Save thousands of dollars and much aggravation by presenting a pay plan the way we do!

August 28, 2018 by Don Jasensky

Candidates will turn down a terrific pay plan offered to them or ask for a lot more base salary if they don’t understand, or worse they misunderstood, the variable portion.

Present a pay plan like we do and you will end this problem !

Address variable compensation with:

Show candidate what the pay plan will yield based on the trailing 12 months .
Then let them know that you are looking for an improvement, (let’s go with 10%). With a 10% improvement your variable will be $X +
Over perform at 15% and variable will be $X ++

Now your candidate will understand the base and variable and can do accurate mental calculations. If they are a high performer they will see themselves performing at the higher level.

Donald Jasensky is Founder and CEO of Automotive Personnel, LLC 216-216-8190 Don@AutomotivePersonnel.Careers TWITTER@DonJasensky

Characteristics Of A Good Personnel Recruitment System

December 6, 2017 by Don Jasensky

The most important ingredient to your career/ business success is the people whom you hire. They sell you products, find your customers, provide your revenue stream, solve your problems, and fend off your competition.

Problem is , you can have an MBA from an Ivy League school and still be ill-equipped to find great candidates, interview, assess and evaluate.

For 2018 I recommend reviewing your recruitment system and look for these characteristics.

Highly effective
Easy to use
Repeatable across all positions
Teachable – becomes “Tribal Knowledge”
Easily adopted by new managers

Highly effective means that if you follow the system you will consistently hire good employees who fit your open positions
Easy to use means it is not overly complicated whereby the system itself gets into the way of hiring .
The system must be useable for all positions, from junior through senior level positions. Of course more complex and higher level positions require more time and effort but the system remains the same.
The ability to teach the system to other employees is essential for a system to be adopted and become “tribal knowledge” by the employees.
A good system must be easily adopted by new managers who join the company. A system so complex that new managers need to go off few a few days of training to learn how to use the system is way overly complicated and often become untenable in small through medium size organizations.

Good recruitment becomes a part of your organizational culture not a just a Human Resources function.

Donald Jasensky

Founder and CEO Automotive Personnel, LLC

216-226-8190

www.AutomotivePersonnel.Careers Don@AutomotivePersonnel.Careers

TWITTER: @DonJasensky

Deciphering a candidate’s employment record during the interview – made easy !!!

March 14, 2017 by Don Jasensky

Deciphering a candidate’s employment record during the interview – made easy !!!

The best indicator of a candidate’s future performance with you is their past performance . But you have to know what to look for !!!

Employment behavior tends to follow consistent patterns. A low achiever has a record of low achievement and a high achiever has a record of high achievement. The confusing part is deciphering a candidate’s employment record during the interview and evaluation process!

Low achievers are usually very good at “hiding” in successful departments. As an interviewer it is your responsibility to find out the actual contributions, accomplishments and employment record of the candidate to determine if a high or low achiever is sitting in front of you. In 28 years of recruiting we have learned that one of the most common mistakes employers make is hiring low performers from successful companies.

As the interviewer, you must ask the questions that will yield the information you need to make a smart hiring decision.
During the interview, probe candidates about their accomplishments, their specific role, dates and time frames, awards, bonuses, promotions, attendance and good teammate traits. Then verify with references. Do not miss the “verify with references “ part! Learn from the automotive finance and banking industry – they do not just ask customers “how they pay their bills” do they? No, they verify – so should you!

Don’t allow important questions to be answered with soft answers. They provide you with no real assessment value. Ask for facts, details and information to support their contributions and references who will verify them.

Revealing Questions:

In a quarter of a century of recruitment we have found certain questions can be very revealing. Of course many question will be asked, but keep the 80/20 rule in mind when it comes to revealing questions! Following is an example that I use when interviewing Sales Managers. Whether your position is a National Sales Manager over the entire US, or a Sales Manager for an automotive dealership, a few intelligent questions reveals so much from the interview.

Now watch as I drill down for specifics and remember that the devil lies in the detail !

After a general discussion about our client’s sales staff and its strengths and weaknesses

I ask : Now that you know the issues our client has with its sales staff tell me how you will help their sales staff perform much better for you than they are now.

Candidate answer : I will motivate them to sell

My follow up – Walk me through the details how you have done that in the past …

Candidate answer : I will train them to be better, I’m a great trainer

My follow up – Share some significant details about your training program and walk me through your ” from-to “results …

Candidate answer : I will hold them accountable for their results

My follow up – That sounds great, let’s talk about your current system to hold your people accountable …

I do not allow for soft or generic answers to specific questions. You shouldn’t either. The high performers will have specific answers and be able to support their “from – to” results.

You as the interviewer must lead and ask the questions that will yield the information you need to make a smart hiring decision. Become great at developing these revealing questions and pursuing details so that you can decipher a candidate’s true employment record. We have a separate article devoted to “Intelligent Interviewing “ that goes into more detail.

Please keep in mind we are not trying to stump a candidate, we want to learn about them so we can make an astute judgement on how they will perform in the future with our client.

Donald Jasensky

CEO / Automotive Personnel, LLC

216-226-8190

don@automotivepersonnel.careers

www.automotivepersonnel.careers

Twitter : @DonJasensky

“We Find The People Who Drive The Automotive Industry since 1989”

This is an honor …..

February 3, 2016 by Don Jasensky

For the second year in a row we are very proud to be nominated to The Subprime Auto Finance News

“Subprime 125 Heavy Hitters”. For 27 years we have been devoted to helping our clients find the very best candidates for their key positions. We are proud to be a part of this $1 trillion industry and I want to thank our clients for the opportunity to work with them. I also want to thank my fellow team members here who work so hard every day devoted to our clients’ needs.

Thank you,

Don Jasensky

CEO / Automotive Personnel, LLC

216-226-8190

don@automotivepersonnel.co

www.automotivepersonnel.co

TWITTER@ DonJasensky

Practitioner Vs Theorist and how (and why) to tell the difference

October 1, 2015 by Don Jasensky

You have been here many times. You interview several candidates and each sounds terrific. Your gut tells you that each wouldn’t thrive in your position but you are confused as to who would and who wouldn’t thrive.

Allow me to share a recruiting secret that has helped our firm successfully place several thousand candidates with our clients over the last quarter century. It is a simple mental paradigm that helps us weed through a group of great sounding candidates and get to the winning hires for our clients.

When several candidates interview well and sound great we ask : “Who are the Practitioners and who are the Theorists ?”

Characteristics of Theorists:

Openly very knowledgeable – you likely won’t need to prompt them for information
Quick on their feet, verbally intelligent . Sound very smart (and usually are)
In-charge of facts and statistics
Probably enjoys the interview process and talking shop
Superficial on details of their specific role and what they accomplished
They know how to tell you “what you want to hear”
References are usually co-workers

Characteristics of the Practitioner:

Very knowledgeable – however you may need to prompt them during interview for information
Sound smart and are smart
Can talk easily about challenges, how they overcame them and results . Frequently do not have statistics committed to memory
Probably do not enjoy the interviewing process and talking shop
Precise on their specific role of what they accomplished
They will tell you how things really are
References are usually their past managers and bosses

Why is this critical to the hiring process ?

The Theorists can talk the talk – and talk it very well but come up short on walking the walk. The Practitioner may come up a little short on talking the talk (without some prompting), but will walk the walk for you. This is why knowing what to look for is so important!

Here is our formula

It is very important to learn and talk about their specific accomplishments
Drill down on the specifics such as sales went from ________ to ______X 2. Ask for some verification. Talk is cheap , facts are not!
Drill down on their specific role
Ask about what issues that they ran into
Ask how they overcame the issues
Ask for specifics, engage in a discussion on details
Spend time with references learning about candidate’s actual accomplishments and does it match candidate’s claims

Theorists are often “corporate survivors” not the true “organizational drivers” . They have hung around for years and learned a lot. They are great at articulating facts but lack the ability to make the crucial decisions that lead to success. Usually they lack leadership skills.

Practitioners are the “organizational drivers”. They are the employees who get things done. They take action. In football analogy think of Bill Belichick as a role model for Practitioner and think of TV football analyst or sports writer as a role model Theorist. I would hire Bill Belichick to run my team even though Peter King of Sports Illustrated may do a better job of articulating a team’s history.

Take Away: Hire the Practitioner – they have made the successful decisions, built the well-run departments and can tell you how if you know how to ask them.

Donald Jasensky

CEO / Automotive Personnel, LLC

216-226-8190

don@automotivepersonnel.co

www.automotivepersonnel.co

Twitter : @DonJasensky

Automotive Personnel, LLC is in its 26^th year finding the people who drive the automotive industry !