If you’re a mechanic looking for work right now here on Earth, you’re in a pretty good place right now. I say this not just because of Earth’s excellent selection of cars and cafés and water parks (as of this writing, the best in the known universe) but because at this moment there is huge global demand for car mechanics and technicians. This means that good technicians are hard to find and in huge demand, which drives recruiters crazy. How do you find the good mechanics and technicians? A couple of years ago, Volkswagen had a pretty clever – perhaps even a bit devious – idea to not just recruit, but literally poach technicians from other shops. And it sounds like spy hijinx.
I’m sort of surprised I’d never heard about this before (I heard about it randomly from this Insta account), but from what I can tell, the project – which VW referred to as Inside Jobs – was only done in France, as part of a Volkswagen France Group initiative. What VW did was extremely clever and sneaky – remember, this is the company that pulled off Dieselgate shenanigans for quite a while with some really clever tricks.
Essentially, what VW did was to send a bunch of cars to repair shops all over France, with parts that required repair or maintenance having special messages and a QR code engraved on them or on a sticker or something similar. The text explained that VW was looking for technicians, and the QR code took whoever scanned it to a link to apply for jobs.
Here, they made a whole ad about it after the project was over:
That’s pretty damn clever, isn’t it? Sneaky, sure, but clever as hell. VW France was looking for 1,000 new recruits; their recruitment page got over 113,219 views (normally those sorts of pages would have gotten about 15,000) and over 53,000 mechanics and techs applied, for those 1,000 jobs, of which I assume all were filled.
The engraved messages on the parts are especially appealing, like this brake rotor:
…or this exhaust pipe:
And here’s an example of one of the stickers, which seem to have been placed on things like batteries and air filters:
If you’re wondering where that QR code goes, it goes here. I’m not sure if VW in France is still hiring, though.
I have heard that currently there are car dealerships in America that are doing similar things, like putting recruitment stickers on oil filters of cars, in hopes they’ll be seen by other mechanics.
The commercial refers to these as sort of “Trojan horses,” and I suppose that’s a fitting historical/mythical analogy. Maybe? It’s a little sloppy, as the Trojan Horse was a deliberately deceptive thing that hid soldiers; this is more like a cleverly hidden message with an offer, one that would only be discovered by the people they wanted to contact.
The only example of this I can think of in popular culture that is similar is probably from the Coen brothers’ movie A Serious Man, which has a whole strange vignette about a message hidden in teeth:
Of course, that hidden message, while it got to a dentist, has an essentially unknowable purpose. Unlike VW’s hidden messages, which let them hire a thousand French mechanics.
Would have been apex sniping if they did this with slightly tricky and unusual faults to capture only the techs who weren’t total hacks. But maybe France doesn’t have the problem that the US does.
So VW (France) themselves made an ad essentially saying, ‘our cars are getting repaired so often that we can just use them as a way to recruit people’?
I guess it’s possible that could work in France consider their competition down there, but to me it seems a bit risky.
Instead of stickers how about doing things like offer a real salary not flat rate, normal mon-fri 9-5 work hours and clean climate controlled shops? Those are the reasons they have no techs. It’s a brutal job.
Are you speaking directly from experience, having worked as a VW tech in France? Conditions typically vary between countries.
Flat rate can be a decent gig if you are smart and hussle little bit. Not usnusual to work 45 hours in a week and get paid for 60 or 70. There are some jobs that are losers, but in a week there are many more that a good tech can make it up and then some.
But yes on better shop conditions. Also, a new tech needs to spend 10-20k on tools just to get started. That’s a hard pill to swallow.
IMHO a big part of the reason there are no techs (at least in the US) is that schools, parents, the media all spent decades telling the youth that they won’t amount to anything going into a skilled trade. So an entire generation or two ignored that option.
“a new tech needs to spend 10-20k on tools just to get started”, I think this is a bigger issue. Colleges have entire departments dedicated to student loans, but many skilled trades require years long internships at low pay, but have a huge financial commitment up front.
Buying your own tools was something I didn’t know was happening anywhere in the world before I watched American Hot Rod on Discovery back in the day, and I still have a hard time accepting that can be a real thing that people are willing to accept.
Good luck hiring anyone here in Norway without providing everything they’ll need from work boots to a relatively decent free coffee machine.
Been there. Done that. Changed careers. Manny, Moe, and Jack took in $85/hr and I got $12, if I was lucky. Now I don’t have to bleed at work.
It’s a french offer, so mon-fri 9-5 is illegal (35h per week max here) and a real salary is expected.
Amen. I’ve worked in multiple shops here in Arizona and aside from the dealership, none of them had AC so the summers were brutal. Flat rate is a scam too, it just incentivizes corner-cutting and doing hacky shit just to flag hours. Having to buy your own tools is BS too, that should all be provided by the shop.
Hey, I broke my body and bank account for 20 years to finally be able to make a really good wage for 2010 this year. Maybe by 2040 I can finally start to fund my retirement account and retire before I turn 90 ????
I hate to be Debbie Downer here but following a QR code blindly is a Bad Idea. Where does it go? Where did it come from?
Is it legit, or did some enterprising hacker read this article and started sticking fake stickers with a modified QR code on them leading to a site teaming with malware payloads?
Can you tell? I can’t. QR codes are the devil.
Props to Volkswagen for widening the attack surface, though. Pretty clever.
In the early days of QR codes our local zoo included them at exhibits so you could read more about the animals. I made up some alternate codes that took you to a collection of dad jokes about the animals. I don’t know if anyone ever fell for it or not, but I’d bet that today very few people would scan it.
So…pretty much you ruined the hard work of the zoo staff, and the visitors enjoyment.
“Where does it go? Where did it come from?”
A wicked ruse laid by the German fae creature known as Josef mit der Watte-Augapfel.
It’s so weird, I don’t know German but I know exactly what that says.
It most definitely leads to Cotton Eyed Joe!
Where did he come from? Where did he go?
This reminds me of the VW of yore and being a bit smarter and cheekier like they were in the past would probably be a good thing for their image.
Brilliant.
That was some epic-level targeted marketing/recruitment.
This is amazing
I hope that someone gets our
I hope that someone gets our
I hope that someone gets our message in a throttle , yeah
Message in a throttle
Oooh. That was clever!
Younger me, during the Falklands War heard “sending out an SOS” as “sending out an Exocet.” Which Argentina did somewhat effectively.
Wikipedia has a pretty decent synopsis of the skirmish.
Falklands War – Wikipedia
Sadly, it seems nearly 1,000 people died in what seems to have ended in a political stalemate.
I was a new 2nd lieutenant in the USAF when that war broke out and we watched it with interest. People tend to forget about it but the 10-week war had huge consequences for Argentina eventually resulting in the ouster of the military junta that ruled the country and the beginning of democratization. History.
I don’t think it makes sense to call it a stalemate. The UK achieved all of their aims: they retained sovereignty over the Falklands, the Falklanders were able to resume their basically normal lives (having no desire to be Argentinian), and the Argentinian government eventually collapsed.
Now, was it worth it for Britain to go to war? That’s a philosophical question. But the principle that one nation couldn’t just seize part of another was upheld until 2014.
I’ve been around Jalopnik, TTAC, Oppo, Aand the like since about 2004 and that’s one of the best automotive COTDs I’ve ever seen.
Agreed, along with when the Bronco sport was being announced and someone commented “weird Flex, but okay” which was perfectly of-the-moment
That’s the most smileys I’ve seen in a while!! I will not be here on Monday, but I’ll try to get you as COTD. 🙂
Hi, Mercedes thanks! Always get a kick out of COTD acknowledgment, but no worries if it doesn’t happen. You folks have given me plenty of kudos and, besides, your comment here is just as good. Hope you’ll be someplace fun on Monday. Thanks, again.
If only the NHTSA had hidden these kinds of messages in all the faulty VW parts I replaced over the years, maybe we could have had more recalls.
Not quite Cicada 3301, but nice.
It’s is very much a “Trojan horse”
It’s a repair job sent into your business with the aim of poaching your employees. You are basically tricked into letting a recruiter on your premises.
As a master mechanic I can verify your opening statement. It’s very easy to get interviews and job offers.
They must pay really well or the cars they’re used to were somehow worse than VW as I can’t imagine any other reason someone would choose to leave their current job to work on VW products.
In America at least, VW group is one of the best brands to work for in terms of fair warranty pay and training availability.
Mercedes supposedly is one of the worst
Correct me if I’m wrong, but aren’t VW warranties only three years and not transferable to the vehicle’s second owner?
My recollection is that’s how their warranty program worked, but I’ve never owned a VW so if I was misinformed, let me know.
That doesn’t matter to a mechanic
No, it doesn’t, but it does go a long way towards VW having the warranty budget to be so generous with the pay rates.
Not generous but fair
I think it’s more that they understand it’s important to long term customer satisfaction to keep good mechanics happy with the brand. It’s very easy to switch brands (usually getting a raise in the process).
There are brands who make massive profits but pay mechanics crap rates
Fair is good. I’ve heard of programs that put unrealistically short time limits on warranty jobs. That sounds almost criminal.
I know the top tech at a Nissan dealer.
All the training.
They don’t want to pay him his rate, so they hand work to lesser mechanics.
He usually makes them more money, as he’s faster, sometimes by days.
Like many, he says their goal is to make all the profit off the service dept.
They won’t keep him working, so he will hire out for the rate the dealer pays him.
That makes sense. Good enough pay and treatment makes up for a lot.
Jeez I love the scene about the goy’s teeth. I would not expect to see it on a car website, but that’s why I keep coming back here – the references to unknowable mysteries lol
Nowadays when I hear a company is hiring scores of people I assume it is because it is a lousy place to work. If I saw ads like this it would scare me away. What next hitting mechanics over the head and secreting them to the plant where they are chained up and meant to be slaves. Also why does a new car manufacturer need so many mechanics. Are the cars that bad?
That was sort of my thought – we supplied kinda massive amounts of sand and aggregate to a giant new Amazon warehouse, and they had people at the gate handing recruiting flyers to our dump truck drivers going in every morning.
There’s a theory that Amazon is succeeding is running through every statistically potential employee on the planet.
An impressive feat.
Even Amway never managed that
Pretty sure Tupperware came close though.
I hear that the Chinese EV manufacturers have resorted to the Shanghai method of recruitment…..
I’m pretty sure at some point the Australian government hid job ads in the code behind a defense website with the basic premise of “if you are reading this you have the skills we need so give us a call”
Yeah it’s pretty common for companies to put something like that in their HTML.
A strange skill set ask for a janitor and a cafeteria dishwasher.
There have been Fortune 500 companies that required college degrees for janitors.
Why?
Because they could.
I figured it was for leverage:
Oh, you DON’T have a pointless degree? Well we’ll hire you on a (permanent) probationary basis at 1/3 the average salary and no benefits.
Or the applicant lies to get the job, the employer knows its a lie and sits on that as cause for immediate, severance free termination should there be a need for it.
When they pay enough, they can be insane.
But working some places can get you better jobs, regardless of liking the place.
If you’re lucky. If not you may get pigeonholed or excluded from consideration for the job you want because your history isn’t EXACTLY what HR wants.
True
Also sounds like a good way to recruit schizophrenics who happen to know a little HTML
I am convinced the govt in United States made sure certain books were in every school library and every book catalog.
They were openly very, very supportive of certain technical classes as well.
I went to multiple schools by chance and always found quality cryptography books and some other interesting niche books.
With all the crazy conspiracy theories that have actually come true I would absolutely beleive it, it would be refreshing to see a nefarious secret plot to educate people.
This was the cold war and space race era, so it makes sense.
The govt was openly donating or loaning equipment to high school shops up to old aircraft in some cases.
Recruiting for Intel work was pretty intense.
Are you familiar with Blank Spots on the Map or James Bamfords books?
If true it was obviously a honey trap.
I’m afraid you lost me there?
To find people who could break their codes and make them an offer they couldn’t refuse; work for us on OUR terms…or else.
We’re talking conspiracy theories, right?
I’m talking real life in high school from my point of view.
That only works if you’ve committed serious crimes, and usually comes with more benefits than threats.
We had a local guy get caught hacking the phone company.
Ultimately someone? offered him a good job which he accepted.
Seems to have worked out.
On the other hand, if you’re caught at espionage, options might not be good.
Re conspiracies, the chaff about “conspiracy theories” sounds like an effective approach to discredit real information when it surfaces.
There are whole lists of those, now exposed.
My favorite was UK draining blood from bodies to fake vampyre deaths.
Who would believe that, and yet . . .
I know people now that can openly talk about SR71 interactions from back when they were so classified you couldn’t admit they existed. Fun stuff!
Check out those books if you’re not already familiar.
A lot of NASA is covered.
Taking of K129 is great if you like technical detail.
“I know people now that can openly talk about SR71 interactions from back when they were so classified you couldn’t admit they existed. Fun stuff!”
Aurora enters the chat:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aurora_(aircraft)
And yeah, raising the K129 is a great one!
“My favorite was UK draining blood from bodies to fake vampyre deaths.”
Not just the UK:
https://history.howstuffworks.com/world-history/cia-vampires-communist-rebels-philippines.htm
Blank Spots on the Map heavily covers mystery ships like Aurora.
When a friend’s gps was the only civilian one still working after all his company’s personal ones shut down on a military base, the obvious next thought for someone like me was that gaps in information are information.
That’s the starting point for the book, but it goes further exploring all kinds of information gaps.
I have always said if you want to keep a secret, make people think they already know the answer.