5 Ways to Hire Successfully for Your Car Dealership

In order to conquer your market, a lot has to happen — things like setting sales goals, advertising, understanding your customers, keeping them loyal, and knowing your makes and models inside and out, just to name a few. But it all starts with people. Your dealership team puts theory into action. That’s why your success starts with a reliable selection process and a solid pre-employment assessment strategy using tools like behavioral assessments, sales assessments, and cognitive ability tests.

Do you know how to select the right people?

Even the most brilliant auto dealership leaders may be unprepared to tackle the important (but certainly arduous) business of hiring. Those who manage small offices may have been lucky enough to know and trust the people they hire, like relatives, friends, or individuals from inside their own circle of influence. It’s always easier working with known quantities.

However, as dealerships grow, leaders are sure to run out of family members, acquaintances, and employee referrals when looking to fill open positions. When the inevitable occurs, small dealership managers will be dependent on a strange, often intimidating unknown for their staffing source: the outside world! When working with the unknown, it’s best to take precautions before hiring and use as many tools as possible to gather information. Gut feelings can play a small part but should never be the only tool used to select people; too many things can cloud our judgement, and some candidates are very good at hiding their faults.

The Turnover Myth

In larger dealerships, HR’s primary objective may be to find somebody – anybody – to quickly fill an open position. A common myth often accepted as an absolute fact is that frequent employee turnover is normal and unavoidable, so it almost doesn’t matter who is hired since the employee won’t stay long anyway. Unfortunately, such a misguided theory fans the flames of inefficiency and expense, compounding the already frustrating everyday problems major dealerships face.

Formal, but not Bureaucratic

Managers of larger dealerships might think a more formalized hiring system is unnecessary. Too many corporate layers yield complex problems, while the usual time-driven emergencies within a dealership can get in the way of following the system perfectly. As a result, stringent hiring practices can seem impractical or too time consuming. And there is certainly some truth to that; stringency can be as problematic as no system at all.

A formal process is necessary, but you need one that works for your culture and is not encumbered by bureaucratic layers that unnecessarily complicate the process. It’s important to find a workable balance between unstructured and chaotic and overly bureaucratic. Extremes never work; looking for the middle ground will go a long way toward avoiding problems.

Leading a team of trustworthy, capable, long-term, and well-suited A-players should always be the goal regardless of how many employees any manager oversees. Never settle if you can help it. List your needs and some reasons for those needs. This will help you set priorities and see your expectations, strengths, and weaknesses in a more real, practical way. Think about the specifics of your work environment and company culture.

Is your dealership fast paced, even hectic? If so, you have good reason to avoid hiring people who tell you they hate being rushed and do not work well under pressure. That might even be disguised as words like “patient” and “systematic.” While such persistence and diligence are admirable qualities, they could be liabilities in a busy, highly charged atmosphere. Of course, certain roles might need that methodical approach, so it’s important to think about all factors, like the dealership culture, the department’s culture, and the demands of the job itself.

Also, make sure you stay up to date on the latest hiring trends to stay competitive in the job market.

When you are ready to start looking for your next superstar employee, consider these 5 tips:

CREATE A JOB POST THAT WILL ATTRACT QUALIFIED TALENT
Your job post is your first impression, and it’s also the best way to quickly weed out people who are not the right fit. First, make sure your job post shows who you are as an employer and company. Highlight your brand. More and more, employees want to work for a company that aligns with their personalities. If your dealership culture is fun and playful, make sure your post is fun and playful too. Don’t be afraid to use humor in your post. But if your culture is serious and formal, be serious and formal. Staying true to who you are will help you attract like-minded people, and like-minded people are more likely to stay.

It’s also important to be clear about exactly what the job is and what type of person is best suited to it. All too often we hear how candidates felt misled about the role. Your biggest employee retention tool during the selection process is honesty. Don’t be afraid to scare off people. The right candidates will want to apply, but if you don’t, the wrong candidates might get hired and feel resentful of the “deception” and leave or do the bare minimum. Scaring off the wrong type is best for your retention efforts in the long run.

Once you’ve posted your job and gotten responses from candidates, start weeding out the ones who clearly do not align with your needs. Whittle down your candidates to a number that seems reasonable to you, but keep in mind that, as you dig deeper into each person’s background, you may uncover more than just a few unpleasant surprises. Research shows that 30 to 40 percent of applications and resumes include some false or inflated facts!
TEST FOR THE SKILLS YOU NEED FROM DAY ONE
It’s a good idea to make sure any potential new employee actually has the skills needed to perform well for you. This can be done by administering proficiency tests that are job appropriate and designed to demonstrate abilities. It might be computer proficiency, accounting skills, cognitive ability, or a service technician test. Don’t assume that the person interviewing for your bookkeeping position knows the difference between debits and credits. Sometimes, people who say they know how to do something just want to get their foot in the door and, hopefully, learn along the way.
USE A BEHAVIORAL ASSESSMENT FOR VALUABLE INSIGHT
A pre-employment personality assessment will help you look even closer at a candidate’s potential with the job and even the team. If you’re looking to retain strong, productive employees, make sure the people you hire are a match to the job target you have in mind. Omnia helps to set the “job personality” so you can see how a candidate’s traits align with the best traits for the job.

The best part is that a behavioral assessment is not a pass-or-fail test. The Omnia behavioral assessment uses the candidate’s responses to a simple online checklist. It’s a quick yet powerful tool that provides extensive insight into a person’s strengths, weaknesses, fit to the job, and personal motivators.

Within a dealership environment, sales hiring is often a major pain point. A personality assessment is also a sales hiring assessment. Why? Because our assessment’s assertiveness trait is strongly correlated to sales performance. Naturally assertive people are stronger closers.
DO A BACKGROUND CHECK
Perform a background check to protect yourself and your team. Incidents of violence and crime in the workplace are, unfortunately, not uncommon. Make sure there are no issues from a candidate’s past that make you uncomfortable. “Negligent hiring” is a term commonly used in today’s business world and can be alleged if an employer fails to exercise reasonable caution when choosing an employee. Employers could be held financially and legally liable for illegal or violent action taken by employees not subjected to reasonable pre-employment screening.
ASSESS YOUR OWN PERSONAL LEADERSHIP STYLE
Think about your own management style and encourage all department heads to do the same. To motivate and inspire others, it helps to understand yourself.

Is your ideal employee one who consistently asks for your guidance or one who makes their own decisions? Do you tend to micromanage processes, or do you expect your team to figure it out for themselves?

While it might sound nice to simply surround yourself with people who mesh with your own work approach, that’s not always realistic or even wise since different roles require different traits. Knowing how to adjust your approach to meet the needs of your employees is one of the strongest employee retention tools you can use.

It’s absolutely possible to hire and lead a productive, cohesive, and dedicated team, but first you need to know what you want and seek out employees who can live up to that. Never settle. Demonstrate your excellence as a decision-maker and take your management skills to new levels by employing people who exceed your expectations.