New Hire Guide: so what is it like to start a new job at Pete’s Auto Parts?
One of the reasons people actually read these blog posts is because they are interviewing at Pete’s Auto Parts and they are interested to know what kind of a company we are. I think we do a pretty good job of communicating our values to our employees internally, and I hope that our company culture comes through in things like facebook posts, blog posts, and reviews. But I thought I would share here in the blog a little more about what it’s like to be hired and trained at Pete’s Auto Parts.
It occurred to me, the relationship between Pete’s Auto Parts and ex-employees is a little bit like relationships with ex-girlfriends or ex-boyfriends! Some breakups are easy (yes, we have been ghosted, no, we never heard from them again,) some breakups are messy (this was clearly not a good fit but no one wants to admit it and both sides just keep trying to make it work,) but MOST of the times the relationship ends, both parties walk away a little better than they were before, with fond memories. Perhaps one of the best testaments to the kind of company Pete’s Auto Parts is, is in what our ex-employees say about us. Not that we haven’t had a few ugly exits, but we have a majority who speak of us fondly and a few even return to visit us when they are in town! We are so grateful to be able to have seen Brian retire from Pete’s Auto Parts after a 30 year career with us. We’ve also had a few delivery drivers retire from Pete’s, but they had other careers and we were kind of their “retirement job,” so I am not sure if that counts! It’s my personal goal to see 12 people retire from Pete’s Auto Parts, but I’m not really sure if I’m at 1 or 3 so far, LOL.
In this blog post, for the purpose of educating a prospective new hire, I’ll go through our company values, hiring process, and training process; basically what to expect if you choose to come to work at Pete’s Auto Parts. First up: our values. I wrote these in 2016 when I first purchased the company, and these remain our current values that we try to live our and practice on the daily:
Company Values
Integrity: be honest, be up front, be kind, and be fair.
Positivity: positive thoughts, words, and actions equal positive results.
The Golden Rule: treat customers, coworkers, and vendors as you wish to be treated.
Now this next part, I copy and pasted right out of my sales training manual:
How do these values play out in our day-to-day operations at Pete’s Auto Parts? Demonstrating honesty, transparency, kindness, and fairness in all our transactions not only reflects positively on our character but also yields significant dividends. Building this foundation fosters enduring relationships wherein customers choose to return to us, vendors place trust in us, and our coworkers enjoy their days.
Examples of integrity in action within our organization include accurately describing any damage to vendors without understating or overstating it, ensuring that every customer purchasing an engine or transmission is offered a warranty and is advised to retain their installation receipts, and exercising patience and empathy in assisting customers who may be uncertain about their options. Despite the challenges inherent in our industry, we have the power to rise above negativity and maintain a positive outlook. By espousing the benefits of used parts and highlighting the value they offer our customers, we contribute to a culture of optimism within our company and beyond. While there will be credits that are out of our hands, from damage in transit to mechanical failures, our attitude and response to these challenges remain in our control. Through maintaining a positive demeanor and delivering exceptional customer service, we can transform adverse circumstances into opportunities for lasting customer loyalty.
Adhering to the golden rule is fundamental to our ethos. Just as we expect vendors to uphold standards of fairness and kindness in their dealings with us, we must reciprocate by extending the same considerations to them. This principle extends to all interactions with coworkers, customers, and vendors alike, as we work to treat others with the respect and dignity that we want to receive, even in challenging situations.
I hope even though some of the language I use to describe our values is somewhat formal, that it comes across to any new hire that this is not just some corporate mumbo-jumbo. We are a company of 31 hardworking people who really care about what we do and the people we help, and we all recognize that our daily habits and our consistent actions result in bigger or smaller Christmas bonuses, that we make a difference and that what we can do is the next right thing.
Hiring Process
We do most of our hiring through Indeed. I think hiring and retaining the best people are some of the most important things that we do at Pete’s Auto Parts because the people we work with really make the difference. Most people have worked a job where it was excruciating, and most people have worked a job where it’s fun… the distinction is not usually the work, it’s the company. There are lots of things we do at Pete’s Auto Parts that a new hire might think are fun (ever chuck a steering gear through a car windshield when you are having a bad day? it feels pretty good) and lots of tasks no one wants (someone has to take out the trash, right?) but our coworkers make the days go by with a lot more humor and enjoyment because they are fun, dedicated people.
As the owner I do almost all of the hiring. Occasionally when I am inundated then Jim or Jessi (managers for over 15 years) step in and help hire. I try to write the ads with the sort of tone that will hopefully attract people like us: confident, sharp people who are not afraid to work hard but also like to have fun. After I post the ad, I usually give it a few days to collect responses, but if we have a dire need I will start contacting people quickly. I look for resumes without job-hopping; I look for people who answer the Indeed questions; I look for people with skills and interests that would be a good fit here. For example, last year I was hiring in our shipping department, and there was an applicant who had been a math major at GVSU. I immediately thought, well he is certainly smart enough, presumably good with numbers. The shipping job requires attention to detail, making sure you are shipping every part to the address, etc. and my stereotype of a math major fit right into that, so even though he did not have experience shipping auto parts, he was immediately on my shortlist to phone interview. And he works at Pete’s today!
When I go through resumes, I immediately reject anyone I am not interested in, mark “maybe” on people who are not ideal based on their resume but are probably worth contacting if none of the better looking candidates work out, and mark “interested” on the ones that look great. Those “interested” ones, I reach out to by Indeed message or text and set up a phone interview. If you get a phone interview, you made it through the first round of cuts and you are on my shortlist.
Phone interviews usually last 10 to 30 minutes, depending on the person and the questions they have or how much I end up describing. I am pretty casual on phone interviews, I want to get a feel for the person so I think that’s easier to do when we’re just chit chatting about life vs asking set questions. I try to do at least 10 phone interviews (sometimes I end up doing more like 30 or 40 for a job like a driver where I have over 100 applicants, sometimes I do less when it’s a dismantler and there aren’t many good candidates) and I try to schedule my top 3 or 4 people for in-person interviews within a day or two of each other. I do my best to only bring in for an interview someone I think I would be ready to hire tomorrow.
I usually remember to tell people we are not fancy, and they can dress comfortably. I wear a sweatshirt to work most days and it can be a little awkward when someone shows up in a suit LOL. When the person comes in for an in-person interview, it’s usually with me and the manager they would be reporting to if they are hired. Although I have my opinions, because I bring in people I would already be willing to hire, I let the manager choose who they want out of the 3-4 people I present them with, or if they don’t want to hire any of them, then I try to find 3-4 more to do another round of interviews.
Most of the time, unless they are in sales, a new hire is not working with me closely after their first day. They spend 8 hours a day training with Jim, or with Craig, and I would prefer that my managers get to pick the people they are working with! It’s nice that they get to choose their own team, and that the team members know they were chosen above all the other applicants by the person that can help them succeed and have a career at Pete’s Auto Parts.
Usually at the end of an in-person interview, I let the application know I will call them with a job offer or text/email them if it’s a no. After I call and offer someone a job, I send an email with all the specifics of the job offer, in writing, along with our company handbook and health insurance info. I used to then “reject” everyone on Indeed so they get an email saying we hired someone else, immediately, but I’ve learned that sometimes the first person doesn’t actually show up, and so now I wait and make sure the person is actually starting the job before I send out those messages. More than once we have ended up hiring someone who was second choice at the time of the interview, but ended up being a far superior person to work with. There are a lot of great people out there and we don’t have a perfect way to find them and bring them into the fold, but we try. But if I told someone I would text to let them know we hired someone else, then I send them a text so they know.
Side Note
We expect people to need to give a two week notice, and we hope they will give us a two week notice if/when they decide to leave us! I always ask the question “when could you start?” and it is not a bad thing when your answer is two weeks after you offer me a job — it shows us you are classy and will be classy with Pete’s Auto Parts as a new hire, as well. We have run into a situation where the person put in their two weeks, and they were told they could just be done. Unless we discuss otherwise in the interview, we can start someone early if their previous job doesn’t want them to work out the two weeks. We understand people have bills to pay and most people don’t want to be off work without pay for two weeks. We have also worked with people who wanted to give their employer a 3 or even 4 week notice, for the right person and the right position. One of the benefits of being a small company, we can pivot pretty quickly when needed.
New Hire Guide: First Day
In the job offer email for the new hire, I include a lot of info on your first day at Pete’s Auto Parts. What to bring (yourself, your lunch if you prefer to pack a lunch, your ID and citizenship dobs for the paperwork, a voided check or deposit slip to set up direct deposit,) where to go, what the day will look like. We do provide coffee, drinking water, a refrigerator/microwave/toaster oven/etc. Sometimes the first day we start people at 9am instead of 8am to give Jessi our General Manager an hour to get things together before a new person starts. Sometimes we start right at 8am like usual. Either way, your first few hours working at Pete’s Auto Parts are spent with me, Amber, the owner, and Jessi the GM. Jessi’s part is pretty short, she usually spends under 30 minutes going through a “new employee orientation” where she highlights things like where to park, what to wear.
I spend between an hour and three hours going through a broad overview of the company with each new hire. I tell them the history of Pete’s Auto Parts: how my grandfather started the business and what an incredible work ethic he had, how my dad bought it from him, what my dad did to grow the business and what I learned from him that has shaped the business. For example, Ron was adamant that our fellow recyclers are not our true competitors, they are our partners, that our true competitors are new and aftermarket parts, and that we should cultivate other used auto parts businesses as customers, vendors and partners. This is an invaluable lesson that has stayed with Pete’s Auto Parts and has changed us for the better in so many ways! Ron would also scream at people pretty regularly, and we do not tolerate that at all, anymore. We learned that people do not listen or improve when they are yelled at. We didn’t want to be yelled at by Ron, so we do not yell at others (there is that Golden Rule again!) For me personally, it’s when I am quiet that I am most upset. When I feel overly emotional at work, I try to remove myself from the situation until I can address the matter without raising my voice. I learned when I experience anger, there is usually something deeper going on; what I am really feeling is fear, and I’m taking it out as anger because I do not want to be afraid. Anyway. The point is, we have learned from our history not to yell at people. So when there is a problem with work at Pete’s, it’s dealt with in a normal volume of voice, we send people home or put them on a performance plan or write them up with consequences, but the consequences are never being yelled at. You will learn not just how we do things but why we do them.
That first day I go through each job role at Pete’s Auto Parts, what each person here does and why they are important. Truly, it is not lip service to say each job is extremely important at Pete’s. There is not really a single position that does not massively affect the whole company. I also go into some industry trends, and that how/why we choose to do things the way we do at Pete’s. I explain the basic lifecycle of a vehicle, and the flow of parts sold. I don’t expect people to remember any of the details, but it’s good to have a birds-eye-view of how things are work around here. I understand first days are stressful, and I try to make it a little easier.
What’s Next?
We have ONE training video we make everyone watch, on ARA Damage Codes. There are a number of training videos available through ARA University for all job roles and a number of speaker sessions from the United Recyclers Group for salespeople. We don’t spend a ton of time doing training videos because we like hands-on training, but they are available and some people enjoy them more than others! We do forklift certification, airbag hazmat training, electric vehicle training, and more, both with online courses and hands on, depending on what your tasks will be.
If you are being hired into Sales or Accounting, this will be the first of many hours of lectures you get from me! In Sales and Accounting, I spend just about every minute with you the whole first week you work at Pete’s Auto Parts, and 75% of the second week. We have an outside company that helps train salespeople on our computer system for 10 hours in their second week. This has been extremely helpful in giving people a solid footing to work from, getting super detailed training on every aspect of the computer system so then when I am working with them, we can focus on customer service, not where to click. For salespeople, after two weeks of training and recreating quotes and orders from recorded phone calls, you start the actual job, and I spend about ½ of your day with you and Ian our Sales Manager spends about ½ of your day with you. That supervision lasts another week to three weeks depending on the person, before they are set loose to just do what they were hired to do.
If you are being hired into our Distribution department (Parts Techs, Shippers or Delivery Drivers,) after the short time with me, I turn you over to Jim. If you are being hired into Production (Purchasers, Inventory Staff, Dismantlers, Yard/Crushing Staff) after the short time with me, I turn you over to Craig. Most Delivery Drivers get a couple of hours of training with Jim and then they job shadow with another driver for a couple of days before they are turned loose. Parts Techs and Shippers spend more time with Jim and Bobby (who has been in shipping for over 10 years) and they have a lot more to learn so it makes sense their training would take longer. Same story in Production, where people train with and shadow and learn the job piece by piece.
New Hire Guide: Milestones
The three big milestones at Pete’s Auto Parts are completing your first 60 days, completing your first 120 days and completing your first year. The reason 60 days matters is because after 60 days, holidays become paid! The reason 120 days matters is because after 120 days, your time off becomes paid!
As explained in our company handbook:
New employees start with 40 hours of paid personal time and 32 hours of paid vacation time pro-rated based on when their hire date falls in the year (see example below). While the number of hours is pro-rated based on the start date, new employees are not allowed to use paid time until they have completed 120 days of employment. Should they need to take time off in the first 120 days of employment they will have 16 hours of unpaid personal time available to use.
Example: an employee hired July 1st, 2026 will be granted 20 hours of paid personal time and 16 hours of paid vacation upon their start date. They will be restricted from using their paid time until they have completed 120 days of service. During the first 120 days of service an employee will have 16hrs unpaid personal time to use if needed. Upon November 1st, 2026 they will have completed 120 days of employment and will be eligible to begin using paid time off. On January 1st, 2027 they will be granted an additional 40hrs of personal time and 40hrs of vacation and will continue to accrue vacation each year as the schedule below indicates. Unused vacation time will roll over each year. Unused personal time does not roll over, but may be paid out at the end of the fiscal year. If an employee does not use all of their 40 hours in a year the remaining personal time will be paid out within the first 60 days of the following year if the employee is in good standing. Unused personal time will not be paid out upon termination of employment.
Vacation is accrued according to the following schedule:
- 1+ year service = 40 hours vacation
- 2+ years service = 48 hours vacation
- 3+ years service = 56 hours vacation
- 4+ years service = 64 hours vacation
- 5+ years service = 72 hours vacation
- 6+ years service = 80 hours vacation
- 7+ years service = 88 hours vacation
Speaking of everyone’s favorite thing about having a job (paid time off) we normally have 7 paid holidays each year (New Years day, Memorial day, Independence day, Labor day, Thanksgiving day, day after Thanksgiving, Christmas day) but there are some years you get 8: in 2026, Christmas eve is a paid holiday, but not every year.
365 Days Later
The one year milestone is a big one for any new hire — you basically are not a new hire anymore at that point! After one year, every “new hire” is eligible to join our retirement program, which is a Simple IRA through Ascensus Trust Company. No matter when you hit your one year anniversary, you do have to wait to join the plan during the sign-up period, which is November-December. So if you were hired in October, you have less than a month, but if you were hired in February, you have to wait all the way until November comes around again. These aren’t our rules, they are the rules of the IRA that we can only sign people up during a set period each year.
We chose to go with Vanguard for our retirement planning, because they had the lowest fees and great results and staff can choose how they want to invest. Then Vanguard handed over all their small accounts to the Ascensus Trust Company, so essentially we still have Vanguard investments they are just handled by Ascensus. After you have been with Pete’s Auto Parts for a year, and you are eligible to sign up, you can choose how much you want to take out of your paycheck and put away in an IRA, and Pete’s Auto Parts will match that amount up to 4% of your gross income.
New Hire Guide: Wrap Up
We’ve strayed from my goals for this blog post, but I think we covered all the most important points, all the questions people may have when they have applied to a position at Pete’s Auto Parts and are now snooping the company… but if you are such a snoop, and you still have questions, please feel free to email me at amber@petesauto.net with the subject “New Hire” and if it’s a good question, I’ll not only answer it, I’ll update the blogpost to include it!
Thanks for reading. If you aren’t a prospective new hire at Pete’s Auto Parts but you’d like help finding a part, give us a call or text us at (616) 669-6592, or search our site at petesauto.net. We’d be glad to help.
Check us out on facebook! https://facebook.com/petesautoparts
Find videos of our vehicles running on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/@petesauto7873
You can search for your part on our website at our used auto parts search page.
