It is Time to be Intentional With Your Driver Recruiting

Are you intentional with your truck driver recruiting? Or are you reactive?

Intentional driver recruiting campaigns seek out drivers and interact with them at every channel possible. Reactive recruiting waits for drivers to find the job posting and respond. If you are reactive recruiting it is time that you become intentional.

Intentional recruiting is going to get drivers interacting with you more often and increase the amount of applicants you receive. Here is why you need to be intentional:

  • Reach 100% of Professional Truck Drivers
  • Market Your Company to Passive Job Seekers
  • Build Your Employer Brand
  • Focus on a Specific Demographic or Advertise to Everyone

be intentional phrase combined on vintage varnished wooden surface

Reach 100% of Professional Truck Drivers

What is the biggest problem with job posting websites? It’s that only a small percentage of drivers are on each of the websites.

In order for you to be seen on job boards, you have to pay to be at the top. But you are paying to only be seen by a very small portion of the truck drivers.

Imagine if there was a platform where you could pay to be seen by 96% of truck drivers.

That platform exists. It is called Facebook.

Not only are 96% of truck drivers on Facebook, but on average truck drivers spend 2 hours a day on the platform.

Taking an intentional approach to Facebook alone will enable you to speak directly to 96% of drivers for 2 hours every day.

Advertising on Facebook is just one platform. If you are intentional at advertising across the entire internet you will be able to reach 100% of truck drivers.

Being intentional includes social media marketing, geofencing, retargeting, content creation, and much more.

Market Your Company to Passive Job Seekers

Passive job seekers are truckers who are currently employed and not pursuing a new position, however they are open to changing companies if a good opportunity comes along.

These job seekers are far more valuable than active job seekers. Active job seekers are going to be applying to multiple companies and speaking with many recruiters at one time. They know that they want to work for a new company and are playing the field.

Passive job seekers will only apply to work for your company.

Because passive seekers were not looking for a new job, the psychology behind the application completely changes. The driver goes from thinking “I need to find the best offer I can” to “I like, what this company has to say, it would be great to work for them.”

If you are focusing all of your efforts on job boards, then you are focusing entirely on active job seekers. This means that you are missing out entirely on the passive market.

Be intentional and get passive drivers to want to work for you.

Passive and Active. Text from letters of the wooden alphabet

Build Your Employer Brand

Another great thing about intentional driver recruiting is that your employer brand will grow when you are intentional.

Simply put, an employer brand is your reputation as a place to work.

How do drivers outside your company view what it is like to work for you?

If you are taking a reactive recruiting approach then your employer brand is reliant on word-of-mouth. However, taking an intentional approach means you are taking an active role in shaping how drivers view you.

The content you create and send out to truck drivers is going to mold how they view your company. This lets you control the narrative around your company instead of hoping your current drivers say positive things about their experience.

Recruit a Specific Niche or Advertise to the Masses

Is your company looking to hire from a very small niche? Or are all of your trucks full and you just want to run ads to keep your company on the mind of drivers for the future?

Intentional driver recruiting allows you to easily switch between the two. You can even target specific niches and advertise to the masses at the same time when you are intentional.

During a reactive recruitment campaign you can put the position requirements in the job description and only call qualified candidates. But, this strategy is not nearly as effective as using digital tools to advertise directly to drivers who meet your needs.

There is no way to generate widespread interest in your company with a reactive campaign. Sure, many drivers may see your job posting on a board somewhere, but that post is surrounded by other job openings.

Even if you do not have any current vacancies, generating widespread interest in your company is a good idea. Doing this will help you fill your trucks faster, earning higher profits for your company.

Driver recruiting needs to focus on both niche and mass audiences. Mass or niche market symbol. Businessman flips wooden cubes and changes words 'mass market' to 'niche market'. Beautiful white background, copy space. Business and mass or niche market concept.

Intentional driver recruiting tactics like social media marketing, geofencing, retargeting, and content creation all take time and money. It may seem like a reactive approach is the smart move. However, intentional campaigns far outperform reactive campaigns and help your company earn higher profits.

Interested in learning how your company can become intentional? Call us at (801)419-0164 or you can fill out the form on our homepage.

How to be a Great Truck Driver Recruiter

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.

  1. Master Your Process 
  2. Understand Social Media Marketing for Trucking Companies 
  3. Learn the Art of Persuasion 
  4. Stay Organized and Be Prepared 
  5. Stay in Touch With Potential Drivers
  6. Remain Transparent Through the Hiring Process

Truck driver recruiter grabs red wooden figure to symbolize making a new hire.

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

The red figure of a person influences a crowd of people. Expressing your own opinion, turning to your side. Mastery of persuasion, propaganda, influence on the masses. Warming up the mood of the crowd

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.

Wooden man shows with hand text Stay In Touch concept on wooden block

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.

5 Tips For Driver Recruiters to be More Persuasive

At its core, truck driver recruiting is a sales position. You are selling your company to potential drivers. To effectively sell, you need to be persuasive. Here are the 5 tips for driver recruiters to be more persuasive:

  1. Cater the Value Proposition to the Specific Driver
  2. Start With Small “Yes’s” And Work Your Way Up
  3. Mirroring the Driver’s Body Language
  4. Make the Process as Easy as Possible
  5. Share the Positives and Negatives of the Position

Man writing Persuasive Techniques in a note.

Cater the Value Proposition to the Specific Driver

Your trucking company may offer drivers routes that have them home nightly, competitive pay, and a rent-to-own partnership for drivers.

Each of these offerings is going to attract different people.

A younger driver, one without a family who hasn’t rooted down yet, may e more attracted by your company’s pay. This younger driver is not as concerned with being home nightly

On the other hand, an older driver that has young kids and is married is more than likely going to value the home time over everything else.

A truck driver with aspirations of becoming an owner-operator will want to take advantage of your rent-to-own procedure.

As the driver recruiter, you need to determine what the motivation is of the driver you are recruiting early in communication. Then cater your value proposition to that driver’s preferences.

Catering - words from wooden blocks with letters, making or serving food catering concept, top view gray background

Start With Small “Yes’s” And Work Your Way Up

Asking a truck driver to uproot their lives and start a new career with your company is a big ask. It can be daunting for the driver to say yes to such a proposition.

Instead of starting the conversation with the ‘big ask’, start by asking from small yes’s.

An example of a ‘small yes’ is, “Will you watch this video we made of our company culture?” That question is an easy task for the driver to complete and will get them to say yes.

Studies have proven that building up agreement has a lasting effect. Getting truck drivers to start saying yes in your conversation will increase your likelihood of hiring them.

Mirroring the Driver’s Body Language

The scientific term for mirroring is “limbic synchrony” and it is wired into our brain thanks to mirror neurons.

Using this technique makes the driver subconsciously feel like you are their friend because you are acting just like them.

Mirroring is the act of copying the body language of the person you are conversing with. This technique is highly effective at building trust with a person you are meeting for the first time.

If you are interviewing a potential truck driver, start by observing how they position themselves. Then slowly begin to position yourself with the same body language.

Also, mimic the truck driver’s gestures, tone of voice, and talking pace. Make sure to avoid mirroring any accents, as this can be seen as disrespectful.

Stanford-Northwestern-INSEAD study found that people who used mirroring in a negotiation closed more deals and got better results for all parties involved.

Make the Hiring Process as Easy as Possible

Truck driver recruiters are going to be able to hire more drivers if the hiring process is quick and painless. Truck drivers are more likely to say yes to work for your company if it does not require a huge amount of effort.

This is common sense. When someone asks you to do them a favor, are you not more likely to say yes if it does not take up any of your time?

If the driver you are trying to hire has to jump through hoops, struggles to get a hold of anyone in the company, and has to submit multiple forms by hand then they are going to be less likely to work for your company.

Use online tools to help automate this process. If a driver only has to fill out their information one time that will make the process much easier. Also, make sure to remain in consistent contact with the driver throughout the hiring process.

Illustration of lightbulbs act as metaphor to show that easy gets results

Share the Positives and Negatives of the Position

Truck drivers will call baloney if you try to tell them that working for your company is all sunshine and rainbows.

And they are right to do so.

There is no such thing as a position that is all good. Your position will inevitably have some downsides.

Share the downsides with the truck driver.

Being upfront about the negatives may feel contradictory. However, it actually helps you build trust with the driver. Trust is a key piece to successfully hiring drivers.

The trick to this strategy is to always end on a positive note. Ending on a positive note tells the driver that the positives of the position outweigh the negative.

The best truck driver recruiters are master persuaders. Follow these 5 tips to become more persuasive and start hiring more drivers.

Have your own persuasive technique? Comment below!

How to be a Successful Driver Recruiter

At Driveteks, we have been working hand and hand with recruiters nationwide for 5 years now. This has given us an insight into what separates the bad from the good, and the good from the great. Follow this guide to learn how to be a successful driver recruiter.

5 Tips to be a Successful Driver Recruiter 

Successful driver recruiter hires a new driver

1) Get on the Phone ASAP

The most important step in successful recruitment relies on technology that has existed since 1876, phoning. There is a direct correlation between the rate at which recruiters are able to contact driver applicants via phone and recruitment success.

A study on phoning found two major conclusions: The odds of contacting a lead are 100 times higher if called in 5 minutes versus 30 minutes. The odds of qualifying a lead are 21 times higher if called in 5 minutes versus 30 minutes.

Drivers are applying to multiple companies at a time. This means that as soon as that driver hits “submit” on your application, you are in a race with everyone else.

Recruiters that develop a routine of calling driver applicants as soon as they apply will experience more success than the recruiter that is slow to call.

2) Stay in Contact

Once a successful recruiter makes contact with a driver applicant, they maintain that contact with the driver.

Recruiters that struggle with getting drivers through orientation often have a contact issue. Drivers are less likely to back out on a job offer, even if presented with a better option, if they have a relationship with the recruiter.

Whether you are contacting the driver applicant to inform them of a position update or checking in to see how the hiring process is going, there is always a reason to be in touch with applicants.

3) Interview for Culture, not Qualifications

Interviewing truck drivers needs to be less about the driver’s qualifications and more about the driver as a person. Successful recruiters learn everything they need to know about the driver’s qualifications from their application/resume.

In the interview, the successful recruiter focuses on if the applicant is a strong team fit. Focusing on the driver as a person, and hiring strong culture fits, will lead to a stronger retention rate.

Ask questions like these to get to know the applicant as a person:

  • What type of culture do you thrive in? (Does the response reflect your organizational culture?)
  • What’s your ideal workplace?
  • Why do you want to work here?
  • Tell me about a time when you worked with/for an organization where you felt you were not a strong culture fit. Why was it a bad fit?

A team with strong culture fits

4) Build and Maintain Strong Relationships 

Recruiters that are successful are aware that their job is more than simply hiring truck drivers. Recruiters are key contributors to their company’s retention rate.

By building and maintaining a strong relationship with drivers you hire, you are encouraging the drivers you hire to continue working for your company. Drivers are more likely to stay with a company where they feel like they are a part of a community.

In addition to improving retention, maintaining relationships will help you hire more drivers. Drivers that left your company for “greener pastures” often realize the grass is not always greener. When this happens, the driver will often return to work for your company if they have a strong relationship with the recruiter.

Also, drivers that like you, the recruiter, will refer their friends to you. The truck driving community is tight-knit, drivers often tell their friends about how great it is to work for their company.

5) Influence your company to build its Employer Brand

Quality drivers are well aware of the best and worst employers. Your company’s employer brand is the way that drivers perceive what it is like to work for you.

Even skilled truck driver recruiters will struggle to recruit drivers for a company that has a weak employer brand. Drivers will not want to work for you if they hear from their friends that your company does not value their drivers.

As the recruiter, you may not be able to build an employer brand by yourself. However, you do have a strong say within the company. You need to be advocating for your company to boost their employer brand.

The quickest way to improve employer brand is by offering higher driver pay and by responding to feedback from current/former drivers.

Where Successful Recruiters Find Truck Drivers

None of the tips above are helpful if you do not know where to find drivers. Finding drivers to recruit is the core of what you do as a recruiter.

In the past, one of the best places to find potential drivers was in-person recruitment events. However, those are no longer a possibility.

The best places to find drivers to hire are through digital marketing channels, social media, and employee referral programs.

Successful driver recruiter searching for drivers

A career as a truck driver recruiter is not an easy career. However, becoming a successful recruiter is fulfilling and rewarding. Follow these tips and you can learn how to become a successful driver recruiter.