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Employer Quotes
The quotes below are from employers in this industry: Transportation
They are talking about this topic: Occupation-Specific Skills
The quotes below are about this issue:
In the automotive repair industry, employers are looking for new hires with a broad array of skills. For instance, they want technicians who possess both mechanical and technological skill sets for diagnostics and repair. Some employers state it is difficult to find candidates with this combination. Other employers stress the importance of a combination of mechanical knowledge, customer service skills, and other general skills.
| "How you fix cars nowadays is with the computer, and you can't get around that. It's not just turning nuts and bolts anymore." | Central |
| "There are certain people that have gone through that and can go from being a technician to maybe a service writer or service manager. They're probably going to need some other skills other than just the repair part. Because as someone who runs a shop you need to know about the repairs, but you also need to understand some business communications and that type of thing." | Central |
| "Oh, yeah, they get on their smart phones and computers, great. But they have no clue about a car. You have to hire two guys now to do one job. You got to have one guy maybe diagnose it and then tell the other guy what to do because he either doesn't have the ability to do that—taking it down and putting it back together—or he doesn't want to do, one of the two." | Metro |
| "They have this idea now about all this technology, and their world is sitting in front of computers. But when the get out to my place, or my world, they still got to take nuts and bolts apart. Those bits and pieces, to me, are what's lacking. Some of the basic essentials of how to arrange things when you disassemble them and then how to put them back together again. The actual physical is not there. The mental is there. They can go right to the computer and they know how to get to the information, but when they get that information, I see that I have trouble with the kids taking that information and actually taking it and doing the work." | Metro |
| "I think it's harder to find a young, skilled, technician now than it has been in the past, and technology has made it so they need to have more skills. So I'm having trouble mechanics and machinists." | Metro |
| "Q: But it sounds like it's a combination of kind of the IT stuff...having some affinity or ability in IT...but also it's a nice combination of hands-on mechanic stuff, and automation, and IT, and use of computers. You can't just come in thinking you're kind of a back yard mechanic, right, and just think you can step into the job. A: Exactly, because you might be handy with your hands, but if that's not something you're capable of you're never going to be successful." |
Northwest |
| "He can't just be a brainy guy. He's got to work with his hands, too. Unless you've got a huge shop where you can just pass things off to different specialists?it's really a varied bunch of skills that a technician needs. That's where the shortage is." | Northwest |
| "I think it's an image thing, first. Everyone's said it's just a mechanic, or it's just this or that?I mean, the mechanic has to be an extremely skilled individual. That's what it gets back to." | Northwest |
| "Q: So what you're saying is, you can't just come in with some mechanical aptitude. You have to be able to diagnose the problem, figure it out, and implement technology? A: Absolutely." |
Northwest |
| "However, if you're going to be an auto tech, it's still hard work, and it's still dirty work, okay? Who gets a dirty day in IT?" | Northwest |
| "You need the rudimentary skills, or the basic technician or mechanic type skills. And then you add the IT skills on for creating that well-rounded technician." | Northwest |
| "Most people don't realize this...even in the last five years, cars got incredibly more complex. The skills required to diagnose and repair the cars are, at the very least, equal to the skills required to be a good IT tech. No doubt?at least that level. All right. So when you have someone looking to go up to school, okay...you have the intelligence to be a good IT tech. That same level of intelligence is required to be a good auto tech." | Northwest |
| "But it isn't the grease monkey thing like it was a long time ago, because it was that you're always down digging in the engine, and now you're using the computer and doing things like that. It's being more electronically involved...you're working with electronics and things like that. Granted, you're still going to still be in digging in the engine and doing stuff like that, but it's not like it used to be." | Northwest |
| "So what you're hoping for is people...who have a passion for the job. And they have to have a skill set that goes along with that passion." | Northwest |
| "Everything is going to electronics. But they still have to have that basic [mechanical knowledge] as well, because one drives the other." | Northwest |
| "We have to have enough knowledge to say no we can't do this." | Northwest |
| "So it's the drive and passion. It's the foundation of a mechanical skill set, knowledge, basic parts knowledge, basic understanding as a technical piece of that." | Northwest |
| "[O]n the technician side, you start getting into the sales...critical thinking...customer relations, all different things." | Southwest |