Project Shift targets middle-schoolers for service tech careers

“The No. one factor that just about every dealer says is, ‘I could use an further technician or two,’ ” reported Michelle Johnson, senior manager of technician enhancement and recruitment at Nissan North America, a single of the collaborative’s companions.

It’s not as if Nissan hasn’t been hoping. Its Nissan Technician Training Academy, for example, companions with 22 group faculties that encourage learners to look for apprentices at Nissan dealerships.

But you can find a will need to go youthful, Johnson admits. And possibly a greater will need to concentrate on beyond the learners themselves. Mothers and fathers and faculty counselors also need to be certain that remaining an auto technician “is a feasible, gratifying profession,” she reported.

In line with that contemplating, the initial video clips will be aimed at older people who are typing matters these as “finest task with out a faculty degree” into their look for engines, reported Carlisle’s Hollenberg.

Subsequent video clips, largely 30-next places, very likely will concentrate on learners.

The undertaking also will address retention. That work will zero in on that important next 12 months of the task.

“That is in which all the falloff is,” Hollenberg reported.

Carlisle labored with some major dealership teams — Hendrick Automotive, Sonic Automotive and Sewell Automotive — to job interview specialists and come up with some finest practices for retention. The conclusions are packaged into a seventy two-webpage playbook.