We’ve worked with many shops and dealerships to get their jobs in front of technicians and help them attract great techs to their shop.
Going up against a technician shortage, it’s never an easy task to find and attract quality technicians to any shop or dealership. However, some shops are definitely easier to recruit for than others.
We have identified a few commonalities between the shops/dealerships that don’t get many applicants from their technician job postings. The good news is, we’ve been able to work with and help find techs for shops that have run into each of these issues, so we’ve offered suggestions below on how to overcome the hurdles.
3 Main Reasons Technicians Aren’t Applying For Your Jobs (And How You Can Fix Them)
1. Technicians don’t know you’re hiring.
You can’t just post a job opening on a job board and expect that to be enough. Shops need to think of marketing job openings to technicians like they think of marketing their services to customers.
To make sure job openings are seen by technicians, shops and dealership should:
- Post on all the major job boards (Indeed, ZipRecruiter, etc.) – Premium listings preferred
- Post on industry job boards
- Re-post jobs regularly to make sure they stay at the top of job board listings
- Promote job openings on social media (regularly – not just once)
- List job openings on their shop website and WrenchWay profile page
2. You aren’t giving technicians enough reason to apply.
The majority of qualified technicians are already employed, and not even actively looking for a new position. They’d rather stay at a job they aren’t fully satisfied with than put in the effort to apply and interview for a job that they aren’t sure is even a great fit.
Shops need to make sure their job stands out from all the other open tech jobs out there by highlighting everything the shop has to offer their techs.
We got feedback from a lot of technicians and shops when we built WrenchWay to ensure techs were getting all the information they want to know when applying for a job.
As a result, we require all shops on WrenchWay to share the following information:
- Compensation – Structure, base pay, incentives
- Benefits – Providers, coverage, amount of PTO, etc.
- Work environment – Shifts, parts ordering process, team size, etc.
- Career development – Paid trainings, mentorships, community involvement, etc.
- Hiring process – Pre-screening tests, skills assessments, length of hiring process, etc.
- Photos – Photos of the actual area where techs will be working, not just the areas customers see
3. Your pay and/or benefits suck.
It’s not all about the money and benefits, but let’s be serious – that’s a lot of it. We understand that not all shops, especially the smaller independents, can’t afford to offer the highest salaries and top notch benefits. However, techs need to make a living just like everyone else, so you at least need to make sure your shop is offering something comparable to your competitor down the street.
We always suggest that shops do their research and find out what other shops in the area are offering. You can do this by:
- Checking out local shop profiles on WrenchWay
- Looking at job board postings
- Googling market rates
- Checking out career pages on competitor websites
Hiring is no easy task – especially in our industry. But the shops that put in the effort to attract technicians are the ones that will end up with the best applicants and, ultimately, the technicians that are the best fit for their shop.
