Car dealers are lying on their job postings too

"LJ909" (lj909) 11/04/2015 at 18:36 • Filed to: None

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Not only are dealerships shoveling the bullshit out to customers, but they are doing it with potential job applicants (if you hadn’t known this already). I found myself looking at dealerships jobs a few weeks ago and came across 3 strange jobs postings all with the same job title, but at 3 different dealerships: for a product specialist. Now this is something new to me, but from the job description you are basically paid an hourly wage to walk around and answer customer questions about the vehicles or any other information that they would want. So I applied to all 3.

The first to call me was a local Buick, Cadillac store who’s name I shall omit, along with the other dealerships. I got called in for an interview. Dealerships are some of the worse places to have an interview at. The sales managers are always “busy”, meaning your about to sit for 30 mins or more while hes in his office laughing it up with other douche bag salesmen, or appearing to look busy because he knows your waiting for him. So I waited the 30 mins or so and eventually met with the gm and another sales manager. The sales manager was nice, not very personal though. She explained to me more about the position. Basically, its how I described above. But they wanted it specifically for the customer experience. “We get really busy on the weekends”, she says “So this position would be to give the customer another person to talk to so they wont just be walking around with no one to answer questions and all other sales people are occupied”. $15 bucks an hour just to talk about cars? I’m in! Or so I thought

The gm was pretty nice and friendly, asked me a lot of personal questions, not to personal though. All the while though I kept getting the impression that I was being slowly pushed away from the position I had originally came in for, which was the product specialist. So at the conclusion of our talk, he said: “well you seem like a nice guy so here’s what I’m going to do”.

He handed me his business card and said follow me. We walked to the Cadillac side of the dealership and stopped beside a black ATS sitting on the showroom floor.”I want you to go to home and find out as much information as you can about this ATS, its competitors, features etc. Come back in two days and we’re going to do a walk around”. Puzzled, I was just like ok... and thanked him for his time, told him this should be easy seeing as cars are my life, and said see you Thursday.He had just basically told me that there was no product specialist position, and that he wanted to make me a salesmen. I figured this out on the other 2 interviews I had at the other dealerships, and here’s how I know.

For one the position itself doesn’t make much sense outside of General Motors corporate itself. I would be doing most of the work for the sales person, with out any commission bonus in the end. They explained none of this or how it would work with the sales process. This stuck out to me. Another thing that stuck out to me was the fact that a person going in for a product specialist position would be asked to come back to do a walk around vehicle presentation. That’s something a sales person would do. He could have just asked me random product questions right there as we were sitting talking. But he didn’t. Third thing was, well, I was told by the receptionist that the position didn’t really exist, and confirmed this with the two other dealers when I asked their GM’s directly.

So I went back and did the walk around poorly because I don’t like being mislead and I was already uninterested when I had got back two days later. The dealerships were just putting out job postings with fake hourly wages to get in more people to mislead them into applying for a sales person, which people don’t want to do work as I guess. But its stupid. The dealerships could have just been upfront so I could have just walked away. Instead they are just going to piss a lot of people off trying to get them to work commission for 12 hours a day, 7 days a week.

hike > LJ909 11/04/2015 at 18:54

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That’s pretty scummy. I was previously a product specialist at a Mercedes store. Like straight up that’s all I did. Best gig at the dealer cause there was no pressure. I got to drive every single car on the lot so I could “familiarize” myself with it. Fun job. Hope you find something you enjoy though. In reality, that job is just a set up to one day be a salesman or service adviser. I used to as a stop gap before moving past dealer life. Still miss driving some of those cars.

desertdog5051 > LJ909 11/04/2015 at 18:55

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Good for you for going back and following through. Many would have just blown it off.

Sounds like it is hard to get sales people. Hence the Bait and Switch.

It does seem a bit underhanded.

Chariotoflove > LJ909 11/04/2015 at 18:57

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There are several things that don’t add up for me in your conclusions. First, If a dealership did want to hire someone hourly to answer product questions and then hand off interested customers to a sales person to buy, then one of the things I would expect them to do would be to see how you present what you know about the car. But, the fair thing to do would be to give you time to prepare, like you described. I don’t understand why you conclude they were doing a bait and switch on you. Second, I think this “product specialist” position makes sense because the salesmen get someone to answer questions for people who walk in, saving them time from having to spend with people who aren’t interested in buying, and they get to concentrate on actual buyers funneled to them by a guy with whom they don’t have to share their commission. It’s a filter for the sales force, and it is less pressure for the person who walks in and isn’t confronted with someone who is immediately seeing them as “prey”. Win-win. Third, if you were turned off by this first meeting and didn’t want the job, why would you waste your time going back to do a poor second interview on purpose? Fourth, they interviewed you for a job but admitted the job didn’t exist when you asked? Huh? So, how did they explain that?

I’m not trying to harsh on you. I’m just not understanding what made you feel offended (except the leaving you to wait part. That’s always disrespectful of your time, and I hate that so many people do that).

Rico > LJ909 11/04/2015 at 18:57

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Wow that’s some bullshit but not surprising.

If you have any REAL BMW dealerships in your area try to see if you can apply for a BMW Genius position. I think it’s called Genius but I’m not 100% sure, that’s a real product specialist job.

From what I’ve heard you are the person that BMW sales people will either come to either alone or with customers to get detailed explanations on car features.

For example a guy who knows his stuff but is not familiar with an M3 asks his sales person how does the LSD work in the M3, is it mechanical? Is it electric? Does it use torque vectoring with open differentials? Sometimes sales people don’t know everything and will defer to you. Your job is product knowledge and not sales, however by knowing your stuff you help the sales people for no commission.

LJ909 > desertdog5051 11/04/2015 at 19:07

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It can be hard for dealers to get sales people, especially when the dealers get to the point about explaining the pay structure. That turns alot of people off.

Rico > hike 11/04/2015 at 19:12

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I would love to do that at an MB dealer on the weekends. Was the job title product specialist too?

LJ909 > Chariotoflove 11/04/2015 at 19:14

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I get what your saying. What made me offended was the fact that they could have just been up front and said that it was a sales position, not a product specialist. I know those do exist at some dealerships, but since its still fairly new its not around a lot.

I found the product presentation weird because it doesn’t apply to the position. Product presentation is part of the sales process like I mentioned before. A product specialist wouldn’t be presenting the car to the customer, just answering general questions and giving information to the customer about the car. If I’m doing presentations I’m pretty much a sales person. Thats just another way to make the customer feel like the car is theirs.

Lastly, I went back for the second interview to give them a chance to admit that there was no position. They didn’t, so I just did what I did while I was there. The receptionist told me there was no position without any of the mangers knowledge, not the managers themselves (at the first dealership.) I asked her because from my experience receptionist’s usually have all the info. Hopefully this clears things up for you.

LJ909 > Rico 11/04/2015 at 19:16

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Thanks for the heads up. I’m going to look into that asap.

GTRZILLAR32-Now saving for Godzilla and a condo > LJ909 11/04/2015 at 20:35

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So you want to hand out brochures all day? Or answer if a car comes with yellow heated cloth? I wish my dealership had people who would do that.

Chariotoflove > LJ909 11/04/2015 at 20:57

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Maybe the presentation was just for the audition? Or maybe they want their product specialist to do the presentations instead of the sales? Many sales people don’t seem to really know the product they sell. I don’t know, maybe you’real right, but it doesn’t make sense to me. How would advertising for one job to try and trick applicants into another job get anybody who would do that job well? There’s no logic to it. If they are that stupid, then you don’t want to work for them in any capacity. I would have liked to hear what happened if you went through to getting a job offer and how they would have presented it. That would’ve been interesting.

hike > Rico 11/04/2015 at 21:00

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The job title was technically “product concierge” which is a bit of a goofy title. I actually worked the job full time, but it’s best used nights and weekends, when most deliveries occur.

hike > Chariotoflove 11/04/2015 at 21:02

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When I was product specialist, I was seldom used instead of a salesperson. Most of what I did was post sales, either during delivery or in the service lane. It really depends how the dealer wants to do it, but a sales person should be making the sale. If they can’t do that, why even pay them the commision.

Rico > hike 11/04/2015 at 21:13

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Thanks I want to look into this. Already pretty much know everything about the line up and its future. My lease is up in April so I have to know the market!

hike > Rico 11/04/2015 at 21:19

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It’s an awesome line-up really. Though other than AMG’s my favorite part was always used cars. Best perk of a luxury dealer is you never know what might get traded.

Chariotoflove > hike 11/04/2015 at 21:41

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Yep, no argument there. I think sales people should know their product inside and out. Unfortunately, that doesn't always seem to be the case.

Klaus Schmoll > LJ909 11/05/2015 at 10:31

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I’m sorry, but from the way you describe it, the position was exactly as described. Someone who knows the product really well, shows it to potential customers, and when they are interested in buying hands them over to the salespeople who don’t have to waste time on window shoppers. What did you expect to do?

LJ909 > Klaus Schmoll 11/05/2015 at 12:32

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Thats a sales person. It doesn’t make sense to have one person do most of the work and then hand it off to a sales person. The sales person would just be there to do the test drive and paperwork. That’s how I knew that there was no product specialist position.

Klaus Schmoll > LJ909 11/05/2015 at 13:21

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For the dealership it makes a lot of sense to have somebody greet the customers show them the cars and once they have finalized a decision hand them off to a sales guy. Especially so if they are very busy on the weekends. Think of it as more actual customers per sales person than if they had to deal with window shoppers and people who don’t really know what they want.

Seems like you expected a job in which you talk to people and give them facts about Cadillacs to help them with their decision making progress. This is precisely how you describe the job offered, except that you didn’t expect to sit in the car with them and talk them through the features.

Again, what did you expect and how is that different from what they offered? You seem a bit strung up on terminology. Product specialist, sales person, whatever. In the end they all help move product, it’s just that they come into play at different phases of the buying process.

Did it put you off, that you had to convince the customers and that then somebody else would step in and get the commission?