There’s always a learning curve with any new job, and driver recruiting is no different. Perhaps you’re familiar with recruiting but new to the trucking industry. Or on the other hand, you may be familiar with trucking but new to recruiting. Either way, there’s a lot to learn. Taking on driver recruiting as a profession can allow you to experience endless opportunities and job satisfaction. Of course, the job also comes with the pressure to succeed. As a recruiter, you’ll need to operate at the top of your game to find and hire qualified truck drivers. It’s a field that requires being agile, patient, and resourceful. With that in mind, today we wanted to present those new to the industry with a beginner’s guide to recruiting drivers.
Manage Your Time and Your Records
Driver recruiting requires the ability to juggle multiple tasks simultaneously. Having an organized approach to tasks is essential to becoming a successful driver recruiter. There are deadlines to meet, drivers to talk to, applications to review and onboarding to arrange. If you’re managing multiple positions and coordinating with multiple candidates, things can easily pile up if you’re not staying organized. You never want to be caught off guard by a candidate who expects you to remember them, or worse, forgetting a good candidate altogether. In today’s market, a good driver has a plethora of options available to them. Whenever you are communicating with a top candidate, having all of their details at your fingertips will go a long way towards maintaining a good impression of your company.
Forge Strong Relationships
Recruiting drivers is not a one-and-done job. As you start recruiting, prioritize driver retention in addition to filling your pipeline. Each time you speak with a driver, you are starting a relationship. You are their main point of contact for any questions and concerns they have about your company or the available position. Driver recruiting is more than just hiring active applicants, it’s also about maintaining relationships with people who have shared they aren’t ready to make a move yet but are considering one in the future. Keeping relationships strong with passive candidates can help to ensure that your company is top of mind when that driver is ready for a change.
Utilize the Power of Social Media
According to Statista, over 3.6 billion people use social media worldwide. With numbers that high, your prospective candidates are sure to be among them. Beyond just job posting and marketing to active candidates, social media platforms like Facebook allow carriers to target passive candidates who may not be looking for a new job but could be interested in the right opportunity.
Partner With Work4
With Work4, it’s easier than ever to get your job opening out there and get driver candidate leads delivered directly into your company’s ATS or your email inbox. With job board solutions, lead generation, and candidate nurturing we have a recruitment solution that’s sure to help you reach your recruiting goals. Try out all of the features of our custom ads campaigns for 5 weeks and see the difference in your recruiting stats.
Implement Recruiting Best Practices
Once you take the time to understand your company and your future drivers, there are several new driver recruiter best practices to follow.
Contact Drivers on Their Terms
Often, this means by phone or text messaging (with opt-in preferences!). Start by asking driver candidates when the best time to contact them is, and their preferred method of contact. Always do your best to be available when drivers can talk, this may include evening or weekend hours. Reaching drivers on their terms gives you a better chance of getting in touch, but it also shows that you understand and respect drivers’ schedules.
Maintain a Consistent Relationship
If a driver responds to a job posting, follow up with them as quickly as possible. Good drivers are in high demand, and they’ll get hired quickly! If you want to get top drivers in your fleet, you have to be faster than your competition. Our customers report that their best practice is to follow up with drivers within 8 minutes or less. An agile and well-trained recruiting team can be the difference between hiring or losing a driver candidate. Once you’re in touch with drivers, establish regular points of contact.
Be Patient, But Be Proactive
This practice is key to being a successful driver recruiter. The more proactive you are in your recruiting efforts, the better chance you’ll have of getting qualified candidates in your seats and on the road. Remember that your ATS is a valuable tool, but don’t rely on it for all the work. Proactively reach out to your leads and consistently provide subsequent touchpoints to ensure that you’re top of mind when a driver is ready to make a move.
Recruit For Retention
There are two main components to being a driver recruiter. Recruiting, obviously, and retention. Retention is the act of keeping a driver on long after you’ve successfully recruited them. According to Avatar Fleet, the median cost for replacing a driver is around $8,000 dollars with the low end being $5,000 and the high end traveling all the way up to $10,000. That’s a serious chunk of change, that can really eat into a carrier’s profit margins. The ability to bring on a driver, and retain them through thick and thin is what separates a good recruiter from a great recruiter. One of the biggest strides you can make in driver retention is to make better hires at the outset.
Never Stop Expanding Your Talent Pool
A large chunk of your time and efforts will obviously go to nurturing your most qualified applicants. But it’s just as important to continuously work on seeking new talent to expand your talent pool. This will keep your driver candidate pipeline full, a necessity for successful driver recruiting. It’s better to have more than enough prospects than to rely on a few, so always be on the lookout for new opportunities.
A Final Thought For The Road
As you look for new ways to find truck driver candidates, be determined and creative! Being a successful driver recruiter isn’t an easy job, but it can be done well. If you’re interested in the best ways to recruit truck drivers, Work4 can help you meet your recruitment goals. Contact us today!
