checking it out here.

Selecting And Training

Now that you have attracted the right people, interviewed the right people and screened for top talent, it's time to make the selection process. Of course there is no way of telling you who to select at this point, because you are the one who attracted, interviewed and screened them but I will say this. Go with your gut! Also, remember that just because somebody interviews well doesn't mean they will perform the job well, so being thorough will make your selection process much, MUCH easier.

Warning: Never ever hire somebody without training them, even if they have previous experience. You do things differently than the last place and it's during training that you set expectations. It's during training where you set both your new hire and yourself up for success. Most people will say that the automotive recruitment process ends at hiring, but I feel that automotive training should be an integral part of your recruitment process because without it, your destined for failure!