Saeli: What You Can Train … and What You Can’t 

Walk into almost any shop and ask about hiring challenges, and you’ll hear a familiar story:

“We need experienced people.”

“It’s hard to find good techs.”

“Nobody wants to work anymore.”

Those concerns are real. But underneath them is a deeper issue that often goes unspoken. Many shops are hiring for the wrong things.

The industry has trained owners to look at resumes first. Years of experience. Certifications. Where someone worked before. It feels safe. It feels measurable. It feels like the right way to reduce risk. But here’s the problem. Experience tells you what someone has done. It does not tell you how they will perform in your shop. And that’s where things start to break down. The best hiring decisions don’t come from asking, “What do they know?” They come from asking, “Who are they, and can we build them into what we need?” That’s the difference between hiring a resume and hiring a person.

What can be Trained

Let’s start with the part that often gets overlooked. There are many things in a shop that can be trained. In fact, most of what drives daily performance can be taught, coached, and improved over time.

You can train process. How a repair order moves through your shop. How inspections are performed. How estimates are written. How communication happens with customers. 
You can train standards. What a completed job should look like. What quality means in your shop. How documentation is handled. How consistency is maintained across every vehicle.

You can train efficiency. How to move faster without sacrificing quality. How to reduce wasted time. How to improve workflow between team members.

You can train systems. Your shop management software. Your inspection process. Your communication tools. Your internal expectations.

And over time, you can train technical skills. A technician may not know everything on day one, but with the right environment, tools, and guidance, they can grow quickly and confidently. All of that is trainable.

When Assumptions Kick in

But here is where many shops get into trouble. They assume that if someone has experience, all of those things are already in place. They assume that experience equals consistency. That experience equals quality. That experience equals the ability to adapt. That assumption is often wrong.

Two technicians can both have 10 years of experience and perform completely differently. One may be organized, coachable, and efficient. The other may be disorganized, resistant to change, and inconsistent in their work. The resume doesn’t tell you that.

And that leads us to the other side of the equation. The things you cannot easily train. 
You cannot train attitude. You cannot train work ethic. You cannot train accountability in a way that truly sticks. You cannot force someone to care about the work, the customer, or the team. You also cannot easily train coachability. Some people are open to feedback, willing to learn and eager to improve. Others are not. And no amount of systems or processes will change that.

These traits show up quickly once someone is in your shop.

Think about the technician who resists your process. The one who says, “I’ve always done it this way.” The service advisor who avoids difficult conversations. The employee who does just enough to get by but never pushes to improve.

Those are not skill problems. Those are people problems.

And they are expensive.

They cost you time because you are constantly managing behavior instead of building your business. They cost you energy because you are fixing the same issues over and over again. They cost you talent because your best employees don’t want to work alongside someone who isn’t carrying their weight.

And they cost you growth.

Because you cannot scale inconsistency.

If every person in your shop operates differently, you cannot build a predictable, repeatable business. You end up relying on a few strong individuals instead of a strong system.

That’s when the owner gets pulled back into everything. Answering questions. Fixing mistakes. Smoothing over issues. Stepping in to keep things moving. It feels like you can’t get ahead. This is where the mindset has to shift. Instead of asking, “Do they have the experience?” start asking, “Do they have the traits we can’t train?”

Do they show up on time? Do they take ownership of their work? Do they follow through? Do they listen? Do they ask questions? Do they want to improve? Do they take feedback and apply it, or do they resist it? Do they care?

Because if those things are there, you can build almost everything else. If those things are missing, no amount of experience will fix it.

Cause and Effect

This is where many shop owners have had a hard lesson. They hire someone with a strong resume, hoping that experience will solve problems. Instead, they inherit habits, resistance, and inconsistency.

On the other hand, when they take a chance on someone with the right attitude and invest in training, they often end up with a stronger long-term employee. Someone who learns your way. Someone who grows with your business. Someone who becomes part of your culture.

This doesn’t mean you ignore experience. Shops still need skill. They still need productivity. They still need people who can perform. But experience should not be the deciding factor. It should be one part of the evaluation, not the foundation of it. The most successful shops understand this balance. They hire people who fit their culture and bring the right mindset. Then they build the skills through training, coaching, and clear expectations. And this is where training becomes more than just something you “do when you have time.” Training becomes a strategy.

When you hire the right person and give them structure, something powerful happens. You create consistency. You create alignment. You create a team that operates the same way across every bay, every repair, and every customer interaction. That is what allows a shop to grow. Without that, every hire brings a different way of doing things. Your shop becomes a collection of individual habits instead of a unified operation. That is where frustration lives.

But when you flip it, everything starts to change. You begin to see fewer mistakes because expectations are clear. You see better communication because everyone understands the process. You see stronger performance because people know what success looks like. 
You also see something that many shops struggle with today. Retention. People stay where they feel supported. Where they are growing. Where they understand what is expected of them and feel confident in their role. Training creates that environment. It tells your team, “We are invested in you.” And in return, they invest back into the shop. That is how you build loyalty.

At the same time, your shop becomes less dependent on any one individual. Because the knowledge lives in your systems, your processes, and your training, not just in someone’s head. That is what creates stability. And stability is what allows you to think bigger. Add bays. Add locations. Add services. Because now you have a foundation you can replicate. The shift itself is simple, but it requires intention.

Hire for what you can’t train. Build everything else. That means slowing down your hiring process. Asking better questions. Paying attention to how someone communicates, not just what they say. Looking for signs of ownership, not just experience.

It also means being honest about your shop. Do you have the training in place to develop someone? Do you have clear processes? Do you have standards that can be taught and reinforced? Because hiring the right person only works if you are ready to train them. 
When those two things come together, the results are hard to ignore. You build a stronger team. You create more consistency. You reduce chaos. You improve performance. And over time, you build something even more valuable. You build a shop that doesn’t rely on luck. You build a shop that runs on intention.

At the end of the day, hiring is not about finding someone who already does everything the way you want. It is about finding someone who can grow into it. The shops that understand this are not just filling positions. They are building people. And that is what creates long-term success.