Caliber is one of the nation’s largest providers of automotive repair, with nearly 2,000 locations across the country. Its mission is simple but powerful: restoring the rhythm of life. That focus doesn’t just apply to customers; it also guides how Caliber hires and develops its people.
Leading that charge is Jim D’Amico, Vice President of Talent Acquisition. Known worldwide as a thought leader in recruiting strategy, Jim has reimagined talent acquisition as a true business function. At Caliber, he and his team are innovating with generative AI, building “micro value propositions” to attract top technicians, and training future leaders with his Learn, Earn, Return framework.
In this episode, Jim explains:
Connect with Caliber: https://caliber.com
Connect with Jim: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jimdamico
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[00:00:00] Jim D'Amico: Hiring for both sides of the equation is one of the most stressful things that we go through in our life. And so to bring that stress to an actual, wonderful conclusion, there is nothing like it.
[00:00:11] Dave Travers: So what does it really take for your business to attract world-class talent today? I'm Dave Travers, President of ZipRecruiter, and on Talent All Stars, we shine a light on the people and the day-to-day processes behind recruitment and retention at some of the world's most influential businesses. Today's talent Allstar is Jim D'Amico, vice President of Talent Acquisition at Caliber, one of the nation's leading providers of automotive repair services.
Jim is known worldwide for turning talent acquisition into a true business strategy. He's a frequent speaker and author on recruiting innovation, employer branding, and evidence-based hiring. In this conversation. Jim shares how Caliber's mission of restoring the rhythm of life shapes hiring, and how his team uses generative AI to streamline interviews.
He also explains their micro value proposition approach to finding talent quickly and the learn, earn, and return framework for becoming an exceptional TA leader. Jim D’Amico, welcome to Talent All Stars.
[00:01:10] Jim D'Amico: Thank you, Dave. Glad to be here.
[00:01:12] Dave Travers: So excited to have you here. I wanna dive in. Because you have such an interesting background.
There are many paths into TA, but you know, like you have a super interesting background, and once you've been in TA, you've done many interesting things. So as much as you can, like, there's so many parts of your background to dig into, but as much as you can, do you remember any single moment? Where you're like, wow, recruiting and helping people find their next big opportunity feels like something I could really get into. Like, when did that click for you?
[00:01:45] Jim D'Amico: Yeah, so everything I've done in the past, the one commonality to it all is it's about solving problems or puzzles, right? It's figuring out solutions, and when I started in recruiting, I started in third-party in an agency, and it was this amazing puzzle to me, 'cause not only did I have to help somebody get into that right role for them, but I also had to help a company solve a problem.
And to me, making all those things click was just incredibly rewarding. And the first time I did it, that endorphin rush you get, I will never forget. And still to this day, 35 years later, I still get that rush.
[00:02:26] Dave Travers: Tell me about the endorphin rush for someone who's never experienced that before. What is the moment where the penny drops for you? Where the clicks in, like gimme an example of that.
[00:02:39] Jim D'Amico: When you see that absolute moment of, this is right, and this is the best day of my life for both sides of it, right? The hiring managers have solved a big problem they have with the person that they believe could solve it, and this person's now going into the most exciting thing they're going into.
It's a new career. It's a new step. When you broker that match and help guide that process, when you make that happen, it's beautiful. We forget that hiring for both sides of the equation is one of the most stressful things that we go through in our life. And so to bring that stress to an actual, wonderful conclusion, there is nothing like it.
[00:03:16] Dave Travers: I couldn't agree more. Both, you know, being in this business and also when I get to do it personally from a work standpoint, I couldn't agree more. There's nothing more exhilarating than helping people connect to opportunity. Okay. I love that. But you are now a big muckety, Uck. You've moved up in the world, and you don't get to do that necessarily hands-on as much as you used to because you're so busy managing an organization where at Caliber you run TA.
So as a talent leader now for people who are thinking, Hey, I'm a recruiter. I'm working in the talent space, but you know, being a leader sounds good to me someday. What was the moment where you're like, Hey, maybe being a leader is actually even better for me than doing it day to day myself.
[00:04:02] Jim D'Amico: It's force multiplication in my mind, right? So I can do so much on my own, but if I can enable others to do the same thing and to have those same experiences, then I'm really. I'm serving the organization on a higher level. I'm serving those people on a higher level, and so I lose the day-to-day kind of experience, but now I experience on a much different level.
So it's just escalating that and taking what I've known and hopefully spreading that.
[00:04:41] Dave Travers: I love that. And I think that's so true. Like there's this force multiplication, as you rightly put it, there's the ability, have your impact be on a wider scale. And that is a real trade-off between the day-to-day being the one who gets to tell the person they have the offer and tell the hiring manager, we got the candidate.
But you know, you're enabling that at a much higher scale, and I love that. So let's move on then to Caliber specifically. You guys are growing fast. You're helping people fix their cars, which is really important when your car has an issue, but you're also operating a business that has almost 2000 locations.
Now, if I'm correct, how do you even think about when you have such a distributed business, how do you think about where do I centralize and have one caliber experience and process, and where do I trust and push things out to a location? When you're so distributed like you are
[00:05:34] Jim D'Amico: So, you know, Caliber, our entire mission is about restoring the rhythm of life, not just to our customers, but also to our team members as well, right?
That's what we do, and what we look at it is how TA can add value, how the field can add value to that mission. And what we need in the field is our operators and leaders, we need them restoring the rhythm of our customers lives, right? We need them hands on cars. We need them developing their talent internally, where we take the load off of them is let us find the people.
Let us assess the talent of those people. Let us recruit those people. So one of the big secrets, as we know, finding people is easy, right? Recruiting people is hard, so let us do that hard work and help broker that. We want our team in the field to be focused on building that business, keeping our customers happy, putting people back in their cars, helping those artisans that work in our shops put out the most amazing product that they can every time around.
We'll worry about getting the people in front of them. So that's how we approach it.
[00:06:50] Dave Travers: I love how you frame that because if you're a location manager at a distributed business and the message is, Hey, do it our way. We know how to do this. Follow the playbook that's gonna be received in one way if you frame it instead, but it's all about how you frame the question.
It's like if you're a location manager and you're being held to drive growth and deliver great service and all that stuff, do you wanna spend that incremental hour or half hour you have today? Do you wanna interview? You know, the next 10 candidates that you're not sure make sense, that can be screened for you? Or do you wanna talk to the next 10 customers who you could deliver great service for?
That's a no-brainer for in when you have a centralized service like you can provide and all the resources you can provide that makes ton, that makes tons of sense. Okay, so now you do have this both distributed set of locations, and you have this centralized service you can provide.
Part of that is enabling your locations and enabling your whole organization with technology. So everybody's talking about AI and technology and all the things we can do. I love you. As you talked about, you know, restoring the rhythm of life as the mission of Caliber, as you're restoring the rhythm of life for people.
Where do you decide that the rhythm of life, you know, requires some extra technology, and where does it require the human touch in a fundamentally human process of connecting people?
[00:08:11] Jim D'Amico: Yeah, so I think. You know, AI is fascinating. It's gonna continue to evolve. Where we see the benefits of AI is in how we can use it to free up the time of our people to actually more time connecting with people, right?
So what we've done is, is obviously what a lot of organizations have done. We've used it to help us schedule people, make the application process easier, but where we've really seen a lot of value is in using generative AI in our interview process. So my recruiters are incredible at connecting with and assessing the candidates, and I want them to be the voice in the face that does that.
I don't want AI to do that, but we use AI to record those interviews, transcribe those interviews, and then push out a really great summary. So at the end of the day, that's one of the big time sucks on a recruiting functions. I interview somebody, they're great. It takes me 30 to 45 minutes to write up my notes, or I just call the manager and say, Hey, I just interviewed Dave.
He's really good. Would you talk to him? Which is okay, but they're not getting the context. They're not building what they need to know. So, in enabling this, it makes the whole process through AI better for the candidate, the recruiter, and the hiring manager.
[00:09:40] Dave Travers: Yes. I love how you frame that. Now, part of that though, that I wonder if you run into too, is what I experience and what I hear is that there's some cases.
It’s where you're changing a process and inserting technology. The humans get a little reticent about changing how things work, and they get a little nervous about, Hey, if technology's doing this now, and that's something I used to do, how do I feel good about that? So how do you overcome reticence or overcome inertia of the existing process when you're driving change like that?
[00:10:11] Jim D'Amico: Yeah, so that's a really great question. And I think we have to think of it not just from a TA perspective. Every function in every business is going through the same process right now. So oftentimes I think we need to start the conversation not by saying Here's what we wanna do, but hey, how are you using AI and technology to enable your business?
One, it helps us understand how they are doing it, because there may be things that we can use as well, but it also helps us understand how they're thinking about it, so we can start to frame up our discussions based on actually where they are in their own thought process. So because we're all going through it, it establishes some common ground and helps us drive those discussions from a relatable point of view.
[00:11:00] Dave Travers: As you think about making it relatable and impactful to demonstrate to a real human being that they have a real reason to adopt a new process and adopt an improvement. I think a lot of what often comes back is like, okay, I'll try it, but as people try it. Often, they find that it's the part of the job that they actually didn't like that is now being changed.
It's not the part of the job that they like. So what I don't hear you saying is going back to your, the beginning of your question. What I don't hear you saying is that you're not using technology to replace the endorphin rush of saying, Hey, this is the right candidate, this is the right job. It's a lot of the busy work along the way.
[00:11:41] Jim D'Amico: Absolutely. I think that the part of the problem we have Dave in the industry as a whole. Too many people think of AI as the great replacer, and we need to think of AI as the great enabler, right? And from my days running a desk as a recruiter, the most valuable thing to me is the time I'm actually spending with candidates and with hiring managers.
Everything else, although it has value, isn't where the greatest value is. So let's free up the time of recruiters to do what we really need them to do and be that enabler.
[00:12:16] Dave Travers: Okay, so now you've built a system that's constantly improving with technology. You've got a bunch of great recruiters. You have a clear mission about restoring the rhythm of life, which I love because it's not just about cars, it's not just about glass.
It's about getting people back on track and what they wanna do so they can live their life. Love that. So now. Like you're in a business where it's actually very difficult to attract the right talent. You have locations that are difficult, and you know, remote is not a form of work that always works for a lot of your roles, and you have skills that are required.
How do you compete? Like if somebody is just coming into a head of TA role like you are, and you find yourself with like, oh wow, we have several different positions in several different locations where it's difficult to find and compete for talent. How do you put together a strategy for that? And how does that learnable for someone else in a similar position coming up to say, I can put together a strategy as well.
[00:13:11] Jim D'Amico: There's a couple of layers to that answer. The first is like we have to determine is it a build or buy situation, right? And in our industry, for every 10 techs that leave the industry, there's only two to replace them. So we have to have a build strategy, but we also have to have a buy strategy. And one of the things that we do differently, but I think that everybody can do, is when we're recruiting, 'cause like you mentioned, we have some locations that might be difficult or there might be other factors, is we wanna drill down and understand what the micro value proposition is for that site. Right.
So what is it specifically about that role, that site? Is it the quality of leadership? Is it their history of exceeding, you know, what they've done and developing their people? Is it the fact in our industry, because our body techs are paid on the work that they do, is it the fact that we have the demand in that market?
Right. So, they could overlap, they could be different, but we wanna get it down right to that as singular message as we can that will resonate with that specific candidate for that market and put that in front of them as quickly as possible. And we do that through obviously a lot of different ways, but that's what we focus on.
What is our micro value proposition, and how do we get it? In front of the person we want to see it.
[00:14:36] Dave Travers: I think the micro value proposition in a distributed business is so smart because you can just imagine if you're interviewing at a location and there's some brochure you're handed from corporate that says, on average our tech has this, you know, it's like, well, I'm sitting here at this particular location and if I know the three other people doing the job, I'm about to do.
Feel this way about it are paid more than they were last year 'cause they have more demand, et cetera, et cetera that that micro value proposition really makes sense. Okay. So how do you at scale then? If that makes sense. How do you, at scale assemble a micro value proposition? 'Cause you don't have personally have the time to go create 1800 of these or however many you need or more than that.
'Cause there are more types of jobs at each location. So how do you assemble that now that you've come to that insight that the micro value proposition makes sense?
[00:15:27] Jim D'Amico: That's really a function that the recruiter does during their intake session. So when we do an intake, think in. Intakes have been sort of poorly managed, right?
They're seen as we have to do them, and manage is like, I've gotta get on the call. But it's because we're not adding value in the intake. So we created a value-added intake where we're actually digging in and going through a process with a hiring manager saying, what is the value proposition? And then going through a process where we'll cancel out if it is not the, not something that is unique to us.
So like, if we say, well, you know, we have a 401k. Yeah. So do all of our competitors. So that's not the value proposition, right? So we want them to go through that exercise, and it provides an additional value of one, we're all aligned to it, but when the hiring manager's talking to the candidate, they are now more aware of it and will hammer that home as well.
[00:16:24] Dave Travers: If the hiring manager is ultimately gonna be absolutely critical in the final sale, uh, salesperson to get the candidate to sign up. They have to have ownership in the micro value proposition. If you were perfect at coming up with 10,000 micro value propositions and the person doing the sale didn't know about the micro value proposition, it's no good at all.
So I love that, distributing that out. Okay, so now you have had success in your career. And part of that success has been deciding when to move to the next opportunity. Sometimes that's been internal, sometimes that's been external. So if someone's calling you a friend or a colleague or somebody out of the blue and says, Hey, I'm a manager, I'm a director, I have this external opportunity.
Give me your advice. Should I take this VP or director job? That's a big opportunity, but it's at a new place. What framework do you use for a talent professional to evaluate whether making the leap is the right move?
[00:17:21] Jim D'Amico: Yeah, it's, it's complicated, right? And so I think it starts with understanding what is the current perception of TA, and the way that you ask that is what is the role of TA? Who owns TA, right?
Like, how does it fit into the organization? I have friends at really large companies that have struggled. You know, they see the big role at the big company, and then they realize that, at the top, the CEO doesn't understand why they need TA, right? So if that can't be articulated back. That's problematic.
Also, how does everybody fit into the puzzle? We all win together. So do we have that attitude? Right? And then the other thing I tell a lot of people that I mentor, Dave, is that you should look at your career like a head coach does in football, right? Like, you just don't get outta college and you're, you're not gonna be the head coach of Ohio State or the Cleveland Browns.
Like this is not gonna happen, right? So, how do you build your career? And sometimes it may be being the head coach of the peewee team, but then maybe your next role is to be a position manager at the high school team, right? So, really making sure that you're getting that breadth of experience and learning how it operates.
The other advice I give all TA leaders is you can't be an effective TA leader if you can't articulate how your company makes money. You have to be a business leader first, and a TA leader second.
[00:18:55] Dave Travers: I think that is something that you join the TA team. You come into recruiting. Maybe you started at a recruiting firm, maybe you started in-house at a company.
And you know, selling a candidate is one thing individually, but as you move up, you have to understand the business as well. So, if that is not something where your background or path comes, how do you get started in saying, okay, I'm a manager, I wanna move up to director, VP, and beyond? But to do that, I need to not just be the recruiting person.
I need to be a fellow business leader. How do I get that ball rolling?
[00:19:30] Jim D'Amico: So first it starts, and I believe this is a key strength or competency. Everyone will label it for all people in the TA. You have to have unbridled intellectual curiosity, right? Ask the questions like, It's fascinating. That's one of the things I miss from my agency days, is what I, you know, I had all sorts of different customers and like.
How do you make steel? How do you make an engine block? How does a hospital run? Right? Like learning all that is fascinating. So start by asking those kinds of questions. The other thing, it's, I think, too often we feel that we have to do all of this in a box, right? And like we're the first person that's going through this.
I am where I am today. I've had great mentors. I've had people that have taken the time to do that. So I tell people you structure your career in three phases. Your first phase is learn. When you start, it is all about absorbing as much as you can because you have the greatest capacity for that. You have the neuro elasticity to do that, like learn, learn, learn.
Then once you're good, focus on your earnings, right? Then earn, grow your job, become better at what you do, right? Establish yourself as the expert, whatever's motivating you. But then we all have that third term, which is return, and I feel it's an obligation that all of us have. If we have been successful that we have to share that and we share it without cost, we share it without hesitating, but we should share that to those that want to have that shared with them.
[00:21:08] Dave Travers: Ooh, I love that. Okay. Learn, earn, return. The return thing. I love that because it can sound high-minded and preachy if explained the wrong way. What I will say is having had the joy of being able to give back a little bit in that way is that what you'll find is when you find the right mentee or find the right person who just needs a little bit of help or advice, there is nothing that will more selfishly fill your own cup than to do provide that service and do it for not because it met your quota this month or whatever.
Nothing will make, put an extra spring in your step for the rest of your work week, et cetera. So I couldn't agree more with that and learn, earn, and return. The other thing about that is I totally agree with your phases, but they don't have to be clear, bright lines like you don't have to stop learning 'cause you're earning, and you don't have to wait to return into because you're still earning.
[00:22:01] Jim D'Amico: Yeah. They are not mutually exclusive.
[00:22:03] Dave Travers: No, they're not. No, they're not. I love that. I love that. Okay, so now, as you think about the return phase of your career, I think in that being something you're already doing while you're earning and leading and learning, so you've been successful being a mentor and a mentee at various points in times in your career.
How do you start that ball rolling if you're early on in the learning phase? I've asked people for advice a couple times, but I've never felt like I have a mentor. How do I start that? How do I make myself an attractive mentee?
[00:22:35] Jim D'Amico: So that's the great thing. Like it's really not difficult, right? So if you see somebody that is, that they're writing or saying things that you are intrigued in, ask about those.
Start to engage with them because here's the thing, those people want to share it, and they will love to share it, and just start by doing that, exchanging some of those thoughts and ideas. And if it feels right, then I always tell people just, just ask.
Ask for them to mentor you. They're not gonna take your birthday away, right? Like if you ask, and most times they're not going to say no because. This is what they want too. They want people to mentor. And one of the things I love in the talent acquisition space is I think that we are filled with leaders that are happy to do that and happy to give back to others.
[00:23:34] Dave Travers: I think it feels scary asking somebody to be a mentor, asking them a question that leads to a, Can I grab five minutes of your time to ask your advice on something feels scary. 'cause it feels like, oh, I'm troubling this really busy person. Do they, what? Are they gonna think of me? Are my questions gonna be good enough?
Are they gonna say no? And the reality is like if you're having dinner on Saturday night with some people who've done some mentoring, like. The highlight of their week often that they'll tell you about is the mentoring they did and there's nothing better for the leader's ego than to be asked to mentor when people are talking to each other about this.
It's never framed as like, ah, my week was totally derailed by all this mentoring I had to do. It's like, ah, I got to talk to this young person, you know? It was so great. They were so enthusiastic, like it was the highlight of their week. Go for it.
[00:24:22] Jim D'Amico: Absolutely. And no one's ever said mentoring as a bird.
[00:24:25] Dave Travers: Exactly right. Exactly right. Okay, Jim, we always end these episodes with a rapid-fire round, so I want you to imagine you're with the CEO at Caliber is fixing a cup of coffee in the kitchen, and you're right next to him, and he is like, Oh, hey Jim. I was just thinking the other day, you know, I'm often asked to interview.
But I feel like really by the time I'm asked to interview someone, my job is really to sell them more than to like select by the time it gets to me, and you are the expert interviewer, but you're the closer too. Like when we know that we have the right candidate, what's your top tip? How do I become a better closer?
[00:25:02] Jim D'Amico: Again, great question, right? Because what we have to do is spend time being diagnostic. And as a leader, this is a great opportunity to develop your relationships with other people, right? So when I say be a diagnostic, somebody is sitting in front of us looking for a new job because they have a problem that they want solved, right?
And so by going through the exercise of asking them questions and determining what that problem is, and then realizing. Oh wow. I do have that solution. And connecting those dots for them. Not only have you made a great hire, but you've made an incredible connection that most companies miss out on, right?
So you've gone through, you know, what motivates them, you know why they're here, you know that it aligns with what you need, and you know that you have that specific solution that is powerful. Being diagnostic is an incredible way to assess people and close people.
[00:26:02] Dave Travers: Okay, great. Last one, same situation. The CEO comes up to you and you've got their 30 seconds while the cup, the coffee's being made.
Hey Jim, you know, like I was thinking, so much is changing about our business. So much is changing about the world, about the labor market. What is it that our talent team needs to do even better for the next two years than we've had to do for the past two years? How do we think about, you know, so much is changing around the world? What do we need to do better?
[00:26:34] Jim D'Amico: Yeah. I think a change that a lot of companies still need to make. So we have to understand that there is more competition for candidates. Than there's ever been, right? Just because somebody has applied or sitting in front of us doesn't mean there aren't other opportunities.
And what's really changed a lot is those opportunities aren't necessarily in our field. So when you think of body techs, we're competing with HVAC companies, right? Like that are going after body text because they have similar skills in a lot of roles. Like I remember, even when I was in chemical manufacturing.
Amazon became a competitor 'cause they paid just as much as we did. Oh, guess what? Their warehouse was air-conditioned. Right. So understanding that it's not the same ecosphere that people that are of a certain age, like myself came up in. Right. That it's vastly changing and candidates have access to more opportunities than they ever had take.
You know, something like. I didn't have ZipRecruiter when I got outta college. Right? I had the Sunday newspaper.
[00:27:42] Dave Travers: You had an ink smudge thumb you had to go through down the classified,
[00:27:46] Jim D'Amico: Right? So the company, they had the information, they controlled it, like they controlled the knowledge. Now that shifted. So understanding that it's a more discerning candidate, they have more opportunities, they're able to do comparisons.
They can use AI to compare benefits of roles, I mean. That has shifted a lot, so we have to be prepared to deal with that and consistently make sure that we truly are the best. We're not just saying that we're the best, but live that life. That shows it.
[00:28:18] Dave Travers: Jim, it is so clear why you're a Talent All-Star. You are a font of wisdom and enthusiasm for our craft. Thank you so much for taking the time today.
[00:28:27] Jim D'Amico: Thank you so much, Dave. It's great.
[00:28:33] Dave Travers: That's Jim D'Amico, Vice President of Talent Acquisition at Caliber. We'll put his LinkedIn profile in the notes below, and as a reminder, we put the video versions of these conversations on YouTube, also on the official ZipRecruiter channel. If you have feedback for us or ideas for future episodes, send us an email at TalentAl Stars@ziprecruiter.com.
I'm Dave Travers. Thanks for listening to Talent All-Stars. We'll see you right back here next time.