Certain industries like Auto Dealerships have consistently struggled with recruiting and retention. Some studies have turnover at 70% on the sales team and 39% overall. Combine that with the challenges of the "great resignation" and the recruiting process is even more difficult now than it ever was.
INNOVATIVE CAN WIN THE WAR
In the new "reality" all industries are now competing against all industries for the same pool of desirable, productive humans that would be a great addition to any team. For those that find this new reality difficult and painful, they need to recognize that recruiting challenges are not the actual pain, it is the symptom of a flawed process.
You can continue to recruit and retain in an industry standard manner but realize to win the recruiting war, the only way to win is to spend more money. More money on jobs ads, recruiters, placement fees, referral fees. However, since you are now competing against all industries for the best people, the team with the most money or the most innovative approach wins.
RECRUITING AND RETENTION IS MARKETING
The first step in an innovative new approach to recruiting and retaining is to have a collective shift in thinking. Recruiting and retention is marketing. Your target market is the prospects, your existing customers are your current employees, your product is your culture. This innovative shift requires that you begin to think about how to make it easy for your prospect to learn from your existing customers about how great your product is.
Do you have existing customers (employees) who will provide testimony about your great product (your culture)?
How do you make it easy for your prospects (recruits) to find these testimonials.
GREAT MARKETERS UNDERSTAND THIS
To have a great marketing campaign you need to be clear on who the target audience is, you need to know how to reach that target audience and you need a carefully crafted message that is both relevant and credible. The industry stand way of doing this is to write a job ad that describes the requirements and duties of the job. Post the job add along side of hundreds of other similar job ads on linkedin, facebook, indeed, zip recruiter. These boring job ads blend in quickly and disappear just as quick. The only way to stand out is to spend more money to try and get noticed.
Innovators carve out small niches of a target audience. Craft job ads with headlines that will appear to this niche. The content will focus on the experience and will provide testimony from employees. The content will be optimized for search and will be strategically placed in job boards that specifically target the niche audience.
LEADS ARE FOLLOWED UP ON QUICKLY
Nothing drives a sales leader more crazy than to provide leads to a sales team and then to know they are not followed up on in a timely basis. The same holds true with recruiting marketing. The longer your recruiting team waits to follow up on a top prospect, the greater the chance that another innovative recruiter will beat you to the punch.
Recruits like prospective customers want to know they are working with a professional organization that cares about them as a recruit. How and when you follow up will send the message about the culture or work experience the recruit is about to sign up for. Remember you are competing against all industries.
WHY MOST DEALERSHIPS WONT CHANGE
As you read this, you probably recognize that this mindset and methodology will have a significant impact on your organization. But the transition from who you currently are to who you want to be will require time, resources and a commitment from leadership. It will require a consistent effort for a period of time to build momentum. Leadership will want to see results and know that you are taking them in the right direction. Most HR and Recruiting teams do not have the technology or system to measure improvement in recruiting.
That is where recruitment marketing agencies come in. In the automotive space, companies like Dealer People Cloud are providing you with the system to change and the ability to measure impact. They will lead you will you keep up with the current burn and churn of turnover.
However, if you do this right, you will save money on recruiting, you will transparency into the system, you will look like an innovator and great place to work, and because you are including your existing team and leadership in the testimony you will have less turnover.
Your choices are to spend more money the old industry standard way to innovate and win.
