How to hire a parts counter person: sourcing, screening and what to offer

Start with what the role actually is. O*NET’s Parts Salespersons occupation lists sample titles including Parts Advisor, Parts Counterperson and Parts Specialist. Its task list covers selling replacement parts in a repair shop or parts store, filling orders from stock, reading catalogs or computer displays for part numbers and prices, and preparing sales slips. O*NET’s job-title index (version 31.0) maps Parts Counter Person and Automotive Parts Counter Associate to the same occupation as well.

Write your own scope list against those tasks. Decide which of these the counter owns at your shop: the tech window and phone orders, customer walk-ins, quoting from your own pricing, cores and returns, warranty parts paperwork, and how much inventory work — cycle counts, bin organization, ordering — rides with the job. A counter-only hire and a counter-plus-inventory hire are different posts, and they draw different candidate pools.

The numbers show why the counter matters. NADA Data 2025 — a dealership dataset — reports average service and parts sales of $494 per customer repair order and $551 per warranty repair order, with $1.43 in parts sales for every $1 of service labor sales. Those are dealership averages, not an independent-shop benchmark — but they show the scale of the parts and labor revenue moving through a dealer service drive, where parts sales run ahead of labor sales.

Decide the seam with management before you post, too. O*NET maps Parts Manager and Auto Parts Manager to first-line supervisors of retail sales workers and to supply chain managers — not to Parts Salespersons. So the federal data treats a counter hire and a parts manager as different occupations — title the post for the seat you are actually filling. If the job owns pricing, vendor relationships and inventory accountability, write it as a manager post; if it owns the counter, write it as one.

For the worker-side view — the settings parts people work in and the titles the trade uses — start with what a parts counter person does, then write your shop’s version of it.

This is a large occupation with slow projected growth, which shapes where the candidates sit. BLS’s Employment Projections table for Parts Salespersons counts 273,300 jobs in 2025, projected to reach 281,600 by 2035 — growth of 3%, or 8,300 jobs — and that projection series includes self-employed workers. BLS’s OEWS May 2025 file, a separate count of wage-and-salary jobs only, shows 270,070.

The industry rows point at the pools. In the OEWS May 2025 national industry data, automobile dealers (NAICS 4411) employed 60,370 parts salespersons, while automotive repair and maintenance shops (NAICS 8111) show 8,000. The repair-shop counter pool is thin — 8,000 jobs against the occupation’s 270,070 — so most counter staff work somewhere other than a repair-and-maintenance-shop counter. Fish for resumes with counter time at a parts store, a dealer parts department or a wholesale parts operation.

Work your own floor first. Porters know your lot, lube and tire techs already work from size and fitment guides, and advisors already know your customers — a counter move hands one of them a career step that does not require a toolbox. Offering that step internally can also serve retention before you post the job.

Post where shop people already look. The cross-role guide to where to post shop jobs compares the channels for auto-repair employers, from the general boards to the trade-specific ones.

Title the job the way candidates type it. O*NET’s reported titles for this occupation include Parts Counterperson, Parts Counter Person, Parts Advisor, Parts Specialist and Automotive Parts Counter Associate — pick one, and save Parts Manager for a manager post, because the federal data treats them as different occupations. Under the title, put the scope list from section one, the schedule with Saturday and rotation expectations spelled out, and the catalog and shop-management systems you actually run.

Watch the ad language. The EEOC warns that a help-wanted ad showing a preference based on a protected trait may violate the law, and its own example is an ad seeking “recent college graduates,” which may discourage people over 40. Keep “young,” “recent grad” and “energetic young team” out of the posting, and describe the work instead.

Then the pay line. In these states, the posting itself must carry it:

• California: employers with 15 or more employees must include the pay scale in any job posting and give it to any job board or recruiter they post through. A pay scale is a good-faith estimate of the salary or hourly wage range the employer reasonably expects to pay upon hire.
• New York: employers with four or more employees must disclose the compensation or a range of compensation, plus the job description if one exists, for jobs performed at least in part in New York.
• Washington: employers with 15 or more employees must disclose the wage scale or salary range and a general description of all benefits and other compensation.
• Illinois: employers with 15 or more employees must include the pay scale and benefits in specific job postings for positions performed at least partly in Illinois — in effect for postings after January 1, 2025.
• Colorado: compensation must be disclosed in all job postings and notices, internal and public, together with benefits information and how and when to apply.
• Massachusetts: starting October 29, 2025, employers with 25 or more employees in the state must disclose the pay range in job postings.
• Minnesota: employers with 30 or more employees at one or more Minnesota sites must post the starting salary range or a fixed pay rate plus a benefits description, and the range may not be open-ended.
• Maryland: for positions performed at least in part in Maryland, the wage range and a general description of benefits and other compensation go in each posting, set in good faith.

New York adds a carve-out that matters if you pay the counter job on commission. A job paid solely on commission can comply with a general statement that compensation will be based on commission, and a “range of compensation” there means the good-faith minimum and maximum annual salary or hourly range. The carve-out covers jobs paid solely on commission — a base-plus-incentive counter plan does not fall inside it.

Headcount decides several of these lines. Census County Business Patterns counted 55,637 of the 84,859 general automotive repair establishments in 2023 with fewer than 5 employees, and another 20,883 with 5 to 9. That is roughly nine in ten general repair shops employing fewer than 10 people — under the 15-, 25- and 30-employee lines. New York’s line sits at four employees, so a small crew can still be covered; Colorado’s posting rule, by contrast, names no headcount threshold in the state page we read.

Rules change. These thresholds and dates are the versions the agency pages showed when we checked; confirm the current requirement with your state labor agency before you publish the post.

Screen on the catalog, because that is the job. O*NET’s task list for this occupation — reading catalogs or computer displays for part numbers and prices, filling orders from stock, preparing sales slips — converts directly into a practical exercise. Give the candidate three VINs or year-make-models, have them find the part on the system you actually run, quote it, and explain what they would check before promising fitment.

Three more exercises round out the screen:

• Substitution judgment. Ask what they would offer when the OEM number is back-ordered — listen for checking fitment, cross-references and price rather than guessing.
• Stock accuracy. Have them fill an order from your bins and verify each number against the ticket.
• Counter scenario. A customer arrives with the wrong part in hand — listen for how they verify before anyone touches the car.

Keep any exercise job-related: the EEOC requires that a required test be necessary and related to the job and must not exclude people based on a protected trait. If you want a longer try-out on a live counter, run it as a paid, structured working interview — our working-interview guide covers the setup.

Interview questions have rails. Before a conditional offer you may ask whether the candidate can perform the job’s duties and how, but disability-related and medical questions wait until after a conditional offer. After one, a medical exam or disability-related questions are allowed only if every new hire in the same job completes the same step, with answers kept confidential in separate files. Questions about marital status, plans to marry and the number or ages of children generally do not belong before hire. Criminal records may be weighed at the final decision, but applicants may not be treated differently based on race or national origin when you consider them.

Pay questions have their own rails. California and Illinois bar asking an applicant’s salary history, and both allow asking about salary expectations instead; California’s Labor Commissioner confirms the expectations question is fine, and that an applicant may volunteer history unprompted. Colorado bars asking about pay history or relying on it to set pay.

Ask certification claims for receipts. ASE’s Parts Specialist series has two tests — P1 Medium-Heavy Truck Parts Specialist (70 scored questions, 90 min) and P2 Automobile Parts Specialist (75 scored questions, 90 min). Recertification tests P1R and P2R are 36 and 38 questions, 45 min. Certification requires passing one or more P-series tests plus two years of parts-counter work experience, and hands-on repair experience does not count. The experience ASE counts is hands-on work as a parts counterperson, or managing a wholesale or retail parts store or an in-house parts department. ASE’s own guide calls certification voluntary, so treat it as a shop requirement or preference, never a state license — ask a claiming candidate when and where they certified and last recertified.

Benchmark from the exact federal group. In the OEWS May 2025 national file, Parts Salespersons (SOC 41-2022) — the group parts counter staff map to — shows 270,070 wage-and-salary jobs and a median of $38,630 a year ($18.57 an hour). Annual percentiles run $28,240 at the 10th, $33,110 at the 25th, $49,850 at the 75th and $62,890 at the 90th, with a mean of $43,830. OEWS reports wages only — no commission, bonus or benefits detail — so price what your plan actually pays.

Check the industry rows before you benchmark. In the same May 2025 national file, the median for parts salespersons at automobile dealers (NAICS 4411) was $45,930 a year ($22.08 an hour, 60,370 jobs). Automotive repair and maintenance shops (NAICS 8111) show a median of $48,570 ($23.35 an hour, 8,000 jobs). The dealer median sits $2,640 below the repair-shop median, a gap of 5%. These are medians, not adjusted for experience, region or pay plan, so read them as positioning, not a rule about any one employer.

State medians spread wide. In OEWS May 2025 state data, the highest median annual pay for parts salespersons was North Dakota $48,600, Colorado $47,660, Minnesota $47,030, Washington $46,830, Iowa $46,670 and New Hampshire $46,370. The lowest were Louisiana $31,310, South Carolina $32,180 and North Carolina $32,480, with 50 of 51 state and DC rows published. The medians are not adjusted for cost of living.

Pick the structure deliberately: an hourly rate, or a base with an incentive tied to parts sales you can measure. Our research found no market commission-split figure for parts counter staff, so keep incentive numbers to what you publish yourself, write down how hours are captured and how overtime is computed, and put review timing in the offer. The cross-role guide to technician pay plans compares the structures — a counter role gives you a simpler design problem than a flat-rate bay.

Benefits close offers. Washington, Illinois, Minnesota and Maryland require a benefits description alongside the pay range in covered postings, and Colorado requires benefits information in all postings. Put the package in writing either way: health coverage, paid time off, paid training and certification support, and a schedule people can plan a life around. The rest of the employer playbooks — recruiting, screening, retention — live on hiring for your shop.

Pace the ramp so accuracy comes before speed:

• Week one. Catalog and shop-management system training, the returns, cores and warranty-parts process on paper, and shadowing your lead at the tech window.
• Weeks two to four. Own lookups and quotes with a backup check on every number, then first solo customer shifts.
• By 90 days. Own the counter, and start the ASE P-series track if you fund one.

Pay for the training time. Under the FLSA’s training-time rule, time in lectures, meetings and training counts as paid working time unless all four of these hold: it is outside regular hours, truly voluntary, not directly related to the employee’s job, and no productive work is performed. Catalog and system training you require cannot be “truly voluntary,” so it generally counts as hours you pay for.

Fund the credential cycle. ASE certification is voluntary, and Parts Specialist certification requires two years of parts-counter experience, so a new hire grows into it — hire for the skills, then sponsor the P2 Automobile Parts Specialist test as the experience accrues. The credential matters beyond one hire, too. ASE’s Blue Seal criteria for parts businesses — retailers, jobbers and similar — call for at least 75% of parts counterpersons to be ASE certified, with each area of service offered covered by at least one ASE-certified parts counterperson.

If your counter sells tires, TIA’s Intro to ATS is an orientation course for non-technicians such as counter staff — an easy first-week module for a tire-store hire.

Define the ladder you can promote into — counter, inventory control, assistant parts manager, parts manager — as your shop’s own structure, review pay against your market at least yearly, and keep the schedule promises the post made. No turnover rate for parts counter staff exists in the sources we checked, so measure your own: track openings, exit reasons and pay history in one place, so the next hire starts from data. For the shop-wide version of this — paperwork, first-week structure, 30/60/90 goals — the cross-role guide to technician onboarding maps to counter hires too.

Employer information, not legal, tax or insurance advice. Pay-posting, interview and wage rules come from federal and state agencies; confirm your specifics with your state labor agency, the DOL, the EEOC, a CPA or counsel.