Part 1 of 4

By leveraging the estimated recruiting needs by your total number of dealerships you can substantially reduce the cost that each dealership pays for recruitment advertising while simultaneously increasing each dealership’s profitability.

Three of the primary benefits each dealership will gain are as follows:

1. Bulk Rate Discounts
2. Process Continuity
3. New Talent Infusion

1. Bulk Rate Discounts - Anticipated usage creates measurability which allows you to predict and pre-negotiate a platform wide “high volume recruitment advertising” discount. This will prevent dealerships from paying “open rate” for recruitment advertising.  In addition, the process is governable at the dealership level.  Each dealership can be responsible for its own usage and pay for recruitment advertising on “as needed” basis. As recruiting needs fluctuate, (individual dealership or the entire platform) the expense per service stays the same. That is to say (whether a dealership uses one or twenty job postings per month) the price per posting does not fluctuate based on the dealer’s usage.

2. Process Continuity - By introducing a program that has process continuity you can streamline a recruiting initiative that will enable you to make instantaneous adjustments, changes, additions, or deletions to any program(s) as market shifts and trend changes occur. This will also protect the entire platform from over estimated recruitment advertising contracts which often times create wasted product. (i.e. use them or lose them job postings and resume user licenses)

Process continuity also eliminates inefficiencies, inconsistencies, and liabilities.  All three of these lead to one important fact: Wasted revenues.

I.  Inefficiencies - Due to the advent of the internet and advancements in technology, the job market, the way job seekers search for jobs, and the way employers contact and effectively process and onboard applicants is evolving in an ever changing landscape.

This is not to say that dealers can’t self sustain with recruiting. The question is at what level of inefficiency are they operating? How can they be freed up to be more profitable and successfully sell more vehicles?

II. Inconsistencies - Often times when recruiting is required, upper management defers the task to department heads, or middle management.  In most cases they do not have the expertise to understand or navigate the shifting recruitment landscape, have the ability, or the time to write the ads, post the ads, edit, proof, or otherwise maximize the Rate of Attraction (ROA) on the ads. All this translates into an inconsistent “recruiting message” and turns recruiting initiatives into a “hit or miss” experiment. It convolutes the dealership’s community message and can often times identify the store as “broken”.

III. Liabilities - It’s not WHAT you say, but HOW you say it!” A new breed of job seeker is cropping up across the country:  They acquire the services of “contingency attorneys” and sue businesses who are advertising that they are hiring. They seek out ads which show signs indicating that the person at the business who wrote the ad may be naïve, or careless in his/her terminology.  They schedule an interview; draw the inexperienced or uneducated manager into an argument and an out of court settlement is imminent.  In addition, there are those who can simply misrepresent their dealership by desperate advertising tactics and create direct liabilities regarding sign on bonuses, pay plan promises, etc…

3. The “New Talent Factor” - One of the major benefits of establishing a well rounded recruiting initiative is what is known as the “new talent factor”. TK Worldwide’s recruiting methods attract a very large portion of talent from outside the automotive industry.

Example: Applicant (Lipton Toyota Finance Manager: BA in Finance, worked for a bank in the sales department for 3 years, lost his job due to downsizing. Get’s contacted by TK Worldwide, Inc. indoctrinated into Lipton Toyota to sell cars. Six months later is promoted to Finance Manager. – This happens all the time.

By drawing high level producers out of other industries and into the automotive industry we increase the quality of our employment pool.  Reducing retread effects stimulates productivity, motivation and efficiency levels.

How?

To successfully assimilate your dealer base and to seamlessly integrate a recruiting process two things must happen:

1. You must have “dealership friendly” and “solution based” recruiting options so that dealership management can clearly recognize which options best fit their current hiring needs.
2. Dealership management must be able to easily access the “system” and quickly familiarize them selves with any process. They must also be able to seamlessly integrate recruiting into their already hectic daily schedules.

1.  There are three “dealership friendly” and “solution based” recruiting options each dealership must have in order to ensure that all of the dealership’s recruiting needs are met.

I.  Recruitment Advertising Only - Some will only require that we write the ads, post them, and then let the dealership’s hiring personnel do the rest. This service is for any position in the dealership. Dealership management will have full access

to all applicants who have applied to work for the dealership and can do with each resume as they see fit.

II.  Recruitment Advertising - Screening - Appointment Setting – (AKA Sorting and Setting) Some will want to simply “place staffing orders” and have the “screened applicants” show up at the dealership at a pre-determined date/time ready for a face to face interview with dealership management. This is for any position in the store. This option is the most popular. Some interchangeable features, apply based on the dealership’s individual preferences.

Sorting - Dealership management will have full access to all applicants who have applied to work for the dealership; however the applicants will be sorted into separate folders for easy viewing based on the applicant’s qualifications.  In many cases there are hundreds of resumes to sort for each position the dealership is advertising for. This process will substantially reduce sorting times for the managers and increase their productivity time at the dealership. Sorting resumes can very quickly become a full-time job at any dealership and for the most part is a complete waste of management’s time. In most cases, by the time a manager finds a suitable applicant and adds to it the timeframe of on boarding the window for their availability is closed. (Time is of the essence with high quality candidates) 5 minute touch!

Setting – Dealership management can completely outsource the sorting and setting of appointments.  Dealership management can plan applicant interviews around their schedule at the dealership.  By designating days and times for applicants to arrive at the dealership managers can tend to their core responsibilities more efficiently and effectively. They would simply designate to TK Worldwide the type of candidate they are looking for, the day and time the candidate is to show up at the dealership and what they need to bring with them. The applicant is sorted, screened, and informed about the interview by TK Worldwide. For example, when an applicant applying for a “sales position” arrives at the dealership for their scheduled interview they have their resume in one

hand, their driver’s license in the other, are prepared to take a drug test, and understand that this is a commission based pay plan.

III. Full Recruiting Program - When dealers want or need to be “hands off” and have everything done for them this program is turnkey.  This is a full service recruiting program where an on-site recruiter/facilitator arrives and is there to handle the face to face screening, dealership specific training, and the HR on-boarding process is required. This type of recruiting generally occurs when staffing for multiple sales positions of 4 to 15 salespeople at one time and sometimes for service writer positions.

Please feel free to share this as it applies to all dealership groups and distributorships.

Author: Kevin Bradberry (President/CEO)

TK Worldwide, Inc.

http://tkworldwide.com

©TK Worldwide, Inc. All Rights Reserved 888-350-3310 kbradberry@tkworldwide.com