Skills-First Hiring: The New Edge for Dealerships

As you know, dealerships face a tough reality with high turnover rates, especially with skilled technicians. Finding reliable team members who can diagnose and efficiently repair problems and have good customer soft skills keeps owners up at night. Enter skills-first hiring. This trend shifts focus from resumes and years on the job to proven abilities. It’s gaining traction in the dealership industry because it builds safer, more efficient teams faster.

Why Skills-First Fits Dealerships Perfectly?

Traditional hiring leans on experience. But experience alone misses the mark. A technician with 10 years experience might look good on paper, however, struggle mightily with new technology or be terrible with customers. Skills-first flips this. Test what matters: tool knowledge, assembly skills, critical thinking, mechanical aptitude for a few examples. Physical challenges, from backing vehicles and trailers to ergonomic lifts show physical capability of the candidate. No more guessing if they can handle the daily grind.

The skills-first approach also shines in structured growth of your company. Mapping clear career paths from detailers to shop foreman with the physical skills required helps your current team and new potential new hires envision what they can achieve with your company. 

When looking to start up skills tests within your hiring process, begin by assessing your most recent new hires. Ask yourself, what skills would have been nice to know before hiring your newbies or what skills do you always have to train newbies at?

There are many different types of skills tests that you can utilize within your company, some focus on the physical skills of wrenching and driving, while others will let you understand their soft or people skills. No matter what you begin to institute, it’s important to remember that skills tests are just a tool to help you assess the potential ability of an individual and should not be the only thing you use when determining who to hire. Knowing where an individual is starting from skill-wise, will help you better develop their talent and assign the right jobs to that person from the beginning. 

For help installing a skills-first hiring methodology in your tree service, reach out to an DealeRisk team member or register to start our Hiring & Recruiting Thrive Package today.