The Labor Department just brought out its latest job report and unemployment is now at 5.0%, the lowest since the bubble burst in 2008.  Over 270,000 jobs were created last month, with both the Retail and Food Services industries seeing marked gains in hiring.

This is great news for consumer confidence and will help get more people in the market for larger ticket items, such as cars.  Automotive sales have climbed back to pre-2008 levels, and indicators show a likely increase for 2016.  Higher sales volume, and tightening employment market is going to create fierce competition for quality sales staff.

How can small to mid-size business, like automotive dealerships, compete for the talent?  Here are a few ways to stand out.

1. Update employment pages.  The better the applicant, the more likely they are to research the company prior to interviewing.  The business career page is the first place a candidate will go to get a first impression.  Look over your website's about us, and career page.  Do they speak to why someone would want to work for your company?  Will a candidate understand the culture and benefits of signing on with your business?
2. Give an interview orientation tour.  Welcome applicants like they are part of the family.  Assign a person to take each applicant that comes in through your store, like they are a prospective customer.  Many times candidates have to wait until the Manager is ready for the interview, have a greeter or other staffer use that time to walk the prospective employee through your facility.
3. Engage with good questions.  A potential new employee only has a few data points to establish their thoughts about your business.  The quality of the interview is one of the only ways a candidate can judge the quality of your business.  Questions need to be intelligent and concise.  The interviewer needs to be an active listener.

With the dwindling supply of quality new employees it is imperative to motivate the best candidates we receive to work for us.

H Gregory Gershman - Managing Partner - www.RecruitmentHQ.com

The Labor Department just brought out its latest job report and unemployment is now at 5.0%, the lowest since the bubble burst in 2008.  Over 270,000 jobs were created last month, with both the Retail and Food Services industries seeing marked gains in hiring.

This is great news for consumer confidence and will help get more people in the market for larger ticket items, such as cars.  Automotive sales have climbed back to pre-2008 levels, and indicators show a likely increase for 2016.  Higher sales volume, and tightening employment market is going to create fierce competition for quality sales staff.

How can small to mid-size business, like automotive dealerships, compete for the talent?  Here are a few ways to stand out.

1. Update employment pages.  The better the applicant, the more likely they are to research the company prior to interviewing.  The business career page is the first place a candidate will go to get a first impression.  Look over your website's about us, and career page.  Do they speak to why someone would want to work for your company?  Will a candidate understand the culture and benefits of signing on with your business?
2. Give an interview orientation tour.  Welcome applicants like they are part of the family.  Assign a person to take each applicant that comes in through your store, like they are a prospective customer.  Many times candidates have to wait until the Manager is ready for the interview, have a greeter or other staffer use that time to walk the prospective employee through your facility.
3. Engage with good questions.  A potential new employee only has a few data points to establish their thoughts about your business.  The quality of the interview is one of the only ways a candidate can judge the quality of your business.  Questions need to be intelligent and concise.  The interviewer needs to be an active listener.

With the dwindling supply of quality new employees it is imperative to motivate the best candidates we receive to work for us.

H Gregory Gershman - Managing Partner - www.RecruitmentHQ.com

The National Auto Dealers Association recently put out its latest statistic on sales turnover, and it is scary!  72% turnover in the sales department of the average dealership.  Figures are similar in other sales industries such as insurance, furniture, jewelry, and financial products.

With an average total replacement cost of $30,000, and a sales floor of 11, an employer can expect to spend $250,000 per year on turnover.  That means dealers spend more on employee replacement than the average dealer makes from their new car department yearly.

The good news is you can raise you retention percentage easily.  The majority of turnover is caused by over-hiring.  Bringing on large numbers of staff at one time without the means to feed them clients, or spend the time to nurture them.

Cure sales turnover, just hire less!

Some people in the HR space tell their clients to hire as many as possible, that each salesperson will bring incremental business.  There are giant holes in this theory.  First when dealers hire 7 to 10 salespeople in one "class" they generally do not retain any more than 1 person long enough to sell anything.  When a dealer hires a large number of new salespeople at once, veteran sales reps leave.  It is very common to see dealers use a staffing company to bring on a large number of reps, and in 60 days actually have the same or less salespeople than when they started hiring.  All the employer does is swap out experienced salespeople for new untrained staff.

Here is how to know the right amount of sales hires:

1. Only hire the number of sales representatives your management can fully train.  View training as a 30 to 60 day program.  Each sales rep needs 1 hour of individual time, and 1 hour of group training daily during that time.  It is impossible to hire 10 sales reps with 3 managers working.  That is an 11 hour per day commitment, and your management needs to have time to attend to the rest of the staff so your store can sell.  Hire around 1 new person per manager available to work with them.
2. Match your staff size to the number of working leads and list of prior clients.  The average sales rep can manage servicing and marketing to 500 leads and active prior clients.  So if my store as a clean data bank of 5,000 prior clients and 1,000 working leads from all sources (showroom, internet, phone) then I can feed 11 sales reps.  They each will have people to contact, and traffic to sell.  Aggressive would be carrying 12 or 13 sales representatives.  Having a staff of 11 working on these numbers and then hiring 8 is guaranteeing I will turnover all the reps I hire.  

Hiring is like eating chocolate cake;  always seems like getting more is better until you eat too much.

H Gregory Gershman - Managing Partner - Recruitment HQ

The National Auto Dealers Association recently put out its latest statistic on sales turnover, and it is scary!  72% turnover in the sales department of the average dealership.  Figures are similar in other sales industries such as insurance, furniture, jewelry, and financial products.

With an average total replacement cost of $30,000, and a sales floor of 11, an employer can expect to spend $250,000 per year on turnover.  That means dealers spend more on employee replacement than the average dealer makes from their new car department yearly.

The good news is you can raise you retention percentage easily.  The majority of turnover is caused by over-hiring.  Bringing on large numbers of staff at one time without the means to feed them clients, or spend the time to nurture them.

Cure sales turnover, just hire less!

Some people in the HR space tell their clients to hire as many as possible, that each salesperson will bring incremental business.  There are giant holes in this theory.  First when dealers hire 7 to 10 salespeople in one "class" they generally do not retain any more than 1 person long enough to sell anything.  When a dealer hires a large number of new salespeople at once, veteran sales reps leave.  It is very common to see dealers use a staffing company to bring on a large number of reps, and in 60 days actually have the same or less salespeople than when they started hiring.  All the employer does is swap out experienced salespeople for new untrained staff.

Here is how to know the right amount of sales hires:

1. Only hire the number of sales representatives your management can fully train.  View training as a 30 to 60 day program.  Each sales rep needs 1 hour of individual time, and 1 hour of group training daily during that time.  It is impossible to hire 10 sales reps with 3 managers working.  That is an 11 hour per day commitment, and your management needs to have time to attend to the rest of the staff so your store can sell.  Hire around 1 new person per manager available to work with them.
2. Match your staff size to the number of working leads and list of prior clients.  The average sales rep can manage servicing and marketing to 500 leads and active prior clients.  So if my store as a clean data bank of 5,000 prior clients and 1,000 working leads from all sources (showroom, internet, phone) then I can feed 11 sales reps.  They each will have people to contact, and traffic to sell.  Aggressive would be carrying 12 or 13 sales representatives.  Having a staff of 11 working on these numbers and then hiring 8 is guaranteeing I will turnover all the reps I hire.  

Hiring is like eating chocolate cake;  always seems like getting more is better until you eat too much.

H Gregory Gershman - Managing Partner - Recruitment HQ

As a service to our employer clients and their candidates Recruitment HQ surveys each person that goes on an interview.  The results give key information to our clients about how to motivate the best talent to say yes to their job, and improves the experience of our applicants.

One of the key scores is about wait time.  We asked our candidates to rate, on a metric of 1 to 5, how satisfied they were with the wait time to meet with the interviewer.  The average rating is 3.2, or 64%.

To understand what this means during the hiring process you have to look at the net effect it has on candidates accepting a position when offered.  

Not one candidate that rated interview wait time below 80% accepted the position they were offered.

The most talented applicants that visit your business for an interview expect their interviewer to value their appointment time.  In the same way an interviewer is unlikely to hire a candidate that shows up late for their interview.

Happy hunting for your next rockstar employee!

As a service to our employer clients and their candidates Recruitment HQ surveys each person that goes on an interview.  The results give key information to our clients about how to motivate the best talent to say yes to their job, and improves the experience of our applicants.

One of the key scores is about wait time.  We asked our candidates to rate, on a metric of 1 to 5, how satisfied they were with the wait time to meet with the interviewer.  The average rating is 3.2, or 64%.

To understand what this means during the hiring process you have to look at the net effect it has on candidates accepting a position when offered.  

Not one candidate that rated interview wait time below 80% accepted the position they were offered.

The most talented applicants that visit your business for an interview expect their interviewer to value their appointment time.  In the same way an interviewer is unlikely to hire a candidate that shows up late for their interview.

Happy hunting for your next rockstar employee!

Everyone gets a big laugh when we see merchandising go wrong.  The retailer in the picture must be remarketing knives as pencil sharpeners, because right below the "Back to School" sign is a giant display of cutlery.  Many times the message gone wrong isn't so obvious to our staff, and isn't humorous.

In a dealership we feel this immediately with an advertised sale price on the web that doesn't match quotes inside the store.  Customer complains, sales staff apologizes, and hopefully we correct the price and sell a car.  While customer complaints like this are difficult to deal with, they at least help the dealership correct course.

There is a quieter place where advertising fails happen all the time, and no one ever hears about it: automotive employment ads.

• Income claims of $100,000 per year, when a showroom only has one salesperson out of 20 making six figures.
• Advertising friendly atmosphere, and flexible schedule.  When a candidate arrives they see managers browbeating salespeople about needing to work more hours.
• Stating that you need to hire someone that attends to clients promptly, and then having a person wait for over an hour to be interviewed.

These are just a handful of things we see and hear regularly when surveying the 1000's of applicants we send for interviews.  The shame is applicants almost never share why they either decided to miss an interview or turn down a job they are offered.  It centers around finding inconsistent information about the dealership either on the web, or in person.

Take a few minutes and make sure you are putting out the right message.

H Gregory Gershman - Managing Partner - Recruitment HQ

Everyone gets a big laugh when we see merchandising go wrong.  The retailer in the picture must be remarketing knives as pencil sharpeners, because right below the "Back to School" sign is a giant display of cutlery.  Many times the message gone wrong isn't so obvious to our staff, and isn't humorous.

In a dealership we feel this immediately with an advertised sale price on the web that doesn't match quotes inside the store.  Customer complains, sales staff apologizes, and hopefully we correct the price and sell a car.  While customer complaints like this are difficult to deal with, they at least help the dealership correct course.

There is a quieter place where advertising fails happen all the time, and no one ever hears about it: automotive employment ads.

• Income claims of $100,000 per year, when a showroom only has one salesperson out of 20 making six figures.
• Advertising friendly atmosphere, and flexible schedule.  When a candidate arrives they see managers browbeating salespeople about needing to work more hours.
• Stating that you need to hire someone that attends to clients promptly, and then having a person wait for over an hour to be interviewed.

These are just a handful of things we see and hear regularly when surveying the 1000's of applicants we send for interviews.  The shame is applicants almost never share why they either decided to miss an interview or turn down a job they are offered.  It centers around finding inconsistent information about the dealership either on the web, or in person.

Take a few minutes and make sure you are putting out the right message.

H Gregory Gershman - Managing Partner - Recruitment HQ

One of the hottest topics in the Automotive Industry is compensation.  What promotes productivity and retention?  

Should it be a Tea Party approach of minimal government and complete free market, which is commission or flat rate only positions coupled with a completely open floor?  Many are advocating a left leaning socialist solution, with salary positions, closed rotating showroom floor traffic management, and managers finalizing all sales.  I think the former is actually the more dangerous of these options.

Don't let your dealership get sucked into becoming a welfare state!  There is a better answer.  It all revolves around a psychological truism for all people.

A person will be productive as long as they feel their energy will receive an acceptable immediate guaranteed return and they have a positive view of success in the future.  

Let's relate that to compensation.  An employee will not show the proper motivation to work without a guarantee of income.  The answer in the Automotive Industry has been a draw to protect a worker, and guarantee they have an earning for the time they work.  Giving an employee a draw does guarantee an income, but it lowers the perception of future success.  What happens when an employee has to take advantage of the draw?  They owe it back against future earnings.  This creates a cycle of poor sales, where an employee feels there is no point to attempting to succeed because they will only owe the employer their future gain anyway.  Here is a case of giving away welfare that creates a negative atmosphere.

There is the other end of the spectrum, giving an almost total salary based plan.  Some dealerships are adopting this, and you can find an article a day on social media claiming Millennials will be attracted to your store if you pay the majority of their income in salary.  This does give the employee a guarantee of pay for giving time.  There is a gigantic hole in the theory!  These primarily salary positions come with a reduction in financial responsibility to the store, most times a manager is both providing traffic and closing the deals.  The future available income is minimal.  You end up with a complacent employee, with no positive outlook on future income, and getting paid more than the employee with the draw to do less.  More welfare, more problems!

It is time for a true work and produce for pay solution.  Give your staff an hourly wage that pays them for what they do besides selling cars.  If your sales staff does nothing else, than you shouldn't have them working at your store!  They should merchandise, market, prospect for sales and service, spend time on product knowledge, and provide customer service to any and all clients that walk through your door.  Pay your staff the going rate in your market for a presentable person to perform those tasks.  If you can hire someone at $11 per hour for this job description then pay your sales staff that.  Don't turn your store into a welfare state, make your staff actually perform the work to get paid.

Now choose either a commission or flat bonus based plan to compensate for sales and follow up.  If you want your sales staff to have the eager edge to sell you need to have a reasonable carrot.  This can be 10% of the gross, or $175 per car.  Provide enough upside that an employee is excited about the future earning prospect.  Again make them earn it.  Have a set of standards that make a payable sale.  Having a salesperson give terrible customer service, never follow up, just happen to be the person on record and still paying them is giving welfare!

The more welfare your business doles out, the lower the production and morale of the staff.  We need to evolve to a compensation model that pays our workers for their time, effort, and production.  You will find engaged hard working employees, and the best talent in your market applying to work at your store.

H Gregory Gershman - Managing Partner - Recruitment HQ

One of the hottest topics in the Automotive Industry is compensation.  What promotes productivity and retention?  

Should it be a Tea Party approach of minimal government and complete free market, which is commission or flat rate only positions coupled with a completely open floor?  Many are advocating a left leaning socialist solution, with salary positions, closed rotating showroom floor traffic management, and managers finalizing all sales.  I think the former is actually the more dangerous of these options.

Don't let your dealership get sucked into becoming a welfare state!  There is a better answer.  It all revolves around a psychological truism for all people.

A person will be productive as long as they feel their energy will receive an acceptable immediate guaranteed return and they have a positive view of success in the future.  

Let's relate that to compensation.  An employee will not show the proper motivation to work without a guarantee of income.  The answer in the Automotive Industry has been a draw to protect a worker, and guarantee they have an earning for the time they work.  Giving an employee a draw does guarantee an income, but it lowers the perception of future success.  What happens when an employee has to take advantage of the draw?  They owe it back against future earnings.  This creates a cycle of poor sales, where an employee feels there is no point to attempting to succeed because they will only owe the employer their future gain anyway.  Here is a case of giving away welfare that creates a negative atmosphere.

There is the other end of the spectrum, giving an almost total salary based plan.  Some dealerships are adopting this, and you can find an article a day on social media claiming Millennials will be attracted to your store if you pay the majority of their income in salary.  This does give the employee a guarantee of pay for giving time.  There is a gigantic hole in the theory!  These primarily salary positions come with a reduction in financial responsibility to the store, most times a manager is both providing traffic and closing the deals.  The future available income is minimal.  You end up with a complacent employee, with no positive outlook on future income, and getting paid more than the employee with the draw to do less.  More welfare, more problems!

It is time for a true work and produce for pay solution.  Give your staff an hourly wage that pays them for what they do besides selling cars.  If your sales staff does nothing else, than you shouldn't have them working at your store!  They should merchandise, market, prospect for sales and service, spend time on product knowledge, and provide customer service to any and all clients that walk through your door.  Pay your staff the going rate in your market for a presentable person to perform those tasks.  If you can hire someone at $11 per hour for this job description then pay your sales staff that.  Don't turn your store into a welfare state, make your staff actually perform the work to get paid.

Now choose either a commission or flat bonus based plan to compensate for sales and follow up.  If you want your sales staff to have the eager edge to sell you need to have a reasonable carrot.  This can be 10% of the gross, or $175 per car.  Provide enough upside that an employee is excited about the future earning prospect.  Again make them earn it.  Have a set of standards that make a payable sale.  Having a salesperson give terrible customer service, never follow up, just happen to be the person on record and still paying them is giving welfare!

The more welfare your business doles out, the lower the production and morale of the staff.  We need to evolve to a compensation model that pays our workers for their time, effort, and production.  You will find engaged hard working employees, and the best talent in your market applying to work at your store.

H Gregory Gershman - Managing Partner - Recruitment HQ