common hiring phenomenon in the automotive industry. It’s so common that a term coined for dating has found a new home here: ghosting. In fact, 93% of dealerships experienced ghosting last year alone — but there are tools you can use to prevent no-shows from happening at your dealership. First and foremost, your dealership needs to find a calendar sync tool. This tool does exactly what you think it does — it takes all of your hiring manager’s calendars to offer candidates interview appointments that work best for them. Why does this work? For starters, it eliminates the timeconsuming back-and-forth rapport that arranging interviews used to require. You can send a link to your calendar as soon as you receive an application (although we’d recommend filtering candidates before inviting them to interviews). But you shouldn’t stop there. If you truly want to cut down on the number of no-show interviews your team endures, you need to find a way to remind applicants of their upcoming interviews that doesn’t put more responsibility on your hiring team. Using a tool like Hireology’s interview reminders increases overall engagement with candidates and keeps them interested in your dealership as a potential employer. These reminders can be sent through SMS text messaging, emails or both so you make sure that your candidates see the message. We found that customers who combined our interview scheduling tool with texting capabilities increased their applicant-to-conversion rate (meaning they made hires) at double the rate of traditional recruiting methods. Don’t believe us? Recent Hireology research found that the number one reason automotive job seekers ghost interviews is because of a lack of communication and transparency from the dealership. BEST PRACTICES FOR CONDUCTING INTERVIEWS Surprisingly, most of the hard work for interviews occurs before and after the interview. Being organized is one of the best strategies your dealership can use to give candidates a great first impression of you as an employer. Your focus during the interview should be on getting to know the candidate to the best of your abilities while holding a natural conversation. Take a look at the best practices we have listed to learn more about how you can conduct efficient and effective interviews to hire better candidates faster. Hold the Right Amount of Interviews for the Role You need the people in the door — fast. But you also need to do your due diligence to make sure you pick the right candidate for the position. In order to do this, you may need to conduct more than one interview depending on the seniority level of the position you’re hiring for. We suggest holding two interviews for roles in high demand and/or with high turnover to move as efficiently as possible. Hireology data revealed that over a third (34%) of automotive applicants want to be interviewed within 48 hours of applying, while 60% want to be interviewed within three days. The first interview should be a simple phone screening where you give the high level overview of the job and feel the candidate out. This conversation shouldn’t last more than 15-20 minutes; you want to be able to look at the big picture of the candidate, just in case they might be good for another role you’re trying to fill. At the end of the first screening interview, be sure to close the conversation with the compensation and location information to make sure that the candidate is comfortable with what you’re offering. Just like in sales, you want to always be closing in interviewing so there are no surprises when an offer letter comes through. The second interview would be with who the candidate’s direct supervisor would be to see how they get along and get their take. Create a Positive Interview Environment Interviews are, by nature, anxiety‑inducing interactions. The candidate’s very livelihood could be on the line here — and that outside event can impact how they perform during the interview. Give the candidate some grace here by doing what you can to subconsciously ease their nerves. Tips for building rapport and fostering candidate comfort during interviews include: 1. Familiarize yourself with the application ahead of time and keep a copy in front of you to reference during the interview. 2. Welcome them warmly with a handshake. 3. Don’t dive right into the questions — keep it casual and uncover their current situation. 4. Set expectations for the rest of the hiring process and how you’ll communicate during it. 5. Generally treat candidates like humans with families and friends. 6. Do less talking and more listening. 7. Steer the conversation but don’t dominate it. Remember: onboarding starts with the interview. It’s not unheard of for a candidate to choose a lower paying job 18 Virginia Auto Dealer
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