Hiring Advice for Dealerships

Practical automotive recruitment guidance

Start with the work your workshop actually needs done. Define essential competence, the support available and the full package before you advertise. A precise brief helps candidates decide whether the role fits and gives your interview a useful structure.

Sources checked 2026-10-03. Recruitment guidance, not a workshop procedure. Official references do not imply endorsement of Flame.

Your printable vacancy-brief checklist

Use this checklist internally before speaking to a recruiter. Keep employer and customer identities out of any public version.

• Role family and actual duties: servicing, diagnostic work, MOT testing, MET, paint, panel or workshop control.

• Workplace town, fixed or mobile working, travel expectations, contracted hours, Saturday rota and overtime arrangements.

• Guaranteed gross basic pay and pay period; OTE stated separately with targets, eligibility and any initial guarantee.

• Essential qualifications and task-specific competence; skills you can train after appointment.

• Diagnostic equipment, repair information, supervision, training time and who funds courses or assessments.

• Interview stages, consistent evidence criteria, notice-period flexibility and an agreed feedback contact.

• Confidentiality permissions: what may appear publicly and when an employer identity may be shared privately.

Match the assessment to the role

For a diagnostic technician, ask for an anonymised fault investigation: the symptom, evidence, test choice, repair decision and verification. Assess reasoning rather than familiarity with a single scan tool. Define what your workshop means by a master technician, including mentoring and quality-control responsibilities.

For an MOT role, check the relevant vehicle classes and current tester status as well as experience. DVSA sets entry requirements and annual assessment obligations; a certificate alone is not a complete check of current eligibility.

For MET or ADAS work, separate dismantling/refitting, diagnosis and calibration responsibilities. Ask how the candidate records work, follows current repair information and recognises tasks that require escalation. Confirm the equipment and training your business can actually provide.

Official references: Become an MOT tester: eligibility | Annual MOT tester training and assessment | Level 3 Technical Specialist: ADAS (Award), 610/3969/X

Separate essential from trainable

Make competence needed for the first day explicit. A planned course is not permission to carry out safety-critical work unsupervised. For electric and hybrid vehicles, HSE links required competence to the task being performed. Define the work boundary, supervision and training plan before offering the role.

Skills such as a new booking system or unfamiliar reporting workflow may be trainable. Use the same job-related criteria for every candidate, allow them to explain transferable experience and avoid unnecessary requirements that do not relate to the work.

Official references: Electric and hybrid vehicles

A practical interview scorecard

Score each area as evidenced, partly evidenced or not yet evidenced. Record the example supporting your decision, not just an overall impression.

• Technical reasoning: how evidence changed the candidate's initial diagnosis.

• Safety judgement: when the candidate stopped, sought information or escalated.

• Repair quality: how the candidate verified the outcome and documented it.

• Communication: how the candidate explained a complex finding to a colleague or customer.

• Development: what the candidate wants to learn and the support required.

• Use a discussion or a safely supervised, risk-assessed practical assessment within the candidate's competence. Never request customer records or unsafe demonstrations.

Make the offer easy to compare

State basic salary separately from OTE. Explain whether bonus is individual or team-based, what the target measures, how often it is paid, and what happens during training, absence or a quiet workshop period. Describe overtime and Saturday working separately rather than hiding them inside an annual headline.

Give the candidate the rota, location, benefits and training commitments in writing. If actual bonus attainment evidence is available and approved for sharing, include its period and sample; otherwise do not imply that everyone earns the advertised OTE.

Prepare for a useful recruitment conversation

Bring your completed brief, interview criteria and realistic start-date requirements to Flame Recruitment. Agree confidentiality, the recruitment stages, any terms and who will provide feedback before candidate details are shared. This checklist describes what to agree; it is not a promise of a fixed recruitment service or hiring outcome.

Your next step

Explore roles or discuss your requirements. Availability depends on the current vacancies and your circumstances.

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