Prior to launching a new campaign do you layout the terms of success? Or do you gauge success solely on number of drivers hired? If it is the latter then you may want to change your strategy. In order to improve the overall recruiting efforts of your company, it is crucial that each recruitment campaign has its own terms of success. Here is a guide to help you strategize for successful driver recruitment.
Your Company’s Values are the Base of all Decisions
Before you do anything, you need to know what your company’s values are. Does your company pride itself on hiring the best talent and a high retention rate? If so your recruitment efforts should prioritize quality over quantity. Or maybe your company is determined to be the most tech-savvy trucking company.
In this scenario your campaigns should revolve around utilizing new tech, such as geofencing, to hire drivers. Every company has its own unique set of values. It is up to the recruiter to use these values to guide each strategic decision they make.
Set Recruiting Goals That Align With Company Values
Once you have defined your values, you need to use them to set SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, Time-based) goals for your campaign. Vague goals such as “hire as many drivers as possible” or “increase the number of hires found on Facebook” are not effective.
If you are working for a company that values family than an example of a SMART goal for your campaign may be, “Hire five married team drivers from employee referrals by the end of the month”. Combining your company’s values with the SMART technique you are able to write goals that motivates your staff and gives your efforts a stronger sense of purpose.
Also, by using clearly defined goals it is much easier to tell if you achieved your goal or not. “Hire as many drivers as possible” is an impossible target to hit; however, “hire five married team drivers from employee referrals by the end of the month” gives you a number to hit, using a certain technique, within a time frame.
Analyze Data Directly Related to Your Recruitment Efforts
As a general rule of thumb the more data you can collect the better. However, if you are focusing on the wrong numbers then your insights will be mislead.
Uncle Ben’s advice from Spiderman, “With great power comes great responsibility,” holds true with data. With great amount of data, comes a greater emphasis to focus on the right data.
For example, a company that sets out to hire more female drivers from Facebook will be mislead if they looked at the data on total number of driver applicants from Facebook. The company may falsely claim their campaign was a success because the total number of Facebook applicants went up but female applicants did not increase.
DiscoverORG did a study in 2015 and found that the average marketing/sales department lost 550 hours and $32,000 per sales rep from using bad data. When question the data set you are looking at it is helpful to ask yourself, “Does this data directly relate to the company values?” and, “Does this data directly show I am short or exceeding my goal?”
If the answer to either of those questions is “no” or you are unsure, it is best to not use the data and focus on the data you can confidently answer “yes” to both of the questions.
Focus on Achieving Your Recruitment Goals
The goal you defined prior to launching your campaign should be your only barometer for success. It is easy to focus too much on following the “process” to achieve our goals. In Jeff Bezo’s 2016 Letter to Shareholders he said,
“The process becomes the proxy for the result you want. You stop looking at outcomes and just make sure you’re doing the process right. Gulp.”
You may have a goal of hiring 10 drivers via referral for the month. If you come up short, instead of claiming you had a good process and will do better next month, take the opportunity to assess your process and find areas to improve.
Learn From Mistakes and Apply That to Future Recruiting
Every recruitment campaign you launch is a learning opportunity. As the recruiter it is up to you to document the entire process and learn lessons based on what happens. You must use the lessons you learned from previous campaigns to avoid repeating mistakes and improve overall effectiveness of future campaigns.
Having a plan for achieving success is equally as important as having an effective recruitment plan. Defining you values, setting clear goals, avoiding bad data, focusing on outcomes, and learning from previous campaigns are all steps for achieving success. Even the most well thought out recruitment campaigns need to strategize for successful driver recruitment.