Truck driver recruiters are some of the most important people within their organizations. If they are ineffective at their job, the company will have trucks sitting “on the fence” and not on the road earning revenue. Follow these steps and you will know how to be a great truck driver recruiter.
- Master Your Process
- Understand Social Media Marketing for Trucking Companies
- Learn the Art of Persuasion
- Stay Organized and Be Prepared
- Stay in Touch With Potential Drivers
- Remain Transparent Through the Hiring Process
Master Your Process
You will not be able to efficiently hire truck drivers if you do not have your process mastered.
How are you going to reach out to recent applicants if you do not know where their information is kept? How can you hire a new driver if you do not know how to send them the necessary paperwork and make sure it is all properly filled out?
If you are reading this and have been working at the same company for a long period of time, this tip may feel like a waste of time. However, each company has a different process. It can be easy to overlook this step when you start a new position.
Mastering the entire process is equivalent to mastering the fundamentals of any sport.
Just like you can’t expect to lace them up on Sundays without first mastering the basics, you can not be a great driver recruiter without first mastering your hiring process.
Understand Social Media Marketing for Trucking Companies
Nearly 100% of all truck drivers in the country are members of social media. Effective social media marketing allows for your company to reach all of these drivers, build your company brand, and connect with other people in the industry.
Because social media is so effective at generating driver applicants and promoting your company, it is likely an integral part of your carrier’s strategy.
A great truck driver recruiter understands the fundamentals of social media marketing. They do this because they want to understand where the drivers are coming from, how the driver came to apply, and what is reasonably expectable from a campaign.
Even if you are not responsible for running social media campaigns, you should learn how campaigns work.
Learn the Art of Persuasion
Truck driver recruiting is a sales position. The key to being successful at sales is learning how to persuade people to act.
You rarely come across a driver applicant that has fully committed to working for your company after applying.
Drivers need to be persuaded to drive for your company.
The driver shortage has created a world where truck drivers are fielding multiple offers at once. Where the driver decides to work comes down to which company is the most persuasive.
If you want to learn how to become more persuasive as a driver recruiter check out this article:
5 TIPS FOR DRIVER RECRUITERS TO BE MORE PERSUASIVE
Stay Organized and be Prepared
Truck driver recruiting is a constant juggling act. If you are disorganized and/or unprepared you will miss out on opportunities to hire drivers for your company.
If you are organized you will be able to manage applications coming in from multiple lead sources, keep track of all the meetings you set up, and submit the necessary paperwork for each driver.
You need to be over-prepared for each interview with individual drivers. At the start of an interview, you may think a driver applied because they are interested in a pay raise, and then find out that they had a poor experience with previous management.
If you enter the interview only prepared to discuss how drivers are paid at your company, then you won’t be fully prepared to talk about company culture. Sure you could discuss it off the top of your head, but you won’t have all the content necessary to show off your company culture.
Staying organized and being prepared will make sure that you interact with as many drivers as you can and can answer all of their questions.
Stay in Touch With Potential Drivers
The hiring process can be lengthy, especially if a driver is applying to multiple companies. You must stay in touch with drivers that are in your hiring process.
Every day, Monday through Friday, you need to contact all of your potential drivers.
When you contact drivers you should be checking in to see if you can help them in any way. The key is to stay on the driver’s mind.
Remembering to contact drivers every day can be challenging. Using a quality ATS will help you stay organized and make it easy to contact each driver.
Remain Transparent Through the Hiring Process
You need to be transparent with the truck driver through the entire hiring process. Do not over-promise the good aspects of your company and hide the bad aspects.
Be upfront with the drivers about possible areas of miscommunication and elements of the job the driver may not enjoy.
It may feel counterintuitive to share negative information with the driver, however, it actually builds trust between you and the driver. The transparency establishes that you are an honest person.
This does not mean that you should focus on the negatives. Share the things about the job that the driver may not like, but then show that the positives outweigh the negatives.
Truck drivers will be more likely to believe you on how great the position is if you are honest about some of the downsides.
Truck driver recruiters are essential to every trucking company in the country. Also, the better you are at driver recruiting the more money you will make. Follow this guide and you will know how to be a great truck driver recruiter.