As AI changes how people are found, Kerrie Richards, Director of automotive aftermarket recruitment specialist Glen Callum Associates, asks whether the industry needs to think differently about retaining and progressing the experienced talent it already has.
When we collectively talk about the aftermarket’s skills challenge, how often do we consider the career opportunities available to the experienced people already working within it?
Much of the conversation understandably focuses on attracting and training young people, bringing new skills into the sector and competing with other industries for talent. But attracting people is only part of the picture. As AI increasingly influences how candidates are identified and matched to opportunities, we also need to think about how we retain and progress the experienced people already here.
This isn’t to suggest the aftermarket isn’t creating opportunities for its people; rather, it’s about asking whether those opportunities, and the people ready for them, are always visible.
At Glen Callum Associates (GCA), our own recruitment data highlights just how significant this has become. In 2024, 71% of our hires came through headhunting and search, compared with 29% through advertising. In other words, for many experienced professionals, their next career opportunity may find them before they actively go looking for it.
Every day at Glen Callum Associates (GCA), we speak to Sales Managers ready for Director roles, Product Managers looking for bigger challenges, National Account Managers considering their next move and senior leaders who would move for the right opportunity.
Of course, progression doesn’t always mean changing employer. Where businesses can offer development, greater responsibility and a clear career path, retaining good people should be a key objective. But the next step isn’t always available within someone’s current organisation.
Experienced professionals tell us they value the relationships, knowledge and experience they’ve built within the sector; they are ready for their next opportunity, and they want to stay in the aftermarket.
So, when experienced people are ready for their next challenge, how do we make sure their next move stays within the aftermarket rather than taking their expertise elsewhere?
How the aftermarket finds talent is changing
Recruitment doesn’t begin when somebody presses ‘apply’. Headhunting, LinkedIn, recruitment databases and increasingly AI can identify potential candidates long before they apply for a vacancy, sometimes before that vacancy is publicly advertised.
Being visible to employers and recruiters can therefore matter just as much as actively applying for a role.
Yet some of the strongest aftermarket professionals we speak to are surprisingly difficult to identify from their CV or LinkedIn profile. Not because they lack experience, but because they haven’t made that experience clear.
As AI increasingly influences how candidates are searched, matched and shortlisted, someone can have 15 or 20 years of valuable aftermarket knowledge and yet appear digitally to be little more than a general sales, product or commercial professional.
Why this matters to the aftermarket
This industry is full of people with highly transferable skills: commercial leadership, distribution knowledge, product expertise, technical sales, supply chain experience and long-standing customer relationships.
But those skills are valuable well beyond automotive. Aftermarket professionals are regularly approached about opportunities in industrial, engineering, FMCG and adjacent sectors.
A vague CV can unintentionally turn someone with 15 years of specialist aftermarket knowledge into ‘general commercial talent’ and make them more visible to competing sectors than to businesses within our own industry.
Good people will always have options. If experienced aftermarket professionals can see clearer progression opportunities elsewhere, there is a risk that valuable sector knowledge leaves with them.
Make aftermarket experience easier to find
The challenge isn’t a lack of experience within the aftermarket; it’s that specialist experience isn’t always obvious or easy to identify digitally.
Consider this on a candidate profile:
Experienced sales professional responsible for developing key accounts and achieving sales targets.
There’s nothing wrong with it, but it could describe thousands of people.
Compare that with:
National Account Manager – 12 years’ automotive aftermarket experience managing motor factor, buying group and national distributor accounts. £8m portfolio with 14% growth over two years.
Suddenly we know the industry, customers, scale and achievement.
If you’ve spent 15 years selling braking and chassis products through the independent aftermarket, say so. If your customers include motor factors, buying groups, national distributors, fleets, garages or OEMs, make that clear.
And don’t just describe what you did; show what you achieved. Successfully grew the business and managed a large sales team tells us far less than grew aftermarket revenue from £4.2m to £6.1m and led a national team of 12.
Responsibilities tell us what you were employed to do. Achievements tell us how well you did it.
What this means for employers
If candidates have work to do, so do we.
For aftermarket businesses, retaining experienced people starts with making career progression easier to see.
Look inside as well as outside. Before a role goes to advert, ask whether someone already in the business, could grow into it.
Write job specs that reward specifics. If your ATS or AI sourcing tool is filtering on generic titles like “Sales Manager”, you could miss the National Account Manager with 12 years in motor factors and buying groups. Searching by customer type, product category, sector experience and scale can reveal candidates whose job title alone doesn’t tell the full story.
Make progression visible, not assumed. A career path that only exists in a manager’s head doesn’t help retention. Businesses should be having open conversations about development, responsibility and future opportunities before valuable employees start looking elsewhere.
None of this replaces good pay and a positive culture. But if the aftermarket wants to retain its experienced people, businesses need to be proactive about identifying and developing talent before someone else does.
Retention must be part of the skills conversation
If the aftermarket genuinely wants to address its skills challenge, attracting new people is only half the equation. Where businesses can provide career progression internally, retaining good people should be the priority. But when someone does decide it’s time to move, retaining their knowledge and experience within the wider aftermarket still matters.
Candidates have a role to play by making their specialist knowledge and achievements clear.
Recruiters and employers have a role too: looking beyond applications, identifying talent within our sector and making career opportunities visible.
AI will continue to change how people are found. Used well, it could help the aftermarket uncover more of the talent it already has, but only if that talent is visible.
AI alone won’t solve the aftermarket’s skills challenge, but it is changing how talent is identified and connected with opportunities. That makes it increasingly important for both businesses and individuals to ensure aftermarket skills, experience and career opportunities are visible.
Perhaps the skills conversation shouldn’t just be ‘How do we bring more people into the aftermarket?’
It should also ask: ‘Are we making it easy enough for the good people already here to build their future career here too?’
