Fleet Maintenance - 14

Fresno, California, Duncan Polytech is a magnet
school offering technical education to provide
career pathways for students.
Students at Duncan Polytechnical High School
choose their path in ninth grade, Rubio says.
Students who select the Heavy Truck Program will
receive continual instruction throughout their
four years at the school. The program includes
hands-on training, technical and safety certification, and first-hand jobsite training and apprenticeship programs with local trucking service
businesses. Students who graduate have already
been successfully hired at local truck dealerships,
and have decided to continue education through
community college, Rubio confirms.
When it comes to attracting entry-level technicians into vehicle service and repair, Holt advises
the heavy duty truck industry has fared better
than the automotive or collision repair segments.
He says there are two primary reasons for this:
diesel technicians tend to be compensated a higher
hourly rate (about $18 to $22 per hour, compared
to about $10 to $12 per hour for automotive or
collision technicians), and many fleet service facilities will provide more of the tools and equipment
necessary for working on the vehicles in the shop.
While diesel technicians may have an advantage over other vehicle service technicians, other
industries that require service technicians - such
as aviation and energy companies - still look to
recruit from the vehicle service technician pool,
according to SP/2's Holt. This adds to the continued decline of available new-hire candidates
entering the vehicle service industry.
Spurlock's American Diesel Training Centers
take an accelerated approach when it comes to
training technicians. He says this helps to alleviate two major barriers of entering the industry:
time and money.
A traditional technical program to become a
diesel technician takes two years of full-time
training, in addition to paying several thousand
dollars for tuition. American Diesel Centers offers
300-hour, 12-week programs that can provide
students a base knowledge of vehicle service and
repair, with the expectation that companies who
hire these employees will continue to focus on
developing skills and setting a path for success.
Spurlock stresses that employers must become
fully invested in the development and progress
of their employees to address the challenges of
employees jumping from shop to shop for incremental raises.
"That all funnels back to the challenges with
student loan debt," Spurlock explains. "Because
these folks come out of a [traditional technical]
program with a student loan debt, it immediately becomes that company's problem ... because
on day one, your typical starting salary - and it
doesn't matter if you [attended] UTI, Lincoln Tec,
or our program - is probably going to be between
$17 and $20 an hour. If you're trying to service a
loan, make a car payment, make an apartment
payment, buy groceries, take care of a kid, do all
that kind of stuff, you can't blame them. They need
to make as much money as they can, which is why
the whole phenomenon of stealing techs from each
other for an extra dollar an hour is out there, and
it just doesn't work."
Spurlock adds that this approach of poaching

14 Fleet Maintenance | July 2019

Tips for interview success
Prepare for talking
with potential
new hires.
Finding qualified candidates to fill a technician
position is just the first
step. Conducting phone
and in-person interviews
can provide details and
additional insight into the
candidate's attitude and
experience. There are some
guidelines employers should
consider when preparing
and conducting these question-and-answer sessions.

DON'T CROSS A LINE

Before starting the interview
process, know the questions
you can and cannot ask. Asking
personal questions can put the
employer at risk of litigation if
the candidate can prove they
were discriminated against
during the hiring process.
"Do not ask inappropriate,
illegal questions in an interview," says Kyle Holt, president,
SP/2. SP/2 provides training
courses for both potential
employees and employers
on proper interviewing techniques and best practices.
"We don't necessarily say,
'Oh, here's some very creative
questions to ask,' we're far
more concerned with making
sure that companies are
doing things the right way
and not putting themselves

in a situation where they
can be sued for discrimination," Holt explains.

Questions employers should
NOT ask include any personal
information, such as location of
residence, marital status, number of children, religion, or age.

GIVE AND TAKE

Greg Settle, director - national initiatives for TechForce
Foundation says it is important to actively listen to an
interviewee's responses
and try not to interrupt.
"Remember that the goal in an
interview is to learn as much
about the candidate as you
can," Settle says. "Therefore,
resist the temptation to do
most or all of the talking. While
you are talking, you can't be
listening and therefore learning about the candidate."
As part of listening, be sure to
engage with the candidate by
asking follow-up questions if
necessary. "Don't be afraid to
probe deeper into a specific
issue," Settle says. "You may
learn more in 'going deep' with
a couple of questions than
staying at the surface level
with five or six questions."
Settle also suggests asking
for further details, or an
example, if an interviewer
finds a response to a question too general or vague.
"If someone is giving you a general statement in response to a

technician talent from different shops will ultimately be detrimental to the industry as a whole.
Instead, the industry must focus on creating a
sustainable "pipeline" of qualified, entry-level
candidates, he says.

Recruitment through
resume reviews
Aside from working with local educational facilities, fleets can access online hubs with access to
resumes for qualified service technicians seeking
employment. These organizations - such as Find
A Wrench and SP/2 - offer employers a means
to search for candidates based on search criteria
including keywords and geographic location.
"What we've done is we have systematized
[resume design] so every single resume is laid
out exactly the same to make it as easy as possible for businesses to go through and look at those
resumes," says SP/2's Holt.

question, say 'Can you give me
an example of that?'" he suggests. "If they cannot provide
any real-world examples from
their own experience, then I
would not give much credence
to what they are telling you."
In addition, get more details
on gaps in employment and
an explanation for leaving previous employers, especially if
they have switched jobs often.
"It will help you get a feeling
for whether there were valid
reasons for them to move on,
or if you may be dealing with
someone who is never happy
at a job and is always looking
for 'greener grass,'" Settle says.

SHARE COMPANY
DETAILS

In addition to determining the qualifications of a
potential employee, at some
point during the interview
process, be sure to share
details about the organization. Settle suggests sharing
information about company
culture in a second interview.
"A second interview is a
good time to focus more on
how the candidate fits into
your organization, once you
have determined in the first
interview that you would
like to consider hiring that
person," he says. "That is
the time to delve into your
culture, talk about what the
expectations are for employees, and what the key drivers
are for your organization."

"We don't let just any technician build their
resumes and post that to careers, only students
who are enrolled in a career tech program can
create their resumes," he adds.
Holt suggests that formatting, spelling, and
grammar errors should not necessarily disqualify a potential candidate. More important than the
layout is the information on the page and gauging
the candidate's interest in the industry.
"You're going to have misspellings, you're going
to have poor grammar, you're going to have typos,
you're going to have lack of capitalization," Holt
says. "That doesn't mean that they're not a good
technician. What it really comes down to is, does
it seem like they are clearly communicating to
you an interest in the industry?"
"Rather than making a complete judgment on
a resume alone, I'd encourage management to sit
down and have a conversation with the individual," says Find A Wrench CEO Jay Goninen. Find
A Wrench maintains an extensive job board for
shops and technicians, and offers fleets options for

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