As Volkswagen hides messages inside cars to poach new staff in Europe, some American shop owners are collaborating to create their own new generation of techs 

By Lois Tuffin 

As auto repair shops struggle to find qualified staff, some people are showing innovation in wild new ways. For example, Volkswagen hid notes inside cars coming in for repairs last year to staff its new facility in Europe. The campaign aimed to poach 1,000 staff from competing garages across France. 

The company stamped a message into metal plates, attached them to exhaust pipes, then had spies drop cars off for service. The note in French read: Yes, the exhaust system should be changed. And speaking of change, would you like to come work for us? Next to it, techs could scan a QR code to take them to a specialized website. 

While this Trojan Horse approach may have solved one firm’s shortage in that moment, others are working toward long-term solutions. For instance, some American shop owners have turned to building their own bench of talent. For them, the journey begins with high schools and colleges, by working together, not competitively. 

Two years ago, Tom Sciortino, owner of Total Automotive in Buffalo, New York, grew increasingly frustrated with fruitless searches to find staff. They either arrived scarred by bad experiences, needed extensive retraining, or didn’t show up at all.  

“I got tired of wasting money, so I basically went to the mindset that I was going to build my own employees from the ground up,” he says.  

That’s when he started working with his peers and educators at local schools. Now, he has a steady stream of interns for his nine-person shop, and he shares extra leads with other garages. 

Creating his own luck 

After running the business for 30 years, Tom bought a new location in 2016 and expanded his shop. He knew he would need new talent to keep his bays humming.  

The previous year, one of his vendors had set up a breakfast group of automotive business owners to network. The Independent Professional Automotive Service group has since grown to 15 members and has collaborated to alleviate the labor issue in the area. 

Together, they approached the new president at Erie Community College, who had announced that he wanted to partner with industry experts. That led to them advising how to shape the automotive program curriculum to better suit the marketplace. As of August 2022, Tom had a list of 16 potential interns on his desk. 

“We’ve formed a partnership where we can help them out and they can help us out,” Tom says. “It’s been a two-way street so far and I think there are a lot of good things on the horizon.” 

Tom and his peers have offered a range of ways to help the college: 

• Acting as adjunct professors  
• Offering topics for labs, then presenting current information 
• Donating end-of-life cars that customers opt to forego repairs (for a tax receipt) 

“If you can donate a couple cars to them, you’re in the door,” he notes. 

Today, three of his five techs arose from Erie’s automotive technology internship programs. 

All in the family 

Meanwhile, at area high schools, Tom tapped into a pool of “general studies” kids who seemed adrift in traditional programs. “We gave them the answer on what to do with them,” he adds. Four students alone came to his shop in June to work on cars or other tasks. Rather than working with the owner, two staff members stepped up to mentor the highschoolers. 

Of course, recruitment often begins with a family that doesn’t think of automotive repair as a steady or well-paying career. 

“It’s not glamorous to be greasy under a car. Parents are pushing them toward becoming doctors, lawyers, and attorneys but not all kids fit that mold,” Tom says. “Not only do we need to go to the schools, but we need to go to career days or invite parents and instructors to our businesses to show them what we can do. Those are the people we really need to convince.” 

Last summer, Tom appeared on a Remarkable Results Radio podcast about the measures he’s taken. Also on the episode, Andy Massoll, president of The Detroit Garage, shared his student-recruitment experiences. 

“I started visiting high school classes with a box of donuts early on,” Andy said. “It seems like every shop I have acquired, when the existing owner retired, they all end up working for the local high school. That’s how it started out initially.” 

He would contact every school and offer to speak about career opportunities at his chain of professional service centers. “They are eager to have somebody come and give a different message than the standard automotive school instructor. You really grab their attention. It’s also good publicity for the shop.” 

Soon, schools start borrowing tools or ask for advice to buy a 1234yf Recover, Recycle, Recharge Machine. None of this happens unless you actively begin and nurture these relationships, Andy adds. 

Likewise, Tom found that showing students modern shop management software lit up their interest. The first day the college brought in an intern, he put Shop-Ware on the home screen of his phone and showed him where to punch in and get his work orders. “He was like, ‘Really, on my phone?!’ He has his phone in his hand all day long,” Tom says. “Now, I just put his work in his hand, and he thought it was really cool. It takes little things like that–bringing the technology right into the service bay with him. It was just unbelievable to see his face.” 

“As an independent automotive service provider, we have better and more aggressive career paths than what some OEMs do,” Andy adds. “But these students and their parents are not even aware of the opportunity if we don’t have some type of activity and presence.” 

Tapping into existing programs and tools  

Bill DeBoer, owner of DeBoer’s Auto in New Jersey, runs a full-blown apprentice program based on the NAPA model. He lobbied to get the program certified by the Department of Labor and Workforce Development. 

Now, students take web-based training on their own time and attend live classes once a month. Within 18 to 24 months, they complete the program at any registered shop in New Jersey. 

At first, the state paid 75 percent of trainees’ wages for six months, which has now increased to a full year. “Reimbursing those wages really goes a long way to getting these people in the door and incentivizing me to even have more of them going forward,” Bill said during the Remarkable Results podcast. 

“They’re really doubling down on good strong apprenticeship programs and funding it so that they can get people making good living wages in New Jersey,” he adds. 

If you want to set up your own apprentices, you can follow these 10 steps to set up a registered apprenticeship program. 

Even if a student doesn’t have a gift for repairs, if they have an interest in cars, they can always pursue a career as a service advisor. Tom just hired one from the State University of New York’s MOPAR CAP Program sponsored by Chrysler Corporation. 

By working together, shop owners set up a new generation to learn from industry veterans, so years of hands-on knowledge don’t get lost. And that unified work pays off for everyone. 

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