Our company is looking to hire multiple Field Service Techs and Shop Techs and it has been difficult finding qualified applicants in today's market (mainly because they're already employed). Our business has grown, and we need more mechanics. Are there specific staffing companies or recruiters that you tend to use when looking for new jobs? Thanks!
Offer more money or better benefits than the competition as a start. Being better organized and better equiped helps too. I know I wouldn't jump ship to go work somewhere that makes you "make it work" because they're too cheap to buy proper tooling.
And don't forget quality well stocked service trucks and a clean, warm (or in your case cool well ventilated) well lit, well stocked shop. Well we can dream can't we?
You are having the same problem that everyone else is having all across the country. You are going to have to hire them away from the biggest contractors and equipment dealers. If you are not very well equipped or have sub par facilities....... forget it. Expect to pay upwards of $150K a year for heavy experienced personnel.
Some of the better shops here were offering a pretty substantial signing bonus for heavy duty mechanics. The stipulation was you had to stay at least 6 month's or it might have been a year. The shop that rebuilt my engine was offering $12,000 if I remember right. My sister's hair salon does something similar. She'll pay for stylists training and send them all over N. America and even to the UK to the best schools but they have to sign an agreement that they will stay for at least a year. If they leave before a year they have to pay back a good portion of what was spent for their training. Unfortunately she got burned a couple times and it wasn't worth trying to get the money back but her salon is known for being the best salon if you want continuous learning. She wasn't really out of pocket that much for the majority of the training because she earns points from the products the salon sells that pay for the training. Some additional training she'll pay out of pocket for but usually only for the longer term employee's. Training in the UK would be a few thousand dollars if the stylists had to pay for on their own. They have to come up with their spending money but my sister will book it for a few extra days up to a week longer if they want to have a short vacation after the training. I think it would be awesome getting free trips to the UK, New York, Los Angeles, Toronto and a few other destinations.
I would more then fill what you expect for a wrench. like I tell every shop that wants me (mostly places I worked at before) Do I get to take the truck home? Do I get any days off I ask for ? Is the money well worth my time? Is the benefits there? Do you expect me to only do your work? Is there enough time left in my day for my side jobs For me anyhow if it doesn't fit these requirements I'm not interested. Sure other people may have different ones but it all boils down to are you wanting happy employees and not well you get the idea!
I'll also add that if relatives of the owner are working on the shop floor, forget it. Been down that road with an owner's kid working in the shop and I'm not dealing with that BS again.
Sometimes it doesn't matter how good you are. If you have a bunch of demands right off the bat, they might just say thanks but no thanks. It's definitely different if a former employer wants you to come back.
It kind of the same with some shops that have a guy that isn't very good at anything but has been there forever because he's the son of someone who knows the boss or someone else higher up.
Welcome to the Forums rockstar! Glad to have you. Moved this thread over to Personnel - Employers seeking employees. Best of luck!
Yep. I don't need some fresh out of highschool kid telling me how to do my job when I've been doing the job since before he was in kindergarten.
Mistake on my part. Forgot this forums is PM reply only. Moving into general Personnel so members can comment. Please keep any negotiations on a job through PM. Thanks
Been in the situation that after so long your to get this that or the other thing and it never happened. From that I learn to get it up front or move along. Of course a happy medium can always be found
I've been promised things that never came to be. You need everything in writing and a lot times it would really help to have your phone on record so you can hold people to their word. Not just for employer issues. A lot of people conveniently forget what they said especially if it involves them giving you something, especially money.
Rockstar, Welcome to the HEF. Don’t have any good news for you. It’s going to get worse before it gets worse. Late to the game. The major OEM’s, their dealership networks and trade orgs are 15 years ahead of you. All you can do, in clown world 2024, is provide buckets of cash, nice service trucks (that can be taken home), vaca, P-card, tool allowance, uniforms, coveralls, and better benefits than the other place down the street. Good luck.
Have you heard back from mechanics you interviewed? Did they respond or can you not even get interviews? From my previous job search most companies were absolute **** shows. Bottom of the barrel pay and benefits for ridiculous job requirements, crap management: incompetent or seeing a mechanic as only an expense, wore out equipment so mechanics are running themselves ragged trying to keep up. But it’s usually pay that stopping applicants. The place I’m with now advertises the pay scale, we’re constantly having people apply. The side effect is all the mechanics jobs in my area have raised their wages to compete.
Some of the shops in my area are not drug testing for weed anymore in the UA package. In an attempt to help recruit & retain non-CDL positions.
Just saw this post, locally weed has become a Non Starter for a great many Potential New Hires. Get the word Test required for employ and do not ever return. Insurers note yeah is Legal recreationally but the companies will NOT Pay out if test after an accident shows a positive. CDL is still a requirement under UA, as to machine operators is still a requirement here. Two close weld shops stopped testing for Weed, had weld failure, one lost a forklift at their plant in a rollover, ALL incidents weed was found in the tested employees so they notified would resume testing before a major incident shuts them down, 1/3 of employees Quit.
It’s a huge deal. Big problem up here.
My boss and I discussed this today, for each approvable applicant, there are twenty that will NOT take a Drug Screen, he had the data from three years of applicants. One man was hired years ago, found Weed to be acceptable for his Problematic Pains, started using and tested Positive, lost a $60k a year easy gig and refuses to stop use, sits on State Aid currently.
I have made a dozen or so youngsters aware of the upsides of air twaffic corntrol . 6 figure pay, insurance, pension, four oh one k plan. Early retirement… Not one of them could pass or wanted to be drug or alcohol tested. I’m not much of a recruiter.
Seems like most people are smoking the reefer these days. Personally I could give a damn if someone smokes a joint Friday or Saturday night, just don't show up to work high.
Then they whine cannot make enough money.
Not hiring those that smoke, tends to eliminate a whole class of trouble from the work place. However I am sure a few good ones get caught in that net too. Oh well. I would rather not have it in my employees' system for some investigator to find after an incident.
The big money is going to be whoever makes a fool-proof test for on the spot THC intoxication. I've met plenty of folks that save it for after work or on the weekends, and even more nowadays that just want to eat a mint or gummy to take the edge off after work. Would probably help to relieve some of the rampant alcoholism in the trades. To the OP; I can't add anything that hasn't already been said. Offer more than the next shop and treat people well. Some folks are sitting still because of the constant economic talk, some are jumping ship when the company caps raises at 3%, some are just moving into other positions or trades altogether.
Years ago when I was a "garbologist" WM was paying $15 an hour to start with bennies for someone to ride on the back of a truck and throw garbage in the big green hole in the back. Couldn't believe how many people who pissed and moaned about couldn't find a decent paying gig as soon as heard about preemployment whiz quiz immediately lost interest. Only have to quit tokin" for a couple weeks to get clean enough to pass test. Also lost a bunch of hard working garbage throwing "machines" because WM wouldn't hire convicted felons. A few good guys came to us through the temp agency and couldn't be hired full time because of that rule so they beat feet. We weren't guarding the crown jewels, we were picking up garbage, never understood that one.
Worked on and IN as well drove and shagged Garbage, somebody got to do it. Shoulders cannot handle any longer so begged off at current employ. That stated, Second Left Shoulder Steroid coming Friday.
Because once a felon, always a felon. They come in to work mad, you get tossed in the truck for dead.
Not true at all, know several guys over the years who did something dumb when young and stupid then pulled their heads from their asses and went on to lead a pretty productive and successful lives.
with today's lax sentencing, murder's are only getting 20 years, and are sent out in much less time.
I’m seeing companies changing their policies on felonies and allowing certain convictions.
I briefly met with the shop manager of a large trucking outfit today. First or second largest in the state. They are bumping their top Tech pay to $57@hr and their new recruitment strategy is “We’ll just throw as much money as it takes”. Well, there you go. It’s too late to grow your own or be strategic about it.
Can still remember “Earning” $5.50/hr or later in life expecting at least $10.20/hr or as was low level supervision starting at $13,500/yr Or as was ‘Contractor’ worked at client’s sites for $30/hr Just born wrong generation I suppose.
Another funny thread--reread from start to finish--and think about the currant state of affairs nationally, this second page especially.
I just hired a new mechanic a couple weeks ago. He's early 60's. He came to me with a resume of 20 years experience in cranes, and 6 of it as managing a shop. He didn't quit the company, so much as he quit the new manager they hired. It was a lot bigger company than I am, and so we have a little less pressure, and just fewer pieces of equipment. His old company had a big push to get stuff out the door, if it was actually finished or not. A new move for a lot of the managers is a metric of uptime and filling out the forms for PM's. He had a lot of push from upstairs to the tune of "if you guys just did the PM's " nothing would break. When equipment did go down- get it out the door and on the next job- and when it goes down fix it there. (so some other crane company, doesn't get the job). As we've seen in Vtech's thread, managers that come straight from school or a different industry, want to have corporate measuring points for their raises/ bonus etc. They just want uptime. Personally, I don't care about the total percentages of uptime, as much as actually getting the equipment fixed when its broken. Because I know its going to break. And I realize that some things are harder to fix than others. I've sent one young guy through a diesel tech school, and I've hired other (older and younger) guys with experience. The young guys, you just have to realize that they are young, and are going to make 20 year old young guy mistakes. It's part of it. With older guys, you get the years of experience, but most of the time, they have physical limits. So I try to make it a mix, have the young guys learning from the old guys, and the young guys doing the brute work. I've really enjoyed Coaldust's info on the alaska side. Its a lot of remote work in not great weather environments, so while the pay scale sounds high, I bet its not cheap to live in alaska. As far as the drug testing- I pre employment drug test, and everyone is in a random pool. Both drug and alcohol. And I can select for testing also. As far as the felons, I had a guy apply to work with a great resume, but he forgot to mention the child molestation incident a couple years back (he didn't get a job). I won't hire a thief. I will hire someone who got in a bar fight.
Not everyone who has a felony is a murderer or kid toucher, 2 dudes I knew just made the mistake of accepting public defenders who were basically taking up space and didn't give a ***** about their client, got railroaded because they trusted the court appointed flunky and didn't know any better. As stated earlier they got their ***** straight and prospered. How about all the white collar pole smokers who don't even get prosecuted for destroying peoples lives because they have enough ill gotten loot to keep their asses out of jail?
The ones they hired in a local shop as "Welders" had 5 felony drug dealer convictions each. and couldn't weld either.
Certainly. The gold mines around here are hiring anyone with a pulse and an inkling of welding or wrench turning ability. How they keep running is a miracle. The deferred maintenance and shoddy emergency repairs are eventually going to catch up. It’s not sustainable. Even though, some of our HEF members are pretty good at that preventative maintenance philosophy. It doesn’t work for large companies very long.
Your very correct---Look at the millions saved in service expense in all large companies like Penske. It's penciled to a fine point--then dump the vehicle, the good was gotten. It's all about the hour glass--with employees and vehicles.
It's all kind of relative, just the times. Howard Hughes was worth 2.5 billion in 1976 when he died, Jeff Bezos 195.5 billion in 2023. At that time we wondered making $5.50 what 2.5 billion would be like. Hughes was a big shot then, he's small taters now in comparison. And there were roughly 180,000 people with a net worth of 1 million or more in the 70's. Today there are 23.7 million with a net worth of 1 million or more. Today there are 2,640 with a worth of 10 figures or more. 813 billionaires as of April 2024. * You and I were just working for pocket change at that time compared to today. Can you imagine how much we could have afforded then if we were making $50 bucks an hour. A real good attorney at that time was charging $45 an hour, today $400 and up. It's all relative--then and now. But people went to work for maybe two or three companies in a life time. Now if you haven't job hopped four times by the age of 22 your just not classified as ambitious enough. The world we live in 2024.
I learned pretty quick too that job jumping to gain &.25 hr or to get decent benes also meant layoffs happened more often. That as companies merged or were bought out generally we as mechanics were curb fodder. Economics of the times has not changed, monetary valies and devalue have. That 2.5b Hughes was making was equivalent to Bezos money today, JS McDonnell when the F4 was selling to every military in NATO was only mKing $2mil a year, can remember my Dad explaining that then, that JS owned less than 1/10 the shares of Mac Stock unlike these others today. CEO of the utility I worked for in 80 made just over a mil a year, stock options a pittance of the amount the current glutton receives, his pay is over $35mil. Yes is all relative, was maki g $43/hr as retired at nuke, was I earning it? Like to think I was while watching ex Navy personnel slop along in their owed to them do as little as can get away with job. And the personnel people being Ex Navy follow that route to hire their cadre before consider those that have and will work harder at the income level. Found it takes close to $45k a year to survive in paid off dwelling and a reasonable used Cars for the household here. Less than that is pretty well on the line for poverty income, that used to be less than $15k
Actually I saw something like 12B---But at any rate Hughes would be carrying Jeff Bezos golf clubs--long hair, finger nails & all.
Not getting any better these days, fuel costs, machine costs, machine maintenance costs, facilities maintenance and services costs all add up long before add mechanics or drivers or even custodial help. The independent shop I once worked is now Offering $48/hour, still see fewer than 2-3 per month applying and no takers, current owner was one of the guys I was on the floor with. He noted is in no way can offer more as Insurance is eating them alive. Are "Production or Chargeable Rate Payroll" or Flat rate, mechanics are leaving to other occupations much as I had done as not worth the pain and hassles received. Dealers, Independents, private fleets have Flags, semi-permanent banner signage, offering sign on bonus and other presentations of extra cash and No Takers. One major flaw is the technology costs to repair the manufacturers seem to ignore yet the buyers are backing away even to closing to avoid.
It's never going too.
An item I was told about from dealer parts manager that I hadn't heard of, knew nothing about. He used it to describe a new hire called--{The Gen Z Stare}, just a steady blank gaze.
Most cannot do anything from memory, is as if have not got one. And almost no imagination.
Well supposedly the {stare} is related to little human interaction from online conversation. At least that's the idea-whether it really is who knows, I haven't seen it personally. But when I looked it up that's what came up. *
I'm starting to develop that stare. I want to like people but people ruined that for me.
What got ruined, was your expectations of people. You just assumed because you are human, other people are going to be human. Still, much as a dog, descended from wolfs, we descended from people that used to club women over the head and drag them to our cave.
Bertha Butt & the Butt sisters.....
I think that's blaming others for {allowing} others to ruin when there is usually a option of one sort or another. * I have a small sign by the front door with only one type of solicitor listed as not allowed. They turn and walk.
Sometimes I hear things on the news, that makes me wish I were a dog.
With a soup bone!
I do like how the OP made that initial post…then crickets lol.
He's still busy reading applications he got from jobsindeed. I talked to a business owner yesterday who had 3 mechanics quit in the last month. He said one of the guys leaving was making $22/hr in just benefits, not counting the hourly wage and overtime. He made it sound like one of the guys wanted out of a service truck and into a shop, with more regular hours. Which the employer would have done, but he didn't know. Until after the employee quit.
Harvest--Two of us are close to 70, the farmer 55, son 29 and two bank out wagon drivers both early 20's. A real menagerie of people age wise.
Stopped at a dealer to pick up parts, had to wait where I thought I remembered Svc Mgr and was correct as called out to him, he is dealing with a series of recent hire "Techs", cannot Diagnose anything without a Laptop even as are NOT electrical in nature but Hard Faults. Had a Newer Machine in their shop, lights just quit so tech ordered a replacement Lighting 'Module', still no lights and expended close to $1200 for a Module cannot charge for. SM went to the machine, opened dash and plugged light switch BACK IN, all worked fine. LOCK Tab on switch plug was broken and took him ten minutes to find. Another newer hire was working to replace terminal block, and screwed up, unplugged ALL the wires at once and then tried to return to new block, everything is a blur from there as these 'Kids' cannot read a wiring diagram, couple of them on the floor somewhere over three years. "Tech" was sent packing, two others are working down same or similar path.
Your in good hands with "Allstate"---all state of mindless.
That’s why old guys rule. They have forgotten, more than the new guys will ever learn. Before they get fired!
Not all the young guys are useless. I'd say a quarter of them actually have some common sense and ability to problem solve logically. A lot of them just can't seem to figure out how to think and work efficiently.
Seems those were never taught starting at Home, and now Will Not try to learn, evade evade evade.
I’m seeing shops adapting & learning how to get by with less Techs. With fleets, preventative maintenance is going out the window. It’s just emergency repairs and do the minimum to get back on the road. And farming out work to shops that are also under-staffed. Two or three week wait to get a minor repair done.
Hard to charge $150-200/hour for idiots.
The Service Advisors around Ancorage do a great job of keeping a straight face. I couldn’t ethically do it. I’d be like, Yes Mr. Customer, my idiots in the shop spent eight hours milking that inop headlamp. Oh, and at one point, another fella clocked in on the action. That will be two thousand dollars please. The greasy handprints are free. Sorry, they also lost the keys, do you have an extra?
There are 21 year old mechanics working on airliners right now. Im genX and was 20 when I started working on 727s etc for Continental in 1987 but these new kids dont think like regular people.
Do they understand "when it absolutely, positively has to be done right. No excuses" ? There is no "back button".....
You have hard workers in every generation but the screen time addiction has taken a hard toll on Gen Z You try to teach them something and they just stare at you zoned out They don’t retain anything. Every day it’s like they got a new brain Give them technical literature related to their issue and they turn illiterate. They want the info spoon fed to them a thousand times. Critical thinking is GONE They can’t communicate effectively, and forget professional communication. They can use a phone fairly well but an actual computer is as mysterious to them as to an 80 year old grandma trying to log in to Facebook You can’t tell me these traits weren’t intentionally planted by the school system either. I can’t get many of them to do a PDI correctly much less actual work correctly. And then there are the ones that come into the industry because daddy who was a mechanic told them to. These tend to be arrogant as hell and equally or less skilled than the others but think they are owed the world while they can’t fix a sandwhich.
Probably not.
There's a little bit more to it----life at home with few demands.
We've got a guy in his very early 20's like that. We stuck him in a truck to see what he could do and he's been doing fantastic. But like I said a few posts up, for every young guy like that we seem to get 2 or 3 that are adequate and a handful that I wouldn't let put air in a wheelbarrow tire.
I have a few guys working under/with me. 31, 18 and 17. I’m still teaching them to pickup after themselves. The lesson I started on day 1 with them was to think before you did something. Maybe as simple as what will save me some steps? Or if I remove this part will a bigger part fall on me? I’ve taught them some simple fundamentals along the way but I’m still teaching critical thinking. Paying attention to parts as you disassemble something. Not only how it goes together but looking for worn or broken stuff etc. The biggest hurdle I have is when tasked with something they’ve done before it’s like a contest to see how fast they can do it. With that mindset stuff will get overlooked every time. They are making progress. We’ve done some jobs enough they can handle them with little oversight. I do go back after them and check simple things with the thought that if those were covered perhaps the important stuff was too. Our schools aren’t doing them any favors. I’ve had to have classes on freakin tape measures. When I got a measurement of 96 and five lines……from a guy with a sticker on his welding hood that says bada$$ pipe fitter. That was a big facepalm moment.
Coke.
I have the exact same problem. These ****ing idiots seem to think their mothers work there. They just leave their **** everywhere. Then I'm the a-holes for telling them to pick it up.
Funny thing about all this--that's what the greatest generation said about boomers, and boomers said about X, it never stops. In the 60's---{Hey Earl you see that long haired good for nothing hippy over there? Lets slam the PBR's and go have some fun and give him a haircut sheep shear style}. Way it was then and not much has changed, won't be long and Z's will be complaining about how stupid and worthless the next generation is.
It’s different this time. The Z’s are hopelessly lost. The females can earn a living with a Onlyfans page, getting by on Medicaid and whatever social services they can receive from their crotch spawn. The guys are living the van life. During my travels around the state this summer, when I do run into an ambitious Z’er, they are likely going to be a H-1B.
No it isn't---I don't know how many times I heard the same thing years ago, {Worthless youth just laying around smoking pot and making more little hippy's}. Started about this time. *
You might be right. I mean, once the Millennials stopped eating Tide Pods, they got their act together.
Was a HS drop out, got my GED same week at STL Board of Ed offices thirty miles from home. Been hard working since and not really ever stopped. I state that as when watched the three at the dealer remembered where I was out of trade school, still learning but as such was trying to learn, these people try nothing, need as noted spoon fed. Overhauled, actually re-bearinged a Fuller 1110 at 19, first in frame was at 19 on a NTC-290, Freightliners were stupidly cheap built but easy to learn on. IHCs were a PITA. Older gas burners of all makes were tight to work on and work was plentiful where learned as fast as could take it in. Do not see that desire in these kids minds, expect top pay for minimal effort and someone standing behind them telling what to do for every hand move. Doubt many will make it very far before just sitting at home with parents yelling they will not hear as glued to the screen in their paws.
yet those of the 60s and 70s awoke to need of Money, that meant being Self Sufficient, had to think for selves. Could still be Hippies, but knew required Funds to do so.
Timothy Leary--{Tune in, turn on, and drop out}, I said before, after denouncing Big Brother, the hippified lost their micro bus, ditched the peace symbol, tie dyed shirts, cut the pony tail, lost the granny dresses, laid off the pot and joined Big Brother---to run Wall Street. Then as those retired, returned to smoking pot setting in the VW Beetle hidden in the four car garage while listening to Lead Zeppelin, Jimmie & Janice.
I started to be one of those. Never made it to the hidden microbus and pot never was a draw. Pony Tail ended rolled into a creeper wheel one fateful day, by way of large folding Buck knife
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