By Tom Berg (Heavy Duty Trucking)

"Fleet managers are so desperate to hire mechanics that they'll take any warm body who'll show up off the street," says Mark Hawkins, a sales VP at a testing firm that claims it has a better way: First, test an applicant for "suitability" to the job. Those who've tried it say it works.

The Scheig Diesel Technicians Test from Scheig Associates., in Gig Harbor, WA, (800) 999-8582, is based first on the "behaviors" that define a good employee, then on the job and, finally, on skills, says Hawkins, a former equipment mechanic and service manager. Those who score well on the test go on to excel as technicians at dealerships and truck fleets because of their attitudes and work ethic. Those who score poorly do not do well. Good-scoring applicants who are hired by shops tend to stay there, too.

At Los Angeles Freightliner, which has used the Scheig test for more than five years, turnover has been cut from nearly 50% to "the teens", says Dennis Chapman, service manager at the dealer's Rancho Dominguez branch near Long Beach. He says he could add two mechanics and a foreman to his current staff of six technicians but can't find them because he prefers to hire the right person to just anybody. The shop at LA Freightliner, like most dealers, is a flat-rate operation. Mechanics make more money by working fast but doing the work right. If a repair is listed as eight hours in the manufacturer's flat-rate book, but the mechanic does the job in five, he still gets eight hours of pay. However, if the truck is brought back because he didn't fix the problem, he must fix it on his own time.

"The guys I hired with the Scheig test tend to do repairs under book times, compared to those I hired before I could use the test," Chapman says. "Also, the quality of their work is better" and there are fewer comebacks.

Chapman says he uses the test as part of his hiring process, which includes several
interviews where the applicant's personality begins coming through: "His demeanor, his willingness to return multiple times and his promptness if he's really hungry for the job, he'll come back and he'll be prompt each time. That tells me what kind of worker he'll be before I spend $25 on testing him." The multi-question Scheig test then illuminates the would-be new hire even more. "The questions tell what kind of thinking processes a guy's going through to accomplish his work," Chapman says.

"One question is on a truck that won't start; it asks the guy how he'd go about fixing it. He might approach it by asking the customer a lot of questions: does the engine crank over and not start; does it not crank at all; when does it do it? Another guy might just go out and try it himself. Asking questions is the right answer because that saves time in making the diagnosis."

Chapman says he faxes an applicant's test sheet to Scheig and gets the results back quickly, usually within an hour. These include a score and an evaluation on which he can base his hiring decision.

The test has 203 questions in three sections. It takes an applicant 30-90 minutes to finish, Hawkins says. About 80% of the questions deal with attitudes and "behaviors" identified by top technicians as essential for success. These include the character traits related to work ethic, desire to do quality work, promptness, consideration for others and dedication to the job. Only 20% deal with skills, because it  is not an aptitude test.

"Give a mechanical aptitude test to a Ph.D. in physics and he'd ace that test," Hawkins says. "But if he'd go out and try to be a mechanic, he'd probably score zero at making a living.

A panel of technicians met at Scheig Assoc. headquarters in Seattle for three days of brain-picking, and the top 20 behaviors they named had nothing to do with skills; nothing whatsoever, Hawkins says. The same thing happened with experts found by Scheig for its other tests, which in transportation include long haul and short haul truck drivers, motor coach drivers and school bus drivers.

The panel of long haul drivers, for example, agreed the ability to drive a truck was a given and had little to do with how good an employee an applicant would be. Appearance, attitude toward customers and dispatchers and many other behavioral factors matter much more.

Technicians who score well in the test and are hired tend to do well on the job, Hawkins says. Technicians and their employers make more money because the technicians are happy in the job, do the work well, and get along well with other workers and with customers.

For maintenance managers who still must hire anyone they can get, Hawkins recommends paying new hires who test well, more than those who don't. And, those marked as probable poor achievers can be monitored and perhaps trained and counseled so they can improve.