On Remarkable Results Radio, Technician Find founder Chris Lawson breaks down the proactive recruiting system that keeps independent shops fully staffed.
OCEANSIDE, CA, UNITED STATES, June 9, 2026 /EINPresswire.com/ — Most independent auto repair shop owners treat hiring like a fire alarm. A technician quits, the bays back up, and the scramble begins. But according to automotive recruiting expert Chris Lawson, the shops that never panic aren’t doing anything complicated. They’re doing one thing, consistently — and it has almost nothing to do with how much they pay.
Lawson, who founded his recruiting firm in 2017, made that case in a 38-minute conversation on the Remarkable Results Radio, the long-running automotive industry podcast hosted by Carm Capriotto. The episode, titled “Stop Hiring in Panic Mode,” lays out a recruiting approach Lawson argues most independent shops have never been taught.
The core idea is a shift from reactive hiring to what Lawson calls proactive bench building. “The crisis isn’t the technician who leaves,” Lawson said on the show. “It’s having no one to call when they do.”
That distinction, Lawson explained, separates two kinds of shops. The reactive shop posts a job ad the day someone gives notice, then hires the first available candidate out of desperation — often someone who lasts a few weeks or months before the cycle repeats. The proactive shop already has a list of qualified people it can call the moment a position opens, so a resignation becomes an inconvenience rather than an emergency.
Lawson compared the practice to marketing. Just as a shop shouldn’t wait until car count collapses to start advertising, it shouldn’t wait until a technician quits to start recruiting. The shops that stay fully staffed, he said, market themselves to future employees continuously — long before they have an opening to fill.
One of the episode’s central surprises is what technicians actually want from an employer. After years of conversations with both shop owners and technicians, Lawson ranks the three drivers in a specific order: respect first, growth second, and money third. The conventional assumption that a large sign-on bonus solves a staffing problem, he argued, misreads what keeps a skilled technician in place — and often what drives one to start looking elsewhere.
The conversation also covers a concept Lawson calls becoming “10-Mile Famous”: using small, consistent culture-focused advertising to keep a shop visible to potential employees within its local market, rather than running reactive job ads that only surface candidates who are already unhappy and looking for a new shop. Lawson noted that the best technicians are frequently not searching job boards at all, which is why shops relying solely on sites like Indeed often struggle to reach them.
Lawson developed this approach over nearly eight years working with independent shops, and now shares it with a community of more than 516 independent shop owners and general managers. Owners interested in the full framework can learn how to be the shop owner who never scrambles to hire through Lawson’s online community, where he publishes recruiting and retention resources daily.
The full episode is available on Remarkable Results Radio and on the show’s YouTube channel.
ABOUT TECHNICIAN FIND
Technician Find is a recruiting firm that helps independent automotive repair shops attract and retain skilled technicians and service advisors. Founded in 2017 by Chris Lawson, the company specializes in reaching experienced, working technicians who are not actively searching job boards, and in helping shop owners build proactive recruiting pipelines. More information is available at Technician Find.
Chris Lawson works directly with independent shop owners on recruiting strategy and is a frequent guest on automotive industry podcasts. He can be reached through Christopher T. Lawson on LinkedIn.
Chris Lawson
Technician Find
+1 310-668-1781
Service@technicianfind.com
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Stop Hiring in Panic Mode: Build a Recruiting Pipeline for Your Shop [RR 1094]
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