Western Motors, a large automotive dealership was in danger of losing their coveted Premiere Service award based on customer ratings. Loss of the award would affect many aspects of the dealership including the loss of promotional incentives from the manufacturer and Western’s ability to get high‐demand models for customers. Retaining the rating was crucial to continued success in a competitive environment.

Nearly every area of the dealership suffered a slow deterioration in ratings over the last 2 years, but the most troublesome came from the service department. Greg Miller, Service Manager, has been with Western for 10 years and prides himself on having a pleasant, cooperative team atmosphere. The ratings drop was most significant in his department where keeping fully staffed was becoming more and more difficult. “Good help is so hard to find,” said Greg as he sat in the office of Kara, the HR director for the dealership. “I lost another one today and I might have to let one go next week.” Kara had worked with Greg on a new recruiting strategy lately, but the increase in qualified applicants wasn’t keeping up with the need for new service techs and customer service representatives.

Greg is an extroverted and gregarious man who does his own interviewing and prides himself on being a good judge of character. “Hire for attitude, train for skill, that’s my philosophy,” stated Greg. Greg went on to explain that Justin, hired a little over a year ago, was an excellent worker at first, but his attitude and performance deteriorated within a few months. “He’s just so negative and uncooperative. His bad attitude has caused friction in the service department.

I tried giving him pep talks, but today he just started swearing at me and quit.” When asked about the one that may need to be fired next week, Greg explained that he had made several expensive mistakes recently. “I just don’t think he can handle the workload. I feel awful. He’s a heck of a guy. We hit it off right away.” Kara pulled the files for the two workers, and discovered that there were no notes about checked references on either employee. Greg explained “They both gave fantastic interviews. They were hands down the best candidates. I hired both on the spot. Justin and I talked for almost two hours about all sorts of things. I was so impressed with his work at his church and all the race cars he’s built. He even brought pictures of them.”

Kara pressed Greg for the types of questions he asked both men in the interview. Greg explained that he had no idea because he doesn’t have any type of list. He went on to say, “You know how short staffed I am. Now let’s get some new applicants in here for interviews, fast!” Kara held up her hands and replied, “We need to take a break here. It looks like our hiring process needs an overhaul.”

Questions: 

1. Evaluate Greg’s “hire for attitude, train for skill” approach to hiring.

2. How could preemployment testing improve the hiring process for the service tech position? What type of validity would be the best predictor of job success?

3. What type of interview does Greg seem to use? How can his interview process improve?

4. What types of background checks would you recommend?

5. Research: What mistakes were made in the hiring process by Greg and Kara? Research common hiring mistakes and how to avoid or fix them.