With the potential for your hiring decisions to make or break your business, recruitment is a crucial function for any dealership—but if you’ve never worked in the industry yourself, you’ve probably made a few assumptions about how it all works.
To help you separate fact from fiction and make the right hiring decisions for your dealership, we decided to dispel some of the most common myths about recruitment.
Myth #1: It’s all done by computers
While it’s true that technological advancements have changed the way various tasks are performed throughout the recruitment process, there is still a strong need for the ‘human element’.
Technology has made tasks which were traditionally time consuming, repetitive, or administratively burdensome such as job posting, applicant tracking, and providing candidate updates significantly quicker and easier to manage. Rather than replacing the need for recruiters, it ultimately frees up more time for recruiters to engage with clients and discuss opportunities in greater depth.
Technology has in fact enabled recruiters to have more human-to-human contact and be more contactable than they previously would have been.
There’s also a lot a computer can’t do. Factors like personality and culture fit are important when assessing the suitability of a candidate for a position, and a recruiter may also be able to identify traits in a candidate that could be valuable for another role you’re trying to fill—these are factors which a computer simply can’t pick up on.
Myth #2: I must not mention other applications at interviews
It’s a commonly held belief that you shouldn’t talk about applications from other candidates; however, there can be some advantages to speaking openly and honestly provided you speak generally, remain objective, and maintain confidentiality without identifying anyone.
Talking about the strengths you’ve noticed in some of the other candidates could help you tease out some additional information from an interviewee that also possesses similar strengths but didn’t think to mention it.
Some candidates may even ask how they stack up against the other candidates. As an employer, you need to be prepared for this type of question so you can manage expectations. Being able to provide an honest response will add transparency to the recruitment process and help candidates understand where their strengths lie and where they might need to develop some extra skills.
Myth #3: Hiring multiple recruitment agencies will get a better result
Surely the more people you have working to fill a role the better, right? Not necessarily.
The talent pool doesn’t increase by using more recruiters. You’re merely putting more pressure on each recruiter to get as big a portion of the talent pool as possible.
When you engage multiple recruitment agencies to work on filling the same role, you’re essentially starting a race. Each agency will try to find suitable candidates as quickly as possible, and unfortunately, may cut corners to do it. Often it will result in an incomplete search of the market with agencies only conducting the most basic vetting, appraisal, and assessment processes.
The threat of investing a significant amount of work only to have the employer select a candidate recommended by another agency will also act as a major deterrent; positive motivation is generally a much more effective tool.
Myth #4: There are plenty more fish in the sea
When a candidate decides to pull out of a recruitment process, it’s easy to simply adopt the mindset that there are plenty of other fish in the sea. While in some market conditions that may be the case, stumbling across another good quality candidate that has the right skills, knowledge, and brand experience you’re looking for can still be quite rare.
While redundancies flowing from the COVID-19 pandemic may have brought more talent into the market, this shift is likely only temporary. When not considering the recent impact of the pandemic, over the last 30 years unemployment has declined from 10% to 5%; meaning that under normal conditions, there are far more jobs in the market than there are people to fill them. This is particularly prevalent when filling mechanic roles where Australia is experiencing a significant skills shortage.
Adopting a “plenty of fish” attitude can drag out the recruitment process and potentially damage your brand. A smarter approach is to treat every application as if it’s the one that you’re going to hire, communicating with candidates regularly throughout the process to ensure they have a good experience and stay engaged and motivated to join the business.
It’s also important to be a little flexible. If you’re willing to let the best candidate walk away over something as arbitrary as a 50c an hour pay disparity, you’re likely to be the one that loses out in the long run.
Myth #5: The perfect employee is out there
While it’s nice to dream, in most cases the perfect employee doesn’t exist—or at least not at the same time you’re looking for them.
On the odd occasion, you might be lucky enough to stumble across someone that ticks every single box in terms of skills, experience, and pay expectations, but it’s very rare.
While you should always look for someone that’s qualified for the role, in some circumstances you may need to lower your expectations a little in terms of previous experience. Think about how much experience is really needed; someone that’s had a little bit of exposure to the industry and is willing and motivated to learn could be just as successful if given the opportunity.
Waiting for that perfect employee can also drag out the recruitment process. While you could wait six months to find someone with your specific brand experience, you may have been able to pick up a great employee that with two months of extra training could prove to be better than the perfect candidate. This is particularly important for dealerships in regional areas where it’s tougher to find employees.
Think about what you really need, what you’re willing to compromise on, and what you’re willing to teach someone; this will help you hone in on the attributes you really need to look for.
Myth #6: All you need is a job ad and the applications will flood in
While this may have been the case in the past, today’s environment is a lot more complex with only a small proportion of the market actively looking for a job.
A job ad is just the first step of the process. While you could pick up someone great off a job ad, a large portion of the job market is only looking passively. While they’re not visiting job boards looking for new ads, if something interesting was presented to them, they may consider applying.
In fact, a recent study conducted by LinkedIn showed that only 15% of fully employed individuals are completely satisfied in their role, however only 25% are actively looking for a new job. This suggests that 60% of workers might be willing to change jobs, but simply don’t want to look for it.
A large percentage of people are happy to be approached about a new opportunity, and in many cases, you’ll need to adopt a proactive approach by tapping into your industry network or using outreach tools like LinkedIn to entice the best candidates to apply.
Myth #7: Recruiters are lazy
Some employers hold the perception that recruiters merely read a CV before sending it on. While there are recruiters that only do a quick tick and flick, that’s not real recruitment.
When selecting a recruiter to partner with, you want to look for someone that genuinely wants to work with you. Someone that’s going to invest time with you to understand what you’re looking for and who would make a good fit for the role.
Ideally you also want a recruiter that specialises in your specific industry. Not only will they have established industry connections and a good understanding of what you need in an employee, but they’ll also have a reputation to protect and will want to do a good job for you.
Teamrecruit is Australia’s most established recruitment agency specialising in truck, earthmoving and agricultural machinery dealerships in Australia, New Zealand, the South Pacific and Southeast Asia. Find out more about Teamrecruit and how we support employers and candidates in the dealership industry.
