By Ryan Kohler, CEO, DealerHiring (powered by ApplicantPro)

It’s no secret that auto dealers all across America struggle to attract, engage, hire, and retain the staff they need to move business forward and achieve their goals. Constant turnover, unpredictable sales trends, and fear of underwhelming CSI scores are among the many hiring challenges dealerships face every day. Not having the right people on board is holding back business and could be damaging the organization as a whole.

The Bad News: Broken Hiring = Broken Dealerships

Now, take a moment and think about the employees at an automotive dealership. There’s probably a handful of star team members that continually keep things running smoothly. But without them, would the dealership be in the same position? Doubtful. Without a strong sales team, they no longer have the quantity or quality of people to move the inventory on their lots and unsold cars continue languishing on lots. Without enough well-trained service techs and advisors, dealers lose out on ROs and can’t deliver that end of the promise to their customers. CSI scores fall by the wayside as the lack of staff cause so much struggle that it becomes hard to deliver a quality sales or service experience at all. In the end, a lack of consistent quality talent means a poorly-managed dealership, lost revenue, stagnant inventory, and worse.

The Good News: You Can Fix It

The bad news is that there are very few people trying to solve this challenge. Dealers are sitting in their lots waiting for the right candidates to come along, maintaining the status quo, and even replicating their competitor’s hiring processes that frankly aren’t any better. As in life, no one gets ahead by repeating the same actions and crossing their fingers for better results. Improvement requires thinking outside the box. Do something different. Get ahead of the competition by implementing a strategy that will produce high-quality staff.

Recognize That Hiring is Marketing

The main goals of any automotive dealership are to move inventory, care for customers, and build a reputable brand, but everyone knows that revenue drives everything. Dealerships need a team that can deliver on all of these goals, plus some. To attract, engage, hire, and retain these players, dealers need to think about hiring like marketers. Hiring is marketing – just as dealers spend time, money, and resources to market their cars, they need to make an equal effort when marketing their job openings. If dealers can implement an approach to hiring that’s completely different than what everyone else is doing, it will put them a step above. After all, this is how one wins any competition — standing out by doing something different.

With a clear marketing mindset, dealers can create a process that drives constant quality applicants to their door. There are three main ways to approach this hiring strategy.

Step 1: Sell the Job Like it’s a Car

First, sell the organization by creating an exciting job ad that will make people want to apply. There’s nothing worse than reading through job ads that list bullet upon bullet of experience requirements and legalese. Drop all of that and concentrate on why someone should want to work at the organization. Write a job ad like you’d write a car ad. Always include benefits, perks (especially unique perks because standing out is the goal), and the position’s pay in the job ad to better segment and target job seekers. What makes the dealership better than the one across the street? Talk about that!

Step 2: Remove the Roadblocks

Next, reduce any friction applicants may experience between the time they become engaged with the organization to the second they are hired. Just as car salespeople work to make purchasing a car as pain-free, quick, and easy for the customer as possible, work to make the hiring process just as easy. Eliminate hurdles and steps in the process that may be causing applicant fallout. Applications with endless pages of questions are NOT doing anyone any favors. Re-examine the application process and get rid of anything unnecessary to get them through faster. Bing, bang, boom, we’ll be in touch soon.

Step 3: Quality > Quantity. All day, every day

Finally, understand that quality matters more than quantity. Focus on the sources of applicants that will deliver high-quality people to the organization. And here’s the kicker — it’s not just job boards driving people to apply. While companies certainly should maximize applicants from posting to job boards, the data is clear: the best source of hires is actually referrals.

Applicants that are referred by current employees are hired MUCH more often than random applicants from Indeed, CareerBuilder, etc., so think about the people who already know the dealership, employees who already love their job, people walking the lot, and even beloved and loyal customers. All of these people are potentially looking for a job opportunity and may want to work at the organization. Simply put, referrals are the single best source of applicants who actually get hired, and a great referral program will get you better results than even the best job boards.

Now, Move Hiring into a Higher Gear

Implementing these three steps are practically guaranteed to bring the talent you need to get ahead of the competition, attract high-quality applicants, move business forward, and smash Sales, Service, F&I and other goals.

Optimize your hiring approach by leaving behind old practices and adopting a marketing mindset, creating job ads that get applicants excited about the opportunity, eliminating friction in the hiring process, and relying on proven applicant sources. Remember: a dealership’s human capital is its greatest asset; a strong hiring process directly translates to increased sales, happy customers, and improved CSI scores that will boost a dealership to the top.

Learn more by attending Ryan Kohler’s upcoming session at DD26 Orlando. Develop a framework for how to turn your most loyal customers into your most passionate and highest-performing employees.