The Ultimate Guide to Attract Quality Truck Drivers Online

Quality truck drivers are at the highest demand they have ever been. There are simply not enough of them around. The good news is that 100% of all quality drivers can be reached online, the bad news is that more carriers than ever are competing to attract quality truck drivers.

Here is the ultimate guide to attracting QUALITY truck drivers online:

  1. Building a Strong Facebook Presence 
  2. Driver Testimonials and Creating Content for Drivers
  3. Job Board Management
  4. Champion Cunning Edge Technologies 
  5. Search Engine Optimization
  6. Geotargeting for Driver Recruitment

Quality truck driver wearing a protective mask while driving his truck.

Build a Strong Facebook Presence

96% of all adults are Facebook users. Using this statistic, it is fair to say that 96% of all quality truck drivers are Facebook users as well.

If you have not started building a presence on the social media platform you need to. Last year during 2020, the platform saw increased engagement because everyone was locked down and had nothing to do.

The first step to building a strong Facebook presence is to create your company page. As you are building your company page make sure to include all of the information required to contact you and plenty of quality images.

Once your page is built, use that page to join as many relevant groups as possible.

Take time each day to interact with all of the groups that you have joined. Do not treat the groups as a place where you only post your job ads.

You should be posting the driver content (more on that in a moment) that your company is creating, answer any questions posed by drivers, and any interesting articles.

Think of the groups as a place for you to show off your company’s personality.

In addition to building a professional company page and interacting within groups, you need to be running a continuous Facebook advertising campaign.

It may leave a sour taste in your mouth having to pay for these ads every month, however, it is necessary. Facebook makes its money from ad-revenue, so they have built their algorithms in a way that caps your audience reach on free posts.

Your Facebook ads should promote everything from available job listings, newly created content, and any company milestones.

Advertising on Facebook is a complicated task, but if it is done correctly, you can reach any quality truck driver you want at a cost-effective rate.

magnifying glass looking at Facebook for business page.

Driver Testimonials and Creating Content for Drivers

If you speak with any quality truck driver and ask them about their experiences with recruiters, they are bound to have at least one horror story. Because the industry moves so fast and information changes rapidly, drivers feel like they are always being lied to by recruiters.

Truck drivers trust other truck drivers more than anyone else in the industry.

You need to create content that tells the story of what it is like to work for your company from the perspective of your truck drivers.

Video testimonials from your longest-tenured truck drivers are the most effective content at convincing quality drivers to apply for your company. Quality truck drivers that are researching your company want to hear from your current truck drivers.

In addition to testimonials, you should be creating “day-in-the-life-of” videos. These videos tell the story of an average day for your truck drivers.

Finally, create content that covers any driver celebrations your company throws. Quality truck drivers want to see that they will be properly appreciated if they decide to work for your company.

Job Board Management

Many carriers are hesitant to advertise their jobs on job boards because they have been burned in the past. It makes sense to be hesitant. Advertising on job boards has become more and more expensive and there is no guarantee which job board will perform the best.

However,

Job boards remain one of the best places to attract quality truck drivers.

The entirety of people you reach on job boards is active job seekers. This is opposed to reaching a mix of passive and active seekers advertising on other platforms.

The time it takes to hire an active job seeker is much shorter than the time it takes to hire a passive job seeker. This shorter time to hire means your trucks are on the road longer, earning you more money.

The most common mistake that carriers make when using job boards is spending all of their ad-spend on one board. They will place all of their eggs in one basket.

You need to have your job opening on as many job boards as possible at the start of the month. Then as the month goes on closely monitor to see which board is getting your ad the most views. Finally, allocate the majority of your ad-spend to the top-performing board for the end of the month.

Reset your ad spend at the start of the next month. The top-performing job board will change from month-to-month.

Words We Are Looking For You On Yellow Background. Job Board.

Champion Your Cunning Edge Technology

Does your company use cunning edge technology to make your company as efficient as possible? If so you need to show it off!

Quality truck drivers want to work for a company that uses new technology to make the drivers’ lives easier. They also want to work for a company that frequently gets new trucks.

An example of innovative technology making drivers’ lives easier is logistics software shortening driver routes and increasing their home time.

Driveteks has a client in Salt Lake City that runs loads to Denver every day. Instead of having their drivers make the 8-hour trip there and 8 hours back, they used their logistics software to team up with a company from Denver that runs loads to Salt Lake.

The drivers for the Salt Lake company and the Denver company meet at the halfway point, switch loads, and return home for the night. Each load gets where it needs to go, the drivers drive the same amount of miles, and everyone sleeps in their own bed.

If your company is using technology like in the example above, leasing new trucks, and/or any other new technology you need to make sure driver applicants are aware.

Quality truck drivers want to work for companies that will make their lives easier.

Search Engine Optimization

You can not expect to attract quality truck drivers to apply to work for your company if the drivers can not find you online.

Search engine optimization is the process of making your company findable on the internet. When done properly, you will rank for the search terms that drivers are looking up.

There are three corners to the SEO Triangle: content, technical, and links.

Your company website must be technically sound, have engaging content, and link to relevant sources and have backlinks to your site.

SEM Rush, Screaming Frog, Ahrefs, and Ubersuggest are all excellent tools for you to use to monitor your site’s SEO presence.

Check out the beginner’s guide to SEO if you are unfamiliar with search engine optimization.

Geotargeting for Truck Driver Recruitment

Today’s technology enables recruiters to specifically target niche demographics of potential drivers.

Geotargeting is a location-based advertising strategy. You choose a specific target location and pay to send your ads to the people within that geographical location.

Carefully placing your targets where quality drivers frequent guarantees your ads will be seen.

You should be placing your geotargets at truck stops along your routes, local CDL schools, hiring events, and even competitor truck lots.

Pushpin on map that symbolizes geofencing for truck driver recruitment

Truck driver recruiting is taking place online more than ever before. Companies are realizing that they can directly advertise to the drivers they want at a cost-effective rate. Follow this guide and your company will know how to attract quality truck drivers online.

What are your strategies for attracting quality drivers online? Comment below!

Guide to Best Places to Recruit Truck Drivers in 2020

In March of 2020, the way that carriers recruited CDL drivers was completely upended. No longer can you rely on in-person recruiting strategies. If you are unfamiliar with digital truck driver recruiting it can be daunting to begin; however, it is now necessary. Here is the guide to the best places to recruit truck drivers in 2020.

  1. Search Engine Optimization
  2. Social Media
  3. Paid Media
  4. Geofencing
  5. Job Boards/Aggregator Sites

The internet is the best place to recruit truck drivers in 2020

Search Engine Optimization To Rank High

The absolute best place to recruit truck drivers is in the exact moment they search for a job. If your company’s website is properly optimized, your recruitment landing page will rank for high volume keyphrases.

An example of a high volume keyphrase is, “best trucking companies to work for.” That keyphrase is searched on Google 1,900 times each month according to Ubersuggest.

Optimizing your site to rank for high volume keyphrases will drive visitors to your company’s website that have the intention of applying to work for you.

SEO strategy to recruit truck drivers

Social Media Marketing for Trucking Companies

Truck drivers love social media. They are particularly fond of Facebook, and specifically Facebook’s group feature.

As the recruiter, you need to be super active within these trucking Facebook groups. Post your job openings, but also take the time to interact with the drivers. Answer their questions, comment on their posts, post trucking memes, etc. Doing this will establish yourself as someone that is more than a truck driver recruiter in the group.

In addition to being active within the group, you must be advertising on social media. Paying to promote your company on social media will keep you on the mind of drivers in your target demographic.

As the drivers in your target demographic begin to think about switching companies, they will think about switching to YOUR company.

Paid Media Keeps You on Drivers’ Minds

Digital driver recruitment is a complicated process that requires multiple moving parts. It is common for CDL driver recruiters to grow frustrated with paid advertising.

The reason recruiters get frustrated with paid media is because paid media does not generate large numbers of applications… directly.

Pay-per-click advertising is crucial to truck driver recruiting in 2020. While it is not directly generating applications, paid media keeps your company on the mind of truck drivers.

Paid media tools like remarketing keep your company in front of the eyes of drivers in your target demographic. When these drivers begin to research new companies to work for, they will immediately research your company.

Paid media that keeps your company on the mind of drivers

Geofencing For Effective Recruitment

Utilizing geofencing for truck driver recruitment is one of the most cost efficient recruitment strategies out there. There are very few driver recruitment strategies that guarantee your ad-spend is not wasted on uninterested eyes.

The most important thing that geofencing does is allow you to avoid wasting ad dollars on people outside the trucking industry or drivers outside your hiring radius.

Place geofences around events and locations you know for truckers will be at and your company will be exposed to all the drivers there.

For example, companies often place geofences around CDL training schools, driver recruitment events, rival company lots, and truck stops.

Job Boards/Aggregator Sites 

Job boards and aggregator sites are still one of the best places to recruit truck drivers. Drivers are going to these websites specifically to search for a new job.

You have to get your job position in front of drivers actively seeking a new position.

However, job boards and aggregator websites are more complicated than they appear. First time digital recruiters often make the mistake of blindly purchasing ad space on these sites and not thinking twice about it.

When you use these websites you have to be constantly monitoring which sites are performing the best. After analyzing the data, allocate your recruiting spend to the sites performing the best and take away money from the poor performing site. How sites perform varies from month to month so it is important to constantly monitor them.

Job board dart board

The internet is clearly the best place to recruit truck drivers in 2020. In person recruiting tactics are now severely limited and truck drivers are online now more than ever. For recruiters that are just starting digital driver recruitment, it is important to remember that each recruitment channel coincides with the others. No channel is going to be effective without the help from other channels.

Guide to Content Creation for Driver Recruitment

Content is king. It is how trucking companies educate and build relationships with potential drivers. Today, 85% of job searches begin at a search engine, drivers research companies before making a decision. The right content will guide a driver from awareness, to consideration, to application. Here is the guide to content creation for driver recruitment.

Content That Generates Awareness

Content that generates awareness for your company is crucial because it creates the first impression with drivers. 

“Two things remain irretrievable: time and a first impression.” – Cynthia Ozick

The content you create to generate awareness needs to focus more on painting your company in a positive light and less on the fine details of the position. Hook the drivers with engaging content. 

The three main areas you are going to want to focus on to generate awareness are social media, paid media, and company brand. 

Social Media 

Social media is the best place to show off your company. You control everything that is posted so you control how positive the company comes off as. 

On your company’s pages, post a lot of visual content. People do not want to read long paragraphs when they are scrolling through Facebook. 

Post photos of drivers happy to be on the job, digestible graphics that depict company growth, and short videos. The videos must have subtitles and cover things like driver testimonials, company wide celebrations, and what it is like to work for your company. 

Paid Media 

Paid media is a great way to generate awareness because you can pay to be in front of the eyes of your exact target demographic. 

However, drivers will know that what they are seeing is a paid advertisement and will move on from it quickly. 

Create eye catching images, and catchy slogans in big font for your paid media. Every millisecond you can get drivers to look at your advertisement is a win. 

Company Brand

Drivers often first hear of your company via word of mouth. Your company brand will dictate whether that word of mouth message is positive or negative. 

To build a strong brand image, create content that shows off all the positive things your company does. Show how you take care of drivers, interact in the community, and any other goodwill the company does. 

You will want to post this content on your website and social media. It is just as much for your current drivers as it is for prospective drivers. Current drivers that love the company they work for will tell their friends about your company.

Now the Driver is Hooked and in Consideration

After becoming aware of your company, if a driver likes your content they will then consider working for your company. 

In the consideration phase, drivers need more in depth information on the position and company. They are looking for things like employee-generated content, company mission, and company updates. 

Employee-Generated Content

First hand accounts from your drivers are authentic and resonate with candidates. 

Following a driver around with a camera to create a “day in the life of” video is an example of employee-generated content. 

Another example is interviewing your highest performing drivers and asking them what they enjoy about working for your company. 

The goal of employee-generated content is to create authentic material to sell candidates on your company. Potential drivers will get tired of hearing from the recruiter why the company is so great, but will enjoy hearing from another driver. 

Company Mission

If you want to see how powerful a company mission is, watch Simon Sinek’s Ted Talk “Start With Why”.

Drivers that have core values that align with your company’s will be far more likely to apply and then stay with you long term. 

People are not motivated to act by what you do but why you do it.

Company Updates

Drivers will look to receive company updates if they are interested in working for you. They will sign up for your weekly newsletter or frequently check your company’s blog. 

If you do not have some form of frequent company updates, it is time to start one. 

Quality drivers want to work for a quality company. Weekly updates will show interested drivers the awesome things you do each and every week. 

Colorful blocks spell out the word "content" with blurry blocks in background

Getting That Application

Once drivers begin making moves to submit an application, they need more technical content. At this point they have already decided that they want to be a part of your company and now they need to know how to apply.

Drivers will need in-depth job descriptions, personalized landing pages, and an easy to follow online application.

Job Descriptions

Drivers more than likely skimmed through the job description during the consideration phase. Now that they are ready to apply, they will give it a longer look over. 

For drivers, pay is one of the most important elements of a position. They also care about things like home time, and any other benefits. 

Describe all of these things clearly, and do not oversell the position. Be honest and sure you can deliver on all promises made in the description.

Personalized Landing Pages

You need to make a personalized landing page for drivers that are applying for your company. Think of this as a chance for you to roll out the virtual red carpet for new drivers. 

On the landing page add photos of employees welcoming the new applicant and a video of upper management saying they are thrilled the driver is applying. 

Also, include writing that highlights the next steps and a call to action. The call to action needs to call for the driver to officially submit the application.

Easy to Follow Application

The final moment. Your content successfully generated awareness, got the driver to consider working for you, and has welcomed the driver that clicked on the new applicant landing page. 

Do not lose them because your application is too confusing/time consuming. 

Write clear and concise instructions. Use tools that make uploading documents easier and require as little writing as possible. 

Content is king when it comes to digital driver recruitment. The proper content will generate awareness, consideration, and applications. Each step requires different kinds of content. Follow this guide to make the right kind of content and generate more applications.