Rejoining industry

May 29, 2011 at 12:00a.m.

As car sales recover, dealerships begin to hire salespeople

Detroit Free Press

DETROIT

Hank Graff Chevrolet in Davison, Mich., made no new hires in 2009. Last year, the store hired one person.

But so far this year, Hank Graff has hired six staff members — three in sales, two in service and one to take photos of cars for the store’s website.

The store is not the only one to view recovering new-car sales as a reason to add employees, loosening a job market that essentially froze after the late-2008 economic crash and the General Motors and Chrysler dealership closings that followed.

For instance, Hank Graff has sold more than 1,355 new and used vehicles so far this year, up 13 percent from 2010 levels.

As sales increased, managers started to think about hiring and called Debbie Schlegelmilch, who has worked at dealerships for more than 20 years.

Schlegelmilch was working at Saturn of Clarkston when GM canceled the Saturn brand.

The store became a Nissan dealership in October, and Schlegelmilch left this winter and joined Hank Graff, where she had bought cars before and knew the staff.

Not only does she have a new job selling GM products, but buyers “have a more positive perspective on the things that are happening with General Motors,” she said.

U.S. demand for new cars and trucks hit a quarter-century low in 2009, and sales crept up slowly last year — enough that the average Michigan dealership staff grew by one person, said Paul Taylor, chief economist for the National Automobile Dealers Association.

This year, analysts predict light-vehicle sales could match 2008’s total.

More sales mean dealers need more employees.

That’s why Chris Schroeder was able to rejoin the auto-retail industry in August. Schroeder managed the Pontiac department of a local Buick-Pontiac-GMC dealership until it closed in spring 2009.

He had to work outside the auto industry for a while, since he couldn’t find any openings at dealerships.

But since he joined Liberty Hyundai in New Hudson, Mich., as sales manager, the dealership job market has changed.

For instance, when he joined the store in August, Liberty Hyundai had salespeople commuting from other cities.

“They worked here because this is where they could find a job,” Schroeder said. “Once the market loosened up, unfortunately, I lost them, because they found jobs much closer to where they lived.”

Schroeder has hired two people in sales so far this year and gradually plans to add four more as sales increase. Feldman Automotive, which owns his store, plans to open another Hyundai outlet in July; that store will need at least 20 new people, Schroeder said.

To get a job at a dealership, a college degree isn’t usually required. Dealers also say they’re open to hiring employees who have never sold cars before.

Instead, dealers say they’re looking for good people skills, especially in their sales staff.

They say the best way to get hired at one of their stores is to stop by in person to drop off a r sum and start building relationships with the staff — “almost become friends with them before you get hired,” said Aaron Erway, Internet sales manager at Hank Graff Chevrolet.

That allows managers to gauge a person’s personality before the first of potentially several interviews.

“We like to see the person — right up front, without talking with them on the phone, how they handle themselves,” Schroeder said.