Many shop owners complain about finding technicians but do little to fix the problem. Some ask a candidate, “Do you have ten fingers?” and hire them the next day. No real interview, no vetting, no onboarding. Lisa Coyle heard this so many times that she built a solution: Promotive, a recruiting service designed for shops too busy to build their own process.
In episode 140 of Maximum Octane, Kim Hickey and Jason Patel talk with Lisa and Sam Freeman about why hiring is broken and how AI can help. They explain the philosophy of hiring people you would trust with your own family’s car, how Promotive’s AI agent interviews candidates, and why candidates open up to it. Jason even takes part in a live interview demonstration.
What You Will Learn
- How Parkinson’s Law applies to recruiting: shops complain more than they actually try to solve it
- Why fantasy hiring doesn’t work: waiting for a great tech to just walk through the door
- The reality of most shop hiring: basic questions and hiring on the spot with zero structure
- Why shop owners don’t recruit: the urgent always outweighs priorities in business
- What led Lisa Coyle to create Promotive after success with 360 Automotive
- How Promotive’s AI agent conducts interviews and gathers data
- The interview process breakdown: realistic questions that actually matter for the role
- Why the AI bot approach works better than paper forms or text applications
- Why candidates open up to the AI agent like she’s human
Parkinson’s Law and Recruiting
Lisa opens by applying Parkinson’s Law to recruiting: shops often spend more energy complaining about hiring than solving it. She also describes “fantasy hiring,” waiting for a great technician to walk in unannounced. It rarely happens.
The cost of waiting is easy to underestimate. When a bay sits empty, the shop loses the labor that bay could have produced, the remaining technicians absorb extra work, and customers wait longer for appointments. Over time, that pressure can push good employees toward burnout or a competitor. Owners who stop hoping and start treating recruiting as a standing business function tend to see the difference within a few months. That might mean a weekly block of time for reviewing applicants, a standing relationship with a local technical school, and a referral program that rewards current employees for bringing in people they trust.
The Reality of Most Shop Hiring
Around the 4 minute mark, Lisa and Sam describe the reality of hiring in many shops: a few basic questions and an offer on the spot, with no structure. They also explain why owners do not recruit consistently: the urgent always outweighs the important. Geoff Berman makes the case for continuous recruiting in Build an All-Star Bench for Your Auto Repair Shop.
Hiring on the spot often feels efficient, but it shifts the cost to later. A technician who looked good in a five-minute chat may turn out to lack key skills, clash with the team, or leave within weeks. Each failed hire means more time spent on onboarding, more comebacks to fix, and more stress for everyone else. A basic structure solves much of this: a consistent phone screen, a role-specific interview, a hands-on skills check for technicians, and reference calls. None of it requires a human resources department, just a process the owner or manager follows every time.
ATI’s article on successful hiring interview questions offers a useful starting point for building that structure.
From Payments to Recruiting
Lisa shares what led her to create Promotive after her success with 360 Payments. Working closely with shops, she saw that recruiting was consistently their hardest problem. She discussed her earlier company in Put People First and Think About What They Want.
How the AI Agent Works
Around the 20 minute mark, Lisa and Sam explain how Promotive’s AI agent conducts interviews and gathers data. The agent asks structured, role-specific questions, then provides summaries and ratings so owners can make better hiring decisions. They describe handling hundreds of calls each week and the data insights that structured interviews provide.
Structured interviews, where every candidate answers the same job-related questions, are widely recommended because they make comparisons fairer. The U.S. Office of Personnel Management describes the benefits in its structured interview guidance.
The main advantage of any structured screening tool, AI or not, is consistency. Every candidate hears the same questions in the same order, and the owner receives information in a format that makes side-by-side comparison possible. That matters for fairness, and it matters for speed, because a busy owner can review a summary in minutes instead of playing phone tag for days. Shops considering an AI screening tool should still keep a person in the loop for final decisions, make sure the questions are job-related, and confirm that the tool’s process aligns with applicable employment laws.
Realistic Questions That Matter
Lisa and Sam break down the interview process and the realistic questions that matter for each role. Instead of generic questions, they focus on experience, skills, work preferences, and fit. Jason’s live demonstration shows how natural the process feels.
Good interview questions ask candidates to describe what they have actually done. Instead of “Are you good at diagnostics?” a stronger question is “Tell me about the last intermittent electrical problem you solved and the steps you took.” For service advisors, an owner might ask how the candidate handled a customer who declined a safety-related recommendation. Questions about preferred schedules, pay structure, tools, and training goals also matter, because a skilled person who wants something your shop cannot offer is unlikely to stay. The aim is to learn how someone works, not just whether they can talk about it.
Why Candidates Open Up
Around the 50 minute mark, they explain why candidates open up to the AI agent as if it were a person, with some even thanking it for the conversation. The approach works better than paper forms or simple text applications because it feels conversational.
Technicians Keep Families Safe
Lisa and Sam emphasize that technicians are essential workers who keep families safe on the road. That is why vetting matters. The goal is to hire people you would trust with your own family’s vehicle.
This framing also helps owners explain why their process takes a little longer than a handshake. Brakes, steering, tires, and driver assistance systems all affect whether a family arrives home safely. Checking references, verifying certifications such as ASE credentials, and running a practical skills evaluation are reasonable steps when the work carries that kind of responsibility. Candidates who take pride in their craft usually respect a shop that takes hiring seriously, and that first impression can set the tone for the rest of their time with you.
Building a Recruiting Rhythm That Lasts
The shops that rarely struggle to hire are not necessarily the ones paying the most. They tend to be the ones that recruit all the time. A recruiting rhythm turns hiring from an emergency into a routine.
- Weekly: Review new applicants, respond to every one, and schedule screens for promising candidates.
- Monthly: Refresh job postings, share a team photo or day-in-the-shop post on social media, and ask employees for referrals.
- Quarterly: Visit or call a local technical school, review which recruiting sources produced the best hires, and update interview questions based on what you have learned.
- Every hire: Follow a written onboarding plan for the first 90 days so the effort spent recruiting is not wasted by a rough first week.
Keeping even a short list of qualified people you have already spoken with means that when someone leaves, the owner is calling a known candidate rather than starting from zero.
Fix Your Hiring Process
- Write a standard set of questions for each role.
- Respond to every applicant within 24 hours.
- Evaluate candidates consistently using the same criteria.
- Recruit every month, not only when someone quits.
Matthew Strom explains how to attract more applicants in Why Your Hiring Ads Fail and How Data-Driven Marketing Attracts Better Techs.
Frequently Asked Questions
How do I find good auto technicians when no one is applying?
Treat recruiting as an ongoing activity rather than a reaction to a vacancy. Write job ads that describe your culture, training, pay structure, and equipment instead of listing requirements only. Ask current employees for referrals, build relationships with local technical schools, and respond quickly to anyone who applies. Many good technicians are not actively job hunting, so staying visible and making it easy to start a conversation often matters more than the job board you use.
What is a structured interview and why should a repair shop use one?
A structured interview asks every candidate for a role the same job-related questions and evaluates their answers against the same criteria. For repair shops, that means fairer comparisons, fewer gut-feel hiring mistakes, and better documentation of why a candidate was chosen. It also makes interviews easier for busy owners, because the questions are ready in advance. Adding a practical skills check for technician roles makes the process even more reliable.
Can AI really interview job candidates for my shop?
AI tools can handle early screening conversations, asking consistent questions and summarizing answers so owners can focus on the most promising candidates. They work best as a first step, not the final decision. The owner or manager should still meet candidates, check references, and evaluate hands-on skills. Before adopting any tool, confirm the questions are relevant to the job and that the process fits the employment laws in your area.
How fast should a shop respond to job applicants?
As quickly as possible, ideally within a day. Strong technicians and advisors often hear from several shops at once, and the first one to start a real conversation has an advantage. Even a short message confirming that the application was received and explaining the next step shows respect for the candidate’s time. Slow responses send the message that the shop is disorganized, which is the opposite of what a good candidate wants.
What should I ask when checking a technician’s references?
Focus on specific, observable behavior. Ask about reliability and attendance, the quality of their work and how often it came back, how they handled pressure or mistakes, and how they got along with advisors and other technicians. A useful closing question is whether the reference would hire this person again. Hesitation or vague answers can be just as informative as direct concerns, so listen carefully to how people respond.
