You Don't Have an Applicant Quality Problem · Technician Find Community

You Don't Have an Applicant Quality Problem

There, I said it!

The applicants aren't usually the problem.

I know that isn't what you want to hear.

But nearly every time an owner tells me the candidates are garbage, we find out nobody ever opened them or at least never reviewed and processed them correctly.

I've written about this before. I'm writing about it again because I watched it happen twice in the last two weeks. Two shops, both ready to blow up a campaign that was working fine.

This one keeps costing people hires. So we're going to cover it again.

Here's how it sounds when it starts.

"Nobody qualified is applying."

"No one wants to do this kind of work anymore."

"I've exhausted all other options and I don't know what else to do."

So the ad gets changed. Then changed again. Then the pay goes up. Then the town takes the blame.

Sit with this one for a second.

"Nobody good is applying" is a check engine light. It is not a diagnosis.

You would never quote a customer a repair based on how he described the noise over the phone. You'd get hands on the vehicle. You'd pull codes. You'd watch live data. You'd verify before you replaced a part.

Hiring is the one system in your building where you accept the phone call description and start throwing parts at it.

WHERE IT ACTUALLY BREAKS

Most owners are judging applicant quality from email notifications.

The automatic ones. A name. Maybe a resume snippet. Often nothing you could make a decision from.

The notification is a window. The account is the shop floor.

You are standing in the parking lot deciding whether the bay is clean.

Last month an owner told me his campaign was dead. Nothing coming in. Ready to pull it.

@Christi Warren

on my team got on a screen share and opened the account with him on the phone.

Twenty-two applications he had never opened. Three he would have hired.

Now here is the part that stings, and it's the reason I keep writing about this.

The owner usually isn't the one reviewing.

He handed it to a manager. A service advisor. His wife. Somebody who has forty other things on the list.

And that person is doing exactly what he/she was told. They are watching the emails. They don't know an account exists that holds all of the accumulated applications.

They aren't hiding anything from you. Nobody trained them.

YOU CAN DELEGATE THE TASK. YOU CANNOT DELEGATE THE STANDARD.

If the person holding the hat was never shown what the hat requires, you didn't delegate. You disappeared.

Three months angry at your ads. Meanwhile a green light candidate application sat unopened and took a job across town.

WHAT TO DO INSTEAD

Volume before quality. Always in that order.

If applications are slow, do not add screening questions. Do not add hoops. Do not tighten the ad.

You don't tighten the filter on a hose that isn't running.

Get the volume moving. Then worry about who's coming through.

Open every single one.

Not the emails. Every application sitting inside the account.

Count them.

Then compare that number to how many you believe you reviewed.

That gap is your hiring problem. Not the ad. Not the town. Not the generation.

Sort every one of them into three buckets.

Green light. Meets the requirements. Looks like a fit. You call him today. Not tomorrow. He's talking to somebody else by Thursday.

Yellow light. Real professional shop experience, but not the level you need right now. Do not delete him. Call him and chat for fifteen minutes.

Red light. No professional repair experience, or clearly not a fit. Close the file. Spend zero more minutes.

Most owners see two buckets. Yes and no. That's why they lose the middle.

THE BUCKET EVERYBODY THROWS AWAY

Your yellow lights are not rejections. They are doors.

The B-tech who can't run your diagnostic work knows three guys who can. He has stood shoulder-to-shoulder with them in the next bay. He knows which ones are miserable right now, and which ones are getting jerked around on pay.

He knows things about your local labor pool that no ad will ever tell you.

Fifteen minutes on the phone. Treat him like a professional, because he is one. Then ask him:

"Who are two technicians you've worked with and respect who can put in a good word for the quality of work that you do?"

Most owners have never asked that question one time.

The applicant you were about to delete is the best recruiter you'll talk to this month.

Every month we work with several shops that make strong hires because they took the time to get on the phone with a yellow light candidate and ask them that question.

THE SENTENCE THAT ENDS THE ARGUMENT

Before you ask anybody to change your ad, do this.

For every candidate you reviewed and rejected, finish this sentence:

"This candidate is not right because they lack ____________, and for this role I specifically need ____________."

Try it on the last five.

If you can't finish it, you don't have an applicant quality problem.

You have a clarity problem. And you cannot advertise your way out of a clarity problem.

Most shops that run this find people.

Not always the person they were hoping for. Almost always somebody they should have called three weeks ago.

The uncomfortable part isn't the finding.

It's what the number says about the last ninety days.

So go look.

Open the account where your applications live. Not your email.

Count how many are sitting there unopened.

Put the number in the comments. Only the number.

I'll tell you what it means.

P.S. I just opened up a file for a shop and found over 200 automotive technician applications from over a year ago. Most of them untouched. A bunch of reds. A ton of yellow. And a few green. Those kinds of numbers can darn near keep you from desperation hiring for the rest of your carrier if you know what to say to them. We'll talk about that later.

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You Don't Have an Applicant Quality Problem