How effective are your strategies for attracting and keeping A techs and high-performing sales professionals? In episode 104 of Maximum Octane, two shop leaders share how they cracked the recruitment code: Dan Garlock, president of Silverlake Auto & Tire Centers, and Ricky Jordan Jr., president of Fifth Gear Automotive.
Dan and Ricky explain how they moved from passive to active hiring, built a culture of intentionality, aligned recruiting with their mission and values, used quarterly meetings differently, and created growth opportunities that keep people engaged. They also share the dos and don’ts of interviewing technicians and the tools that support their hiring.
What You Will Learn
- The differences between active and passive hiring
- A different approach to quarterly meetings
- How to get mission, vision, and values involved in the hiring process
- How to promote internal customers’ growth and opportunities for development
- Using formal training for fostering continuous learning and development
- The importance of mixing up hiring channels to attract diverse talent
Active vs. Passive Hiring
Dan and Ricky open with the difference between active and passive hiring. Passive hiring means posting an ad and waiting. Active hiring means constantly building relationships, reaching out to candidates, and promoting your shop as a great place to work. In a competitive labor market, passive approaches rarely attract top talent.
Geoff Berman makes a similar case in Build an All-Star Bench for Your Auto Repair Shop, and ATI’s The Three Most Overlooked Hiring Hacks offers more ideas.
Active hiring is an ongoing habit rather than a reaction to a resignation. It can include keeping in touch with promising technicians met at training events, building relationships with instructors at local technical schools, asking current employees for referrals, and maintaining a careers page that shows what working at the shop is really like. Some shops keep a short list of people they would hire tomorrow if a position opened. When a vacancy does come up, the shop is choosing from candidates it already knows instead of starting from zero under pressure.
A Different Approach to Quarterly Meetings
Around the 9 minute mark, the guests describe a different approach to quarterly meetings. Rather than simply reviewing numbers, they use these meetings to involve employees in decision-making and planning. Exposing team members to how decisions are made builds understanding, ownership, and future leaders.
A quarterly meeting built around involvement might include sharing key results in plain language, asking the team what got in the way of doing their best work, and inviting input on priorities for the next quarter. Some shops ask employees to present on a process they improved or a training course they completed. These meetings show people how the business works and help identify those who are ready for more responsibility, which supports both retention and internal promotion.
Bringing Mission, Vision, and Values Into Hiring
Dan and Ricky explain how to bring mission, vision, and values into the hiring process. Candidates should understand what the shop stands for before they join. Interview questions can explore whether a candidate’s values align with the company’s. Hiring for fit reduces turnover and strengthens culture.
ATI’s The Right Interview Questions: Your Secret Weapon for Successful Hiring can help shape those conversations.
Values come through most clearly in specific examples. Instead of asking a candidate whether they value teamwork, ask them to describe a time they helped a coworker finish a job or handled a disagreement with a manager. Sharing real stories about how the shop lives its values helps candidates decide whether they fit. Some applicants will opt out, and that is a good outcome, because it prevents a costly mismatch. ATI has more guidance on questions to ask during the hiring process for structuring these conversations.
Creating Growth Opportunities
Around the 16 minute mark, the guests discuss how to promote employee growth and development. Clear career paths, new responsibilities, and leadership opportunities give people a reason to stay. When employees can see a future at your shop, they are less likely to look elsewhere.
Growth paths work best when they are written down. A technician should be able to see what it takes to move from lube tech to general service to advanced diagnostics, including skills, certifications, and expected timelines. Advisors benefit from a similar map toward service manager or shop manager roles. Regular check-ins about progress keep these paths active instead of becoming forgotten documents. When employees can point to their next step, recruiting also gets easier, because candidates hear a concrete answer to the question of where the job leads.
Formal Training for Continuous Learning
Dan and Ricky explain how formal training fosters continuous learning. Structured programs, whether technical, sales, or leadership training, help employees build skills consistently. ATI’s The Training Effect discusses how to make training pay off.
Training pays off most when it is planned rather than reactive. A simple annual training plan for each employee, tied to their growth path, keeps learning consistent. After a course, asking the employee to share key takeaways with the team spreads the value and reinforces what they learned. Industry certifications, such as those offered through the National Institute for Automotive Service Excellence, give technicians recognized milestones and give customers additional confidence in the shop’s capabilities.
Mixing Up Hiring Channels
The guests close with the importance of using a variety of hiring channels to attract diverse talent. Relying on one job board limits your reach. Combining online postings, referrals, social media, schools, and recruiting software widens the pool. They also mention Teamtailor, an applicant tracking tool.
Each channel tends to bring different candidates. Job boards reach active job seekers, referrals bring people who already know someone at the shop, schools connect the shop with new talent, and social media reaches people who are not actively looking but might be open to the right opportunity. Tracking where applicants and successful hires come from shows which channels are worth more investment. An applicant tracking system helps keep candidates organized and makes it easier to respond quickly, which matters because strong candidates rarely stay available for long.
Dos and Don’ts of Interviewing Technicians
Do prepare consistent questions so every candidate is evaluated fairly. Do include a practical component, such as a shop tour or a hands-on diagnostic discussion, to see how the candidate thinks. Do explain pay, schedule, and growth opportunities clearly, and respond promptly after the interview.
Don’t spend the entire interview talking about the shop without learning about the candidate. Don’t skip reference checks because a candidate seems impressive. Don’t make promises about raises or promotions that the shop cannot keep, since broken promises quickly undo the trust a good interview builds.
Measuring Recruiting and Retention Progress
Recruiting improves faster when it is measured. Useful indicators include how many qualified applicants the shop receives each month, how long positions stay open, which channels produce the best hires, and how many new employees are still with the shop after their first year. Tracking voluntary turnover and the reasons people give for leaving reveals patterns worth addressing.
Reviewing these measures in quarterly meetings keeps hiring on the leadership agenda year round rather than only during a staffing emergency.
Recruiting Checklist
- Are you actively recruiting every month, even when fully staffed?
- Do candidates hear about your mission and values during the interview?
- Does every employee have a visible path to grow?
- How many different channels do you use to find candidates?
Dan, Ricky, and Mike Bennett return to discuss AI in Is AI Here to Fix the Automotive Industry? Dan and his sons talk about family succession in 90% of Third-Gen Businesses Fail. Here’s How You Won’t.
Frequently Asked Questions
How do I find good auto technicians when no one is applying?
Shift from passive to active recruiting. Build relationships with local technical schools, ask your team for referrals, stay in touch with technicians you meet at training events, and use social media to show what working at your shop is like. Make sure your pay, equipment, and culture are competitive, because strong technicians compare shops carefully. Respond quickly to every applicant, since delays often mean losing them.
What questions should I ask when interviewing a technician?
Ask about specific experiences rather than general traits. Questions such as “Tell me about a difficult diagnosis you solved” or “Describe a time you disagreed with a service advisor” reveal skills and attitude. Ask about training goals, preferred work environment, and why they are looking to move. Include questions tied to your shop’s values so you can judge fit as well as technical ability.
How can a repair shop reduce employee turnover?
Give employees clear growth paths, consistent training, fair and transparent pay, and regular conversations about their goals. Involve them in decisions through meetings that do more than review numbers. Recognize good work, keep the facility and equipment in good condition, and address problems with managers quickly. People tend to stay where they feel respected, see a future, and believe leadership follows through on its promises.
Is an applicant tracking system worth it for a small shop?
It can be, especially for shops that hire regularly or post on several channels. An applicant tracking system keeps candidates organized, helps the shop respond faster, and makes it easier to see which channels produce strong hires. For a shop that hires only occasionally, a simple spreadsheet may be enough. The most important thing is having a consistent process so no promising candidate falls through the cracks.
Resources and Links From This Episode
Connect With the Guests
- Dan Garlock: Silverlake Auto & Tire Centers’ website
- Ricky Jordan Jr: Fifth Gear Automotive’s website
