MH Equipment

MH Equipment, an equipment dealership realized the technical skills assessment they were using to hire technicians was ineffective at hiring the quality of technicians they required.  Our firm collaborated with the hiring managers to identify the specific skills needed, conducted the research to identify the right assessment to meet their needs, then worked with the HR department to place the assessment earlier in the hiring decision process to expedite the hiring process.  As a result, hiring managers’ time in the hiring process and new hire training was reduced as was technician turnover.

A construction, janitorial and material handling equipment dealership with 28 locations across nine Midwest states and 800+ employees with full-service dealers reached out for our assistance in technical skills assessment.  The majority of jobs at MH Equipment are technicians who sell and maintain forklifts and industry vehicles, so candidates have to be mechanically inclined.  The client had been using a paper-pencil test and felt like the test wasn’t quite meeting their needs.

We recommended working via conferencing with a sample of the hiring managers to:

• Identify why they were dissatisfied with their hires and why they were being terminated
• Understand the order of steps they took in their hiring process
• Clarify what sections of the assessment tool was inadequate or lacking

Then we would return with recommendations for revising the assessment tool and process for hiring technicians.

The skills-based test was crucial to the performance success of their technicians, but we discovered that they were administering the test after many steps in the recruiting process – resume review, phone screening and interviews all took place before the test was administered.  Since the test was highly predictive of success or failure, we recommended that they move the testing component immediately after the phone screen, and make a decision then as to whether the candidate moved to the next tier of the selection process.

We also worked with another one of our clients whom we knew tested technicians and as a result, they were happy to share their assessment AT NO COST with MH Equipment.   Besides helping them to find an assessment, we also ended up reorganizing their process to reduce redundancy and cost, plus shortened their hiring cycle and improved their industry reputation.

The client got a more valid and reliable assessment tool and reduced managers’ time and the company money by testing the candidate sooner – shortening the selection process if the candidate was found by the test to not be mechanically inclined.