CMETRICS are not data points on a chart. I won’t be boring you with big data or complex theories. The CMETRICS I’m talking about are specific things that you should be looking for when attempting to find your next hire. CMETRICS is simply an acronym to help you remember the following things you need to look for in your hire:

Competent

Mission Motivator

Enthusiastic

Trainable

Reliable

Inspired

Compatible

Solution Driven

These are the individuals you want as managers in your store. Let’s look at these individually, and how to uncover them in the interview process.

S=Solution Driven

You want to find solution driven employees. It’s not that hard to find employees who can find problems or even create them, but what you really want are those who can spot a problem or a potential problem early and can provide solution options.

You need solution driven managers when the customer is upset in the showroom. You need solutions driven managers when you have an attendance issue in the variable ops team.

To find those individuals you will need to ask questions or present the candidates with information that will allow them to see a problem and provide a solution.

How do you find solution driven individuals during the interview process?

Conduct a competitive set analysis. Do you have better hours for your sales team than all your competitors? Does your team work longer hours, but only four days a week? Do you allow flexible schedules for any positions? Do you buy or prepare lunches for your team? Is your compensation realistic and competitive in the market? If you consistently have sales team members that you must monitor to ensure they are earning a minimum wage, you probably have an issue. The issue is, they are not the right person for the sales position, or you are working them way too many hours in which they aren’t productive for you. Neither one works long-term.

Find daily situations in your store you can use for interview questions. I know I sound like a broken record on this front but it is absolutely the best way to determine how someone will work with the challenges in your store.

If I ask this question? “Your advertising cost per sale has steadily risen for the last 10 weeks, what do you do?” What type of response do I get? Did the candidate ask me questions to clarify and understand the scope of the problem? Did they make good or bad assumptions? You are looking for a thought process here that might put the candidate above all the rest?

When I work with dealer clients who haven’t had to hire a controller in many years, they often need help in how to handle the in-dealership interview. They don’t know the job details well. My best advice is to hand a candidate a financial statement or a portion of one, allow them a bit of time to review it, then ask the candidate to tell you what they see. Do they see areas for improvement and provide suggestions or do they only point out the problems?

You can do the exact same thing with a GM or Service Manager Candidate. For a GSM, SM or F&I you might use a doc sheet.

While interviewing for an HR generalist position, I often provide situations that come straight from clients; “An employee has told you they are a recovering alcoholic what do you do?” I’m looking for a compliant answer but I’m also looking for the individual who asks appropriate questions, as appropriate questions usually lead to appropriate solutions.

Now you have CMETRICS you can use in developing a consistent screening and hiring process to uncover the best management candidates for your store.

Competent, Mission Motivator who is Enthusiastic, Trainable, Reliable, Inspired, Compatible, and Solution Driven individuals will equal great hires.

If you missed last week’s post about compatibility, click here to catch up!