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STRATEGIES FOR INTERVIEWING PROSPECTIVE F&I MANAGERS

As the economy picks up and customers return to the market, you may find that you need to hire new F&I managers. It’s a great time to be looking for employees because plenty of skilled, experienced people are available and they’re eager for work. Here are things to do—and look for—as you interview candidates:

The goal of a job interview is to find out if the candidate can do the job, if he or she will fit in with the culture and the staff at the store, and whether the salary will be acceptable, says Carole Martin, author of “Boost Your Hiring I.Q.” (You can take her hiring manager's I.Q. test at www.boostyourhiringiq.com.) There's no better way to find the right person for a job, Martin says, than to know what skills, traits and abilities you need in the position. Then, in the interview, ask behavioral questions that will demonstrate those skills, traits and abilities. For example, if you need someone with a high sense of integrity, ask the candidate to tell you about a time when his or her integrity was tested.

By asking about a specific time, you'll get an example of the candidate’s behavior. Also, it deals with the past, and the rule of behavioral interviewing, Martin says, is that past behavior is an indicator of future success. If they did it before, they are more than likely to do it again, good or bad.

During the interview, Martin says, the candidate should be doing about 80 percent of the talking. “If the interviewer does all the talking, how can he possibly get to know the candidate?” Martin asks. For sales positions—and F&I managers are first and foremost sales associates —the key trait to look for is if the candidate can sell himself to you, says Portland, Oregon-based career coach Deborah Walker (www.alphaadvantage.com). “If they can't sell themselves, they probably can't sell a product, no matter how much training they get,” she says. “Does this person close at the end of the interview?” If a candidate tells you that he's a real “people person,” ask him what he means by that. “People call themselves a people person all the time, but they don't understand basic human motivations, what causes a person to want to buy, or how to read them by their body language,” Walker says.

Speaking of body language, JM&A Group senior sales trainer Jeff Knittel says he watches everything from posture to politeness in a job candidate—and appearance still matters. “Generation Y tends to show up in a casual polo shirt and Dockers and think they're going to work for Google,” Knittel says. “When you show up for a sales position, you need to dress the part.” As someone who's spent his entire career in retail, Knittel says he always likes to ask the question, “Where do you see yourself five years from now?” “People say, 'I don't know. I just want to make a lot of money,” he says. “Some people are just passing through and see this is as something they'll do for awhile as opposed to looking at it as a career.”

Don't automatically eliminate those candidates, though. There are plenty of people who never thought they'd stay more than a couple of years at a dealership and quickly found that they couldn't imagine working anywhere else. Obviously, you want to ask a candidate about his or her strengths and skills, but Knittel says he also asks what kind of management style they like. “If they don't like a lot of supervision, they're not a good fit,” he notes. “When you first start in F&I, you need to be highly managed because there's so much to handle — loan documents, disclosures, privacy regulations — that can get a dealer sued if they’re not done correctly. Once that's done, you can be more hands-off.”

Then there are the intangibles. Knittel says he looks for someone who speaks well, has good, common courtesy and pays attention to what he's saying. “Selling F&I products is all about asking the right questions and handling objections,” he says. “Listening skills are critical.” He also asks what a candidate brings to the dealership that's unique and sets them apart from everyone else. “I want to see what comes out of their mouth,” he says. Some common mistakes that interviewers make, Knittel says, are getting caught up in talking about the dealership and themselves and not asking enough broad questions to get the candidate talking.

He's also seen interviewers place too much emphasis on education. While education is always an important factor to consider, a candidate's sales ability and experience is just as important. “I was in the business for 30 years,” Knittel says. “A lot of the better sales people and F&I managers just have a high school education or went to college for a semester and never graduated. A degree does not automatically make a good salesperson.”

It's also easy to get tricked by the person who knows what to do and say to get a job, but then acts completely different once they're hired. Finally, as part of the interviewing process, Knittel recommends spending some time where most people hang out these days — online. Do a Google search of their name and see what pops up. Check out their Facebook page and follow them on Twitter. That will show you how a job candidate acts, reacts and interacts with those around him. Standardized personality testing also can help. It's relatively inexpensive and can be set up to be done online. “It gives you a real picture of who the person is,” Knittel says.>>>

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