Keri Mello always keeps applications for service managers on file, because “there’s always a need for service managers.”
But that need doesn’t necessarily stem from a shortage of applicants in the work force, said Mello, human resources representative for Inskip Auto Mall in Warwick. It stems more from an industry that’s constantly changing in response to customers’ whims.
Inskip, for example, added a Nissan store last year, Mello said. And it will open its Mini Cooper store in May. With the addition of brands comes a need for additional service managers, sales managers, service writers, parts managers, warranty administrators, et cetrea.
That’s where the New England Institute of Technology’s B.S. in automotive service management technology program, started a year ago, might be helpful.
The program was created to train students in all the functions of a service manager at a dealership, said Christopher Bannister, department chair for transportation technology at NEIT. Students learn about accounting and cash flow, marketing, human resources, warranty management, legal issues, financial planning and software used at the dealerships.
“What I’m trying to show kids is you’re not going to do [technical/mechanical work] forever,” Bannister said. “So if you want to move up the career ladder … what it takes is education, so here’s the path.”
Students in NEIT’s four transportation associate’s degree programs don’t always see the relevance of going forward and getting a bachelor’s degree in service management, he acknowledged. “They view it as going into a different field, but it’s really a way to continue their education.”
This program, he said, is starting to change that view. Though only 15 students are enrolled so far, about 15 percent of the 623 students in related associate’s degree programs have expressed an interest in signing up, he said.
But a bachelor’s degree is no guarantee of a job as service manager. Experience counts, too.
At Firestone, for example, an applicant with a lot of experience would trump an applicant with a degree and no experience, said Howard Lampert, technician trainer and administrator at Firestone’s Boston district office, which manages 29 stores, including five in Rhode Island.
Firestone also prefers to hire and promote from within, because it wants applicants who are already adapted to the company’s culture, he said.
But that doesn’t mean that degrees are unwelcome. Lampert said the company is always looking for college graduates for both technician and manager openings.
The company takes comfort in knowing management applicants are trained to handle business decisions or trained how to run a store profitably, he said. And it prefers technicians get formal training because of the complexities of the technology in cars today.
But the real benefit of a degree comes with more pay. “The more experience, the more education, the better the pay,” Lamper said.
Inskip also looks at experience as the major deciding factor in hiring service managers, Mello said. But having a degree in management doesn’t hurt.
It is possible for students with an associate’s degree in mechanics and a bachelor’s degree in management to move up in rank faster because they understand the financial aspects of a shop, she said. “I think knowing a department from bottom to top is great,” she said.
An example, Bannister said, would be one of his students in the bachelor’s program who already got her associate’s degree in automotive technology and started her career as a technician, then moved up to becoming a service writer.
She came back to NEIT “to further her education so she could grow with the company,” he said. She hopes a degree in automotive service management will help her get there.
