"Life is like a box of chocolates," he told a friend.  "You never know what you're gonna get."

America's truck repair shops and dealerships have faced a similar problem for decades.  How could service managers determine with any degree of certainty just how competent applicants were for jobs as diesel technicians until after they hired them?

Making the right decisions meant finding dependable professionals who would get the work done properly, on time and within budget.  Wrong decisions meant just the opposite.

To make matters worse, diesel technician turnover was (and continues to be) high across the board.  For various reasons, many technicians were being fired or were changing employers frequently, costing their former companies thousands of dollars in wasted training expenditures.

Employers were at a loss.  They were looking for a way to accurately assess how an applicant would perform before they made the hiring decision.

Scheig Associates developed such a test.  The tests predict performance behavior because they are based on all the job behaviors of real-world, top-performing diesel techs, not just technical skills.  The initial assessment of working technicians produced more than 400 job-specific behaviors, which then were analyzed to determine which have the highest performance values and therefore can be used to identify applicants who are superior performers.

The Scheig system results in a "T" score for the applicants, with T-50 equal to the mean or average score.  Richard Scheig, CEO of Scheig Associates, recommends against hiring applicants scoring below T-50.

The higher the applicant's T-score is, the better the probability her or she will succeed on the job.  However, if employers do hire applicants with scores lower than T-50, they will at least know that additional training and supervision of these individuals will be required.

Real-World Results

According to Germanus Blottenberger, service manager at Baltimore Freightliner, the testing system for diesel techs has been accurate "100% of the time" since he started using it in 1995.

"Anybody who has any exposure to the industry can talk the talk, but can he walk the walk?  Can he learn?" he asked.  "That's why I can't just interview someone and decide whether to hire him.  So, I give every applicant the Scheig test.  It answers the questions for me every time."

Lynn Medlin, general manager of U.D. Trucks of Charlotte, NC, reported similar results.  The Scheig testing system "always has been right on" since his dealership began using it in 1995.  He said the T-50 score has proven to be "a very appropriate line of demarcation for selecting technicians."

Having the test results makes follow-up interviews easy, Medlin added, because he knows the applicant's performance level going in.  "The behavior aspect to us is far more important than the skills," he said.  "Scheig has done a very good job helping me make better decisions.  It's been a great success for our dealership."

Dave Lund, training manager for L.A. Freightliner in Whittier, CA, uses the Scheig test "religiously" as part of the review process for the approximately 150 diesel technicians he interviews annually.  Lund will not interview any candidates with T-scores below 45.

"Those candidates are not within the range I want.  Those who score below about 42 generally don't have the ability to reach a conclusion.  They need more coaching," Lund pointed out.

Service facility managers say there are many behaviors on both sides of the ledger that are important to them, but some are more important to some shop owners and less important to others.  But they all agree that the Scheig system detects job-specific behaviors of every applicant with a pinpoint accuracy that has made the testing system so popular.

It provides information that not only simplifies hiring decisions about job applicants, but also assists employers in determining behaviors needing development among their best performers.

Job Behaviors – Top Performers

Top performers are continually looking for certification in every technical category possible, according to Baltimore Freightliner's Blottenberger.  Workers at this level always are taking home new books and videotapes to help them learn new mechanical skills, he added.

These technicians always tell their service managers if their technical expertise is lacking in a particular area, delaying them from completing a project at the expected time.  And, top-performing technicians aggressively seek out new technology such as computer models to help them learn on the job.

U.D. Trucks of Charlotte's Medlin noted that his best technicians almost always are those with T-scores of at least 50.  The "lay out a logical sequence" to troubleshooting a truck problem, he said.  As a result, service managers spend less time correcting misdiagnoses or explaining repair sequences to these technicians than they find is necessary with technicians who score lower.

The best performers are better planners who "ask the right questions," Medlin added.  Rather than asking what a problem is, they ask what the symptoms are and then begin their own diagnosis.

Techs with lower T-scores may look at a worksheet indicating a possible water pump problem and then simply change the pump without checking other possible problems causing the symptoms.  "That's a huge difference in behavior," he said.

Lund added that his top performers move quickly through a diagnostic checklist to reach a preliminary decision in about 15 minutes, and then conduct tests to see if their diagnosis holds up.  If so, they visit the parts department to pick up or order needed parts, and then finish the job correctly and on time.

"Performance is measured in several ways, including the ability to repair trucks and the ability to do it effectively," Lund said.  "And that's the difference between a technician and a mechanic.  A mechanic is a person who can take things off and put new ones on, and the parts generally work when he's done, but he doesn't know why.  A technician is someone who can take something off, know why he's doing it, put it back on, and test it to make sue it works properly before he leaves."

Job Behaviors – Bottom Performers

Just as top-performing diesel technicians show similar approaches to jobs, employers have found that bottom performers also share similar traits.  For example, Blottenberger said his less productive technicians have a common aversion to learning new techniques, some feeling they have made successful repairs in their own ways for years and have no interest in performing their work differently.

But these people miss the point, he said.  Repair techniques need to keep pace with manufacturing innovations in order to be efficient.

Taking a bad, even fearful, attitude toward new repair methods can put a technician on a fast track toward professional oblivion.  Workers who embrace new technologies will thrive, in Blottenberger's opinion, because technological advances in diesel truck manufacturing require repair technicians willing to keep pace.

"We've found the Scheig test to be a very good tool to have in our tool box," Lund said.

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Reprinted from Truck Parts & Service, March 2000