The Most Important Factor of CDL Recruiting

“If your pipeline is dryer than the Sahara at one point will you look inward at yourself?”

There is an infinite number of influencing factors that go into CDL recruiting. Factors like the weather or traffic can have a big impact on a driver’s mood and determine whether or not that driver applies to work for you.

However,

There is one factor that is by far the most important to any driver recruiting campaign.

The offer.

It does not matter if you have planned out the perfect driver recruiting campaign. A bad job offer will tarnish that campaign’s results. On the other hand, a great job offer can save a poorly planned recruitment campaign.

What is a Good Job Offer for Truck Drivers? 

A large portion of the industry thinks that the quality of a job offer comes down entirely to the pay of the position.

This is not entirely true.

Like in any profession, different drivers look for different qualities in a position. Drivers who have families may be willing to sacrifice a little pay if that means more home time. Younger drivers who are just starting may want to be on the road as much as possible.

Before launching your CDL recruiting campaign, it is important to have an idea of the type of driver you want to apply for your position. Knowing your ideal ‘Driver Persona’ will help you cater your offer to that driver.

In addition to catering your job offer to your determined ‘Driver Persona’, there are also many unique ways to bolster your job offer. Many of these unique strategies don’t cost you any extra money.

One example of a unique way to improve your offer is making it clear in the job description that driving with pets is encouraged. Not every driver wants or needs this in an offer; however, the drivers who are attached to their pet will be far more inclined to apply for your position.

Motivational words: JOB OFFER. piece of paper with the text: JOB OFFER. Business and finance concept

How to Assess Your CDL Job Offer 

A great job offer provides drivers with benefits that they value the most. These benefits will help you hire quality drivers and retain them.

Then when one of your drivers comes across a better offer, they will go to that company.

It is because of this, that you need to be constantly assessing your job offer and updating it. But how do you know if you have a competitive offer?

This is a fairly easy process. Because so many recruiters post their positions in trucking groups on Facebook, you can find hundreds of job ads from competitors in minutes.

Review these job ads and compare what they are offering to your offer.

Be honest and ask yourself which position provides the better benefits. If you find yourself routinely choosing the ads online then your job offer is a bad one. On the other hand, if you are offering more than the posts you found on Facebook, your offer is quality.

Finally, if no one is applying for your position that is a clear indicator that you are not offering enough.

assessment sticker. assessment square sign. assessment. peeler

CDL recruiting is the culmination of many variables. Carriers will often do everything “right” in their recruitment campaign and not see any results. This is because they neglect to address the most important variable, their job offer.

The first step to any successful truck driver recruiting campaign is to make sure you are offering drivers something better than their current situation. Combining a great offer along with comprehensive digital advertising is the best way to generate the number of applications your company needs to keep your trucks on the road.

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!

How to Retain Truck Drivers through the Holidays

The holiday season can be a frustrating time for truck driver recruiters. Many of the drivers you hired throughout the year will leave your company to spend this time with their family. If you take the right steps you can retain your truck drivers. Follow this guide and retain your truck drivers this holiday season.

Santa Claus driving a truck. Truck driver wearing Santa Claus and smiling happy on Christmas Day. Workers in transportation and delivery business are working in celebration holidays. Merry Christmas

Offer a Significant Holiday Bonus 

Money talks, it is the oldest trick in the retention book.

It is common for truck drivers to quit their jobs right before the holiday season starts and find new work in January. The promise of a hefty holiday bonus towards the end of the holiday season would help keep drivers from leaving your company.

The holiday bonus is a motivation for drivers to stay with your company and it makes them feel valued by your company.

You must make sure the bonus you are offering is worthwhile. Drivers are more than likely not going to stick around for a $50 Amazon card. Make the bonus big enough that your truck drivers think it is worth it to keep working instead of taking time off.

Throw a Big Company Holiday Party 

A company holiday party is a fun strategy that you can use to retain truck drivers through the holiday season. Who doesn’t love to party?!

Celebrating the end of another year with a large celebration is an incentive for drivers to stay around. However, you need to make the party a great time, it cannot be a mediocre party.

You can throw an excellent party by allowing employees to bring their families, having the event catered, and specifically having a special moment for the children. If the kids of your drivers are looking towards your holiday party every year then the kids will convince your drivers to stay with your company.

Every year at your company party, make sure to designate some time to specifically celebrate the truck drivers in front of the entire company. You have no company without your drivers and the whole company should celebrate them.

Company throws holiday party to retain truck drivers

Provide Paid Time Off for Longest Tenured Drivers

Clearly, you do not need to worry about your longest-tenured truck drivers job-hopping. If they have stuck with your company for multiple years, it is safe to assume they have no plans for job-hopping.

Not only do these truck drivers deserve to be rewarded for their loyalty, but they are also an example for recently hired drivers. This policy will establish a company culture that says it rewards loyalty.

Giving tenured drivers paid time off is a walking example of what can happen for the new drivers if they stick with the company. The new truck drivers will be determined to stay with your company so they earn paid time off.

Extend an Abundance of Gratitude and Appreciation

At the end of the day, truck driver retention boils down to gratitude and appreciation. Truck drivers are like everyone else and want to work for a company that values them.

If you work for a carrier that is unable to afford bonuses, holiday parties, and paid time off you can still retain your drivers. Gratitude and appreciation are free to give away.

Take time out of every day this holiday season to express how much you value your drivers. Also, encourage all of your non-driving employees to do the same.

The Holiday season is a tricky season to navigate for trucking companies. An increased number of drivers begin to job hop this time of year. This adds extra stress to the truck driver recruiter. Avoid this stress by following these tips and retaining your truck drivers through the holiday season.

How Aging Truck Drivers Impact the Industry

New technology is allowing drivers to go longer without retiring by making the job less physically demanding. This means the average retirement age is increasing. Despite drivers staying on the road longer, driver retirement is the largest contributor to the truck driver shortage.

Aging truck driver crossing the road to retirement.

The Average Retirement Age for Truck Drivers

The truck driver population in America is steadily increasing year after year. Currently, the average retirement age for truck drivers is 62 years old. However, according to the OOIDA, most independent drivers plan on retiring at 67 years of age.

While the average retirement age for drivers is a good estimate, it does not accurately reflect how individual drivers feel about retirement.

There are two trains of thought amongst drivers. Some have the mentality that they will drive until they can no longer physically pull themselves into the cab. Others want to retire as soon as possible.

How Old is the Average Truck Driver

According to surveys conducted by the American Trucking Associations, the average driver age in the for-hire over-the-road truckload industry is 46. Other trucking sectors have an even higher average age.

Roughly 54% of truck drivers on the road today are 45 years or older. The trucking demographic is one of the oldest in the country and only getting older.

Within this decade over one-half of all current truck drivers will be older than the average retirement age.

An average truck driver

How Many Truck Drivers Retire Each Year

It is estimated that between 2019 and 2028 there will be 600,000 truck drivers retiring. That means 66,667 truck drivers will retire every year.

The industry needs to find nearly 70,000 new truck drivers every year to fill the void left by drivers retiring.

Aging Population is Fueling the Driver Shortage

Truck drivers retiring will be responsible for 54% of the driver shortage over the next decade.

The trucking industry needs to find a way to replace truck drivers retiring from the career.

What You Can Do to Attract Younger Truck Drivers

Obviously, the only way to combat drivers retiring from your company is to hire younger drivers to replace them. The number one place you can find young drivers is on social media.

Hiring a professional to manage your social media marketing is the best way to get your company in front of the eyes of younger drivers.

The industry is experiencing a lack of young people signing up to be truck drivers. You are going to need to recruit people to get their CDL and then join your company.

Aging truck drivers can stay on the road for longer because of improved truck technology. However, that is only kicking the can down the road. Truck drivers are going to retire sooner or later and that is fueling the driver shortage.

5 Steps to Use the Holiday Season to Win the New Year

Through the rest of the year until early January, freight demand will continually slow down and drivers will be with their families, not on the road. Truck drivers are intentionally not applying for jobs right now so they can have time off to celebrate the holidays.

Even though drivers are not looking for jobs right now does not mean you can slow down your recruiting effort. This time can be used to set yourself up for a big recruiting year next year.

Here are the 5 steps to use the holiday season to win the new year:

  1. Increase Facebook Advertising
  2. Focus More on Content Production
  3. Cutback on Geotargeting Recruitment
  4. Revise Your Trucking Recruiting Website
  5. Reflect on Previous Year to Improve for the Next

Truck driver recruiter successfully using the Holiday Season to win the new year

Increase Facebook Advertising

Drivers spending time at home, and not in a truck, means that they now have an excess of free time. A large portion of this free time will be filled by scrolling through Facebook.

The essence of digital driver recruiting is getting your company in front of the eyes of potential drivers. If drivers are spending more time on Facebook then you need to spend to get your company on Facebook more.

Drivers are making a list of potential employers and checking it twice.

Make sure your company is on that list by flooding driver feeds with your Facebook advertisements.

Focus More on Content Production

You are going to have more time on your hands during November and December because you will not be hiring as many drivers. Do not waste this time.

The extra time you have on your hands could be spent wisely working on content creation.

You should be filming driver testimonials, recording interviews with upper management, and writing about how great it is to work at your company.

Post this content on social media for drivers to see and they will be more likely to apply for your company once the new year starts. Drivers are not going to apply for companies that fail to sell them on their company culture.

Cutback on Geotargeting Recruitment 

The amount of freight being delivered during the holiday season is lower compared to the rest of the season.

Since there is less freight being delivered around the country, there will be fewer drivers on the road. The locations you are geotargeting are going to be less occupied.

Do not waste ad-spend to target locations where drivers are not going to be.

In an ideal world, you would take the money you cutback from your geotargeting budget and allocate it to your Facebook advertising budget.

Revise Your Truck Driver Recruiting Website

It is best practice to constantly revise your company website to optimize for truck driver recruiting.

You should delete outdated content from your website to make room for the new content you are creating. Also, conduct some keyword research and update your page titles and headers to boost your SEO rankings.

Finally, make sure your website is built to work well on mobile devices. More people than ever are accessing the web from a mobile device, especially drivers.

Reflect on Previous Year to Improve for the Next

Reflect on the previous year to utilize the Pareto Principle

The final thing you should do during this time is to conduct reflection sessions on what worked and did not work during the previous year.

Strategize with your colleagues about how you can all cut out the processes that were not producing results and focus on processes that do produce.

Remember the 80/20 rule. 80% of your results are produced by 20% percent of your actions. The holiday season is a great time to find the 20% of actions producing results.

Truck drivers are not applying for trucking jobs right now. The applications will pick back up in January so you need to be prepared. Follow these 5 steps to use the holiday season to win the new year.

The Basics of Social Media Marketing for Trucking Companies

Social media marketing has become more popular than television advertising for businesses. However, there are not many resources that teach transportation companies how to market their company on social media. Follow this guide to learn the basics of social media marketing for trucking companies.

Start With Facebook and Expand to Other Platforms 

Facebook is by far the most useful social media platform for trucking companies. The platform provides carriers with the ability to post multiple forms of content that share the company’s story.

Other platforms (Instagram, Twitter,etc.) all specialize in one area of content. Instagram is for visual content. Twitter is for short-form written content. If you start on a platform other than Facebook then you will limit the amount of content you can create.

Here is the real benefit to Facebook:

Facebook is a top-three cost-per-hire driver recruiting strategy.

By effectively marketing your company on Facebook, you will attract quality drivers to apply for your company. Considering that over 96% of professional drivers have a Facebook account, the pool of drivers using Facebook will never run dry.

Truck drivers that are interested in working for your company, no matter where they are exposed to your company, will search for your company on Facebook. They want to know what it is like to work for you before they apply.

Facebook is the most important platform when it comes to social media marketing for trucking companies. Starting on the platform will enable you to effectively tell your company’s story and recruit truck drivers.

Hand holding a smartphone with Facebook pulled up

Build Your Company Page

Now that you have decided to begin your social media marketing campaign on Facebook, you need to build your company page. This is the page that drivers will land on when they search for your company.

Visit this link to get started building your page:

https://www.facebook.com/pages/create

Facebook does an excellent job of walking you through each step of the process. It will be clear what information is needed for the page and what content you need to publish.

However, certain strategies will further optimize your page.

To have an optimized Facebook page you need to keep things as simple as possible. Instead of describing your company in length with words, use pictures.

Keep your company description succinct and make sure that you link to your company website.

Join the Right Groups With Your Page

After you finish creating your company page you can join Facebook groups with your page. You do not need to join the groups with your personal account.

Go to the search feature on Facebook, type in “ trucking”, and filter to only see groups. You will quickly realize there are thousands of trucking-related groups across the country.

Go through all of the groups and join the ones that make sense for your company to join.

When you join a new group make sure to read the group rules so you can avoid being kicked out of any of the groups you join.

Creating Content for Social Media

For a more in-depth content creation guide check out this article: https://driveteks.com/guide-to-content-creation-for-driver-recruitment/

Content creation is what will motivate drivers to learn more about your company and potentially apply to drive for you.

You need to create content that people can read, photos/infographics, and videos. Creating different forms of content allows drivers to engage with your company any way they wish.

Not all of the content you create should be sales content. You need to create content that your target market will find interesting. Your content will lure people to your page and/or website where they will then consume your sales content.

Three cartoon women creating content

Gathering Followers

The more followers you have the better. Your published content will reach more eyes for free as your following grows.

As you publish your content keep track of which people are interacting with it. These are the people that will be most likely to follow you. You should reach out to them and encourage them to follow your page.

Another great way to grow your following is by highlighting individuals that work for or with your company in an occasional post. The individuals you highlight will want to share the post about themselves and will expose you to all of their friends.

Finally, you should ask your current employees to follow your company.

Paid Advertising 

Doing everything above will help your company get started on social media; however, to experience success you need to implement paid advertising.

Each of the social media platforms makes large sums of money from ad-buying. Because of this, their algorithms are built so that companies have a limited reach with free posting. They have built a product that requires paying for a large amount of exposure.

Paid advertising on social media is a complicated process. If you do not do it properly, your company will waste their money on an inefficient campaign. Done the right way, a paid advertising campaign will boost your web presence which increases site traffic and drive applications.

It is recommended you hire a professional to handle the campaign due to the complications of paid advertising.

Web marketing managers with gadgets working on paid search and SEO strategies, closeup of hands. SMM spesialists planning brand promotion budget, raising company awareness in social media

Social media marketing is a necessary element of any business marketing strategy. Trucking companies need to take a different approach than other industries because of the nature of the industry. Follow this guide and you will cover all the basics of social media marketing for trucking companies.

The Best Truck Driver Recruiting Strategy

As a small to midsize carrier you more than likely have grown accustomed to the fact that large carriers have their pick of the litter. Small to midsize carriers are forced to fight over the remaining drivers. What if I told you it did not have to be that way? In order to compete with the large carriers you need to implement the best truck driver recruiting strategies:

Guerilla Driver Recruitment

What is Guerilla Driver Recruitment?

No, guerilla driver recruitment is not the act of training great apes to get their CDL A license.

Guerilla recruiting stems from the term ‘guerilla marketing’ coined by Jay Conrad Levinson in his 1984 book Guerilla Marketing. Guerilla marketing is a marketing strategy that relies on surprise/unconventional interactions with potential customers to promote a company.

Traditionally, guerilla marketing campaigns have a smaller budget and focus on a smaller set of people than widespread media campaigns.

Building off this, guerilla recruiting is the truck driver recruiting strategy that involves your company surprising potential drivers with unconventional interactions that leave a positive impression.

Guerilla driver recruiting requires a smaller budget than traditional widespread recruitment efforts common amongst large carriers.

Guerilla Recruiting

Why is it Such an Effective Driver Recruitment Strategy?

Executed properly, guerilla driver recruiting efforts will spread via word of mouth which reaches a broader audience for free. Ideally, the truck drivers you interact with will be so pleasantly surprised that when they see their driver friends the first thing they will say is,

“You are never going to guess what happened to me today…”

Drivers are naturally hesitant to truck company advertising; however, they are far more receptive when learning about a company for the first time from one of their peers. Word of mouth will encourage drivers to search for your company and interact with your driver recruiting website.

In addition to word of mouth, guerilla driver recruiting campaigns have the possibility to go viral. A viral campaign will boost your company brand and have drivers talking about your company all over social media. Social media, particularly Facebook, is one of the best places to recruit truck drivers.

How to Execute a Guerilla Driver Recruiting Campaign

Guerilla driver recruitment campaigns require an immense amount of insight and creativity. Before you can catch truck drivers off guard with a surprise interaction, you need to understand how recruiters typically reach truck drivers. Ask yourself:

Where are drivers expecting to see recruiting campaigns?

The answer to that question will tell exactly where to NOT promote your company. For example, drivers are expecting to see your job ad in trucking Facebook groups, so posting within groups cannot be a part of your guerilla recruiting strategy.

However, are drivers expecting you to direct message them with a $20 Amazon gift card? Probably not.

If you google ‘guerilla marketing’ or ‘guerilla recruiting’ you will come across extravagant examples from companies going over the top. You do not need to do this. Extravagance makes execution much more difficult.

K-I-S-S. Keep It Simple Stupid.

Hand drawing a business concept about the process from vision through strategy and execution to success.

In order to execute a guerilla driver recruiting campaign you need to figure out a simple way to reach drivers in an unexpected way. Examples can include sending gift cards, providing food at truck stops, and much more. The possibilities are limitless.

Large carriers have recruiting budgets that allow them to reach any driver they want whenever they want. In order to compete with them small to midsize carriers need to be creative and use their smaller budgets to pleasantly surprise drivers. Guerilla driver recruitment is the best truck driver recruiting strategy because it enables smaller companies to compete with the big ones.

Wave Express Offers the Ultimate Side Hustle

Do you own a pickup truck? Do you like to travel? Do you want to get paid to drive around the country in your pickup truck? Then Driveteks’ new client, Wave Express, offers you the ultimate side hustle to put some extra money into your pockets. Or, if you enjoy it enough, you can turn it into a full time job.

Wave Express is offering people the opportunity to sign up for the ultimate side hustle

Make Real Money

It is often questioned whether or not other side hustles pay you enough money for your time. Not with Wave. Driving for Wave Express gives you the opportunity to earn meaningful money.

Wave’s current pay rate offers up to $1.80/mile. That rate is significantly higher than a rideshare driver (Uber and Lyft) who makes around $1.00/mile. Considering Wave’s rate of $1.80/mile you can earn over $125,000 a year!

Even if you are only able to drive part time you can earn over $55,000 per year. The beautiful thing about driving for Wave is that you decide when you want to drive. There is no forced freight.

See The Country

Road trips are expensive. The average cost of a road trip across the country is about $2,500. However, when you are being PAID to take the road trip, road trips are not expensive.

If you want to experience more of North America, why not sign up for Wave and make money doing so? You have the option of seeing the country part time or you could even leave that desk job to see the country as a full time profession.

Having no forced dispatch means you get to decide how much of the country you want to see each week!

Road trip to see the country plotted out with pushpins on a map

 

No CDL Required to Transport RVs

The good news for people interested in driving for Wave that have zero professional driving experience is that they will not need to get a CDL A driver license. That means drivers do not need to spend the time and money necessary to earn a CDL license.

In order to become a driver for Wave you will need to pass a DOT physical and attend a Wave Express orientation. Orientation is a one day process and is held every day Monday through Friday. Also, orientation can be completed entirely online meaning you do not need to attend an in person orientation.

Consistent Freight

As a driver for Wave you will never have to worry about whether you can get a load or not. Wave’s Driver Mobile Assistant App has a ‘Load Board’ feature that is constantly updated with new shipments that need to be made.

If you are someone that only wants to make runs part time you will never have to worry about whether or not you will be able to get work from weekend to weekend. Drivers that are looking to make this a full time gig will not need to worry about running out of loads to run.

Consistent freight and 24/7 pickup means that you, the driver, have ultimate control over your schedule. You will not have to compromise in order to make money.

Driver Discounts

Driving for Wave provides you with discounts at fuel stops, hotels, auto part stores, and more! These discounts help you save money and earn even higher profits.

Plus, if you are someone looking to see more of the country these discounts are an excellent way for you to do so at a cheaper rate than if you did it on your own. Gas will be more affordable, hotels will be more affordable, and you will be able to keep your truck in pristine condition at an affordable rate.

Speedometer depicts the low prices that Wave provides drivers through discounts.

Wave Express is offering people the opportunity to sign up for the ultimate side hustle. For anyone that owns a ¾ ton pickup truck, or larger, and is looking to see the country there is no better option. Wave pays a rate that enables drivers to earn real money and their discounts make it so that money earned is not entirely spent on the costs of the side hustle.

The Average Cost to Recruit Truck Drivers

Every trucking company has to recruit truck drivers. Considering that the driver shortage is not going away any time soon you are going to need to keep recruiting drivers. So what is the average cost to recruit truck drivers and how do your recruitment costs compare?

Industry Average to Recruit Drivers

There has only been one study published that calculated the industry’s average cost to recruit truck drivers, and it was published in 2001. The study conducted by Upper Great Plains Transportation Institute found that carriers spend on average $8,234 to hire a driver.

In today’s money that is $12,084. On average, trucking companies are spending over ten thousand dollars for every truck driver that they hire.

However, that industry average more than likely is not going to be reflective of your cost to recruit drivers. That is because the spread from the study ranged from $2,243 to $20,729.

Instead of worrying about the average across the industry, you should focus on calculating your specific costs.

truck driver recruiter in the middle of an interview with a potential driver

Calculating YOUR Hiring Costs

The industry average is a great measuring stick for your company. You need to calculate your company’s hiring costs and then compare it to the industry average. Ask yourself, why is it that your costs are either higher or lower than the average.

The metrics that should be used to calculate your costs are:

  • Entry and exit administration
  • Fixed asset costs due to idle equipment
  • Profit lost due to idle equipment
  • Other costs including safety/insurance/legal, maintenance, and productivity loss.

Inorder to calculate your cost per hire you need to determine a time period (this can be one month, one quarter, six months, or a year), calculate the costs for the metrics mentioned above, and divide those costs by the number of hires you made in that time period.

How to Improve Your Driver Retention

No matter how much your company is spending on hiring costs, it should be clear that the most effective way to reduce those costs is to improve your retention rate. If drivers are not leaving your company then you will not need to hire new drivers to replace them.

There are three pillars to truck driver retention: pay, respect, and management. Your company needs to offer competitive pay to your drivers (no low-balling them), treat drivers with the utmost respect, and employ fleet managers that know what they are doing.

By improving your driver retention, you will be able to keep your drivers on staff and not need to worry as much about your driver turnover costs.

How to Reduce Your Hiring Costs

The lion’s share of costs associated with driver turnover have to do with idle trucks. This means that if you are able to reduce the amount of time it takes to hire a driver then your hiring costs will also be reduced. Reduced hiring time means reduced time with idle trucks.

The best way to have a faster hiring time is to employ a truck company advertising agency that places your job ads at the best places to recruit drivers. Doing this will fill your ATS with branded (aka direct) leads.

Branded leads are truck drivers who apply to work specifically for your company because of your brand. These leads are anticipating a call from your recruiters or will even reach out to your company themselves.

Your recruiters will be able to hire drivers much faster when they are calling drivers that want to work for you. Branded leads will lower the amount of time your company has to deal with idle trucks, the biggest cost of driver turnover.

High efficiency and minimum costs

The average cost to recruit truck drivers is $12,084 across the industry. This average is a great measuring stick for your company to see how you stack up in the industry once you have calculated your hiring costs. Even if your company is below the average, it is wise to improve your retention rate and hiring costs.

The Value of Branded Leads

Before the internet, truck driver recruiters were able to place an ad in the newspaper or run a radio ad and the applicants would come pouring in. Then as things began turning digital carriers started purchasing multi carrier leads from online companies that generated trucking applications and sold them to all their clients. Branded, or direct leads, are now the hot trend.

hot lead icon. Man on fire

Multi-Carrier Leads are Wasteful

If your company is still purchasing multi-carrier leads from driver recruiting agencies, you are wasting your time and money. Your recruiters are forced to race against all of the recruiters from competing companies just to call the driver.

The drivers don’t even want to hear from the recruiters that are competing to call. Recruiters are rushing to be rejected immediately when you fill your ATS with multi-carrier leads.

Multi-carrier leads kill recruiter-morale.

Every time your company purchases a list of multi-carrier leads you are wasting your money on the list, wasting the recruiter’s time, and wasting salary spend on recruiters that are set up to fail.

Branded Leads Improve Everyone’s Performance

Branded leads are drivers applying directly to your company because they like your brand.

Loading your applicant tracking system with branded leads for your recruiters to call is going to improve everyone’s performance. Your recruiters will hire more drivers, the drivers hired will want to work for your company, and your company will become more profitable.

Place yourself in the driver’s shoes. Would you rather hear from tens of recruiters, even after starting a new position, that all got your number from the same multi-carrier list? Or would you rather speak with the one recruiter that works for the company you specifically chose to apply to?

In sales terms, multi-carrier leads are cold leads. Branded leads are hot leads. Fueling your company with hot leads is always going to lead to better results than cold leads.

Hand places a higher target to improve performance

How are Branded Leads Generated? 

Branded leads are not easy to obtain. They require a high level of expertise. Carriers can generate branded leads with a dedicated in-house team or by hiring a trucking company advertising agency.

Either way, your company must have a team solely dedicated to branded lead generation.

A dedicated team is going to focus on three areas: digital driver recruitment, referral programs, and rehires. Those three areas should be the three main contributors to your applicant tracking system.

Digital driver recruitment is going to focus on things such as social media marketing, job board management, and google advertising to spur driver applications and build your employer brand.

To a trucking company, their most valuable asset is their truck drivers. Because there is a driver shortage your company is likely experiencing some turnover. You can not fill empty seats with multi-carrier leads. The true value of branded leads is that their ability to turn into drivers solves the driver shortage for your company.