Write the Dealership Sales Job Before You Post the Ad

Most bad hires are decided before the first interview

The usual story: a salesperson quits on a Tuesday, you post the same ad you posted last year, you interview six people who all "love working with people," you hire the one who was sharpest in the room, and ninety days later you're back on the job board.

The failure usually isn't the interview. It's that nobody wrote down what the job actually is. You can't screen against a standard that doesn't exist. And you can't fire — or fairly coach — someone for missing a number they were never told.

So before you write a single line of an ad, write the job. Five parts: workload, schedule, performance standards, ramp expectations, and what evidence you'll accept in the interview that this person can do it.

This takes about ninety minutes. It's the highest-leverage ninety minutes in your dealership sales hiring process.

Part 1: Workload, in units the person will recognize

"Sell cars" is not a workload. Neither is "handle leads and walk-ins." A candidate can't tell if that means eight conversations a day or eighty, and neither can you.

Write the workload as counts per day and per week. Pull the numbers from your CRM for whoever currently holds the role — or the person you wish held it.

Something like:

• 12–18 assigned internet leads per week
• 6–10 phone-ups per week (inbound, plus the overflow the BDC hands off)
• 8–12 floor-ups per week, depending on rotation
• Roughly 40–60 outbound touches per week on your own pipeline: unsold follow-up, orphan owners, equity list
• 3–5 scheduled appointments per week that you set yourself, on top of what BDC books for you

Now add the parts of the job that never make it into a car salesperson job description but eat a third of the week:

• Log every conversation in the CRM the same day, with the next step and a date
• Two desk-ups minimum before you send a customer home
• Deal jacket complete before delivery — stips, insurance, trade paperwork
• Own delivery, including the walkthrough and the phone pairing
• One follow-up call at day 3 and day 30 on every unit you deliver

Two things happen when you write this out. First, you find out your top performer is doing a job nobody else knows about. Second, honest candidates self-select. The person who hears "40–60 outbound touches a week" and goes quiet was going to go quiet in week three anyway. Better now.

Part 2: Schedule, with the hard truths in writing

Retail automotive schedules are where candidates feel misled. Not because managers lie, but because they describe the good version.

Put the real one in the ad:

• Five days a week, two closes past 7pm, rotating Saturdays — two of every three
• Sundays off
• One weekday off, not Saturday, unless we're both flexible that week
• End of month: last three days, everyone's on the floor
• Bell-to-bell means bell-to-bell. If you're up on rotation at 7:45 and a customer walks in, you're staying

If your close is 8pm and half your deals get written after 6:30, say so. A candidate with three kids and no childcare after 6 will figure that out on day nine, and you'll have paid for a full week of training for nothing.

Part 3: Performance standards you'd actually enforce

Here's the test for a real standard: if a rep missed it for two months straight, would you do something? If the answer is no, it's not a standard, it's a wish. Take it out.

Write standards on three levels, because units alone doesn't tell you whether someone is coachable in month one.

Activity — you control this daily.

• 100% of leads responded to within 15 minutes during open hours
• Every conversation logged same day with a scheduled next step
• 40+ outbound attempts per week logged

Behavior — this is what you coach and score.

• Ask for the appointment on every inbound conversation, with a specific day and time
• Confirm the appointment with a text the same day and a call the morning of
• Trade and payment questions asked before the walkaround, not after
• Two desk-ups before the customer leaves

Outcome — this is what pays you both.

• 8–10 units per month at full ramp
• 25%+ of your own appointments show
• 60%+ closing on shown appointments
• Average gross at or above store average within six months

Write down which of those you'll review weekly, which monthly. Then write down the consequence path in plain language: two consecutive months below eight units means a written 30-day plan with weekly call reviews. If you won't say that out loud in the interview, you won't say it in month four either.

Part 4: Ramp expectations, month by month

The single most common cause of a 90-day washout is a mismatch on how fast "good" arrives. The rep thought they'd be fine by month two. You thought so too. Neither of you said it.

Put ramp in the offer letter:

• Month 1: product and process. 3–5 units. All activity standards fully met — no grace on response time or CRM logging. Manager sits in on ten of your calls.
• Month 2: 5–7 units. Running your own follow-up without reminders. Appointment show rate at 20%+.
• Month 3: 8+ units. Behavior standards met without prompting.
• Month 6: 10 units, gross at store average, your own repeat and referral pipeline starting.

Then say what's guaranteed and what isn't. If there's a $3,000/month draw for 90 days, say the number and say what happens in month four. Ambiguity about pay during ramp is why good people leave in month five.

Part 5: What evidence you'll accept in the interview

This is the part managers skip and then regret. Decide in advance what would prove a candidate can do each piece of the job — before you meet anyone charming.

Don't ask "are you comfortable with follow-up?" Everyone says yes. Ask for evidence.

For outbound volume:

"Walk me through last Tuesday. Start at what time you got in, and tell me every call you made and what happened. I'll wait while you think."

Real outbound reps have texture: names, reasons, a call that went badly. People who don't do the work give you a shape — "I usually start with my follow-ups" — and can't get specific.

For appointment-setting:

"I'm a customer. I just emailed asking your best price on a used Tahoe. Call me. Go."

Then judge one thing: did they ask for a specific day and time, or did they say "let me get you some information"?

For coachability:

"Tell me about the last time a manager told you something about your selling you disagreed with. What did you do?"

The answer you want has a change in it. "He was wrong, I hit my number anyway" is a preview of your next twelve one-on-ones.

For CRM discipline:

"Here's a lead. Type the note you'd leave in the CRM after that call, exactly as you'd type it."

Ten seconds tells you more than ten minutes of talking about it. Look for the next step and a date.

For schedule reality:

"Two of three Saturdays, and two nights a week you're here until 8. What has to be true at home for that to work?"

Not "can you do that?" — "what has to be true?" You'll hear the actual constraint.

Put it on one page and use it three times

The whole thing fits on one page: workload counts, schedule, three tiers of standards, four ramp milestones, five interview questions with what a good answer contains.

Use it three times. Once to write the ad — a car salesperson job description built from real counts filters better than any screening question. Once in the interview, so every candidate gets the same questions and you're comparing answers instead of vibes. Once on day one, when you hand it to the new hire and say "this is what we're measuring, here's when we check in."

The third use is the one that pays. A rep who has seen the standards on day one and hears the same language in week three call reviews doesn't get surprised at day 60. And when you're reviewing recorded calls against the same behaviors you named in the interview, coaching stops being opinion and starts being a checklist you both already agreed to.

Redo the page every time you hire. The workload numbers move, the lead mix moves, your close rate moves. A dealership recruiting process built on last year's job description hires last year's rep.