RECRUITING TECHNICIANS FOR THE MOTOR TRADE
To say a technician is a key worker
in a motor dealership is
the understatement of the year.
The aftermarket represents a large
chunk of a dealership’s
profit so it’s worth remembering that without a technician a service
department
can grind to a halt pretty damn quick!
So why are they so obviously undervalued by dealers?
To start with,
taking into account the amount of training
they need to have, not to mention specific industry knowledge, and how
many
years it takes
before the average school
leaver can be trusted to lay hands on a customer’s much loved Mercedes,
you
would think that that level of trust and expertise would be reflected
in a
Technician’s salary – but it isn’t.
Since the
financial crash Technicians’ salaries have seen a
massive backslide – in line with all salaries in what has been - in the
early
days at least - a hard hit industry.
But
following the return to growth and higher levels of employment, their
salaries
have seen a steady increase – in line with the growing shortage of
available
qualified candidates. It’s
quite common
to find that many of the calls we make to source technicians are
fruitless
because the technician has moved out of the industry for a more
lucrative role
elsewhere. And all
that expensive
training and specialist talent is wasted.
So what can be
done?
We get many, many urgent requests from clients to source
candidates for
them. But what we
don’t get are requests
for our advice at the start of the sourcing process which for us is
time
consuming and for the client is frustrating and more often than not
disappointing. Bearing
in mind that we
are best placed to advise on salary levels for the industry, the client
rarely
asks for our view before they start to recruit.
Often the salary level is pitched so low that we know at
the outset that
the role will be impossible to fill at the levels advertised and that
compromise will be necessary. Either
you
pay more in salary or lower expectations of experience!
On a recent
assignment we got an excellent candidate (let’s
call him John Jones) right up to job offer stage only to see it all
fall apart
when the client decided to offer the candidate the same salary as he
currently
earned in his existing job. Which
represented £6k less than the job had originally been advertised at and
the
candidate briefed on! Needless
to say
John Jones was hacked off. The
reason he
has been looking for a change was because his employer was taking
advantage of
him and the last thing he was looking to do was jump out of the frying
pan into
the fire! The
first person to feel his
pain was the Agency – that’s us! We
had
told him that the salary was higher – who was to blame?
We have seen
this scenario played out on numerous occasions
and it usually goes one way. The
candidate has lost trust in the new employer and decides to stay where
he
is. He’s also lost
trust in us - and he
shows that by not returning our calls!
Deadlock!
To add insult
to industry, if we try to rectify the
situation by suggesting an increase in the salary offered – we are
accused of
‘talking the salary up’.
Neither side wins in these situations. In fact it can become
something of an “own
goal” as the candidate will often defect to the local competition!
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