The Problem Isn't the Tech. It's the Guy in Your Mirror.

Most shops blame the market or the tech when they get ghosted. The real leak is usually the person making the first phone call.

In this post:

Why ghosting is usually not a candidate problem
What the tech actually decides in the first 90 seconds
The reframe from "screening call" to "audition call"
The Monday diagnostic to find your leak in 15 minutes
The resentment layer most shops never name

Read time: ~4 minutes

___________________________________________________________________________________________

The tech isn't ghosting you.

He's ghosting the person who called him.

And the person who called him is probably someone in your shop right now who would rather be doing anything else.

Here's the pattern I see in shops that can't hire.

It has nothing to do with the market. It has nothing to do with the ad. It has nothing to do with the generation.

It has to do with 90 seconds of phone audio.

There's a guy I'll call Bill.

He's the GM. He's supposed to be running things. He's supposed to be calling the applicants.

He does. Kind of.

He calls them the way you'd cancel a dentist appointment. Flat voice. A couple of random questions. Checks the box that he made the call. Moves on.

And then wonders why nobody shows up for the interview or why they start screening his calls.

Here's what the candidate hears on that call.

This guy doesn't care if I take this job.

This shop is probably like the last one.

I'm not rearranging my Tuesday for this.

That's the decision. It takes 90 seconds. He hangs up polite. He doesn't show.

You think he ghosted you.

He didn't. He decided. You just weren't in the room for the decision.

Most owners think the first call is a screen.

It's not.

It's an audition. And your shop is the one auditioning.

The tech is deciding whether you're worth a Tuesday. Whether you're worth driving 30 minutes for. Whether you're worth leaving his current shop — where at least he knows where the bathroom is.

You're not evaluating him.

He's evaluating you.

And whoever's holding the phone is the only evidence he has.

Every disengaged first call costs you the same thing: another week of an empty bay.

Not a bad hire. Not a wrong hire. No hire.

The bay stays empty. The backlog grows. The good tech you have gets asked to stay late again.

He's now looking at job boards on his lunch break.

One flat phone call. That's all it takes to restart the clock.

You know the strange thing about this?

If I asked any shop owner if they would put up with this behavior from the person on the front counter who answered customer calls, they would look at me like I lost my mind. Of course not!

Here's your Monday morning move.

Pull up your phone log. Think of the last candidate your shop contacted — the one who didn't show, or didn't call back, or just went quiet.

Don't call him.

Listen to who did.

If you have recordings, play them. If you don't, pull the person who made the call aside and ask three things:

What questions did you ask him?
What did he say back?
What did you tell him about the shop?

Then ask yourself one question.

Would I drive 30 minutes on a Tuesday to interview with the guy on that call?

If the answer is no — or even "maybe not" — you just found your leak.

It was never the market.

One more thing.

Sometimes the person making those calls isn't lazy. They're resentful.

Maybe they used to do the hiring and it got taken away. Maybe they're a family member who didn't ask for this role. Maybe they're grinding through a task they were never trained for and never wanted. Maybe they are swamped and see this as "another thing" that is burning their time.

You don't fix that with a phone script.

You fix it by either putting the call in the right hands, or having a real conversation with the person currently holding the phone about whether they actually want the job.

Most shops skip both.

The phone stays flat. The bay stays empty. The cycle repeats.

If you read this and realized the person holding the phone in your shop isn't the right person — and you don't have a clean way to fix that internally — that's what I do.

I take 4 hiring strategy calls a week. We'll look at who's on your phone, what they're saying, and where your pipeline is breaking. Not a pitch. A diagnosis.

[Talk to Chris]

If the bigger issue is that the disengaged person on the phone is you — and you know it — that's a different conversation. Start with the Life Calibration diagnostic. 5 minutes. No call.

[Burned Out? Start Here]

6:30

3 comments