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.

5 Biggest Mistakes First Time Digital Recruiters Make

Digital driver recruitment is becoming more common in the transportation industry every year. Carriers that do it properly are keeping their trucks on the road and thriving. When one succeeds, others follow close behind. However, not every company succeeds at digital recruitment right away. Here are the 5 biggest mistakes from first time digital recruiters.

Not Designing for Mobile Users

It is easy to get lost in the design process and design for only desktops. You are designing on a desktop so it makes sense to think people will view it on a desktop. That is not the case.

Drivers do not have access to desktops while on the road so they do their web surfing from mobile devices. 61% of drivers would choose to own a smartphone if they were forced to pick between their phone and their computer.

Not designing for mobile users makes it incredibly difficult for drivers to interact with your content. Drivers will quickly move on from your company and interact with the carrier’s content that is easily accessible.

Relying Too Much on Social Media

Recruiting on social media can have huge ROIs for digital campaigns. Recruiting within the groups is free and advertisements are cheap.

The biggest problem with focusing on social media is that it is extraordinarily competitive. Carriers nationwide think they are being smart and saving money by doing all of their online recruitment in Facebook groups.

Placing all of your eggs into one basket is never a good strategy. Companies that focus on social media set themselves up to fail when social media is producing low results.

Insufficient Funding

Many companies are hesitant to jump right into digital recruitment. They often test the waters first by running a low budget campaign.

Low budget campaigns have little money for ad-spend and the carrier did not hire a professional to run the campaign.

Not spending the needed amount

of money on a digital leads companies to draw false conclusions about the effectiveness of digital recruiting.

Giving Up Too Soon

Companies embarking on their first digital recruitment campaign can have too high of expectations.

Carriers will stop their digital campaigns if all of their empty trucks are not filled after the first month or two.

Even working with professionals, the first campaign takes some time to get rolling. Digital Professionals will collect data on which platforms are producing the best results and modify the campaign to be as efficient as possible. However, they need time to collect enough data to make the best decisions.

Not Hiring a Professional to Run the Campaign

The biggest mistake carriers make is assuming that their recruiters can also digitally recruit. Carriers will force their recruiters to try and find drivers online. This does not produce results.

Recruiters are meant to be on the phones talking to potential drivers, running orientation, or working on retention efforts. Their plates are already full.

People standing at target where they missed the bulls-eye. Represents missing the mark on a digital campaign.

They do not have the time to learn how to digitally recruit and then implement a comprehensive digital campaign.

Digital recruitment agencies will be able to use the best strategies that fill your seats fast. They also know what it takes to work with a transportation company. Digital recruitment agencies are familiar with your pains and how to relieve them.

 

Do not make the same mistakes as other carriers. Learn from their errors. Avoid these five common mistakes and digital recruitment campaigns will be one of your company’s most valuable assets.

Improving Driver Recruitment With a Faster Response Time

Digital marketing tools like geofencing, social media, SEO, etc. have enabled trucking companies to generate more applicants than ever before. However, the most important step in executing a successful campaign relies on technology that has existed since 1876, phoning. The rate at which recruiters are able to contact driver applicants has a direct correlation with improving your driver recruitment.

Slow Response Times Kill Your Recruitment Efforts

Forbes conducted a study of 10,000 businesses across multiple professions to see how effective they were at contacting internet leads and measure the results of contacting the leads.

On average it took businesses 46 hours and 53 minutes to pick up the phone to call a lead. Sales reps only attempted to get a hold of the lead 1.3 times before moving on. The study found that 71% of the leads generated were being wasted due to the slow response time.

One study conducted by Dr. James Oldroyd found some eye opening results:

  • 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.

The moment a driver submits an application to drive for your company, a recruiter needs to be calling them. Every second that ticks by where a recruiter has not called the applicant the odds of hiring that driver diminish.

How A Quick Response Time Will Improve Campaigns

Think back to two days ago and I bet that you will struggle to remember everything that you did that day, let alone all the websites you visited. Drivers are the exact same way.

If your recruiters are taking the average amount of time (46 hours and 53 minutes) to call driver applicants, then chances are the applicant has forgotten about your company.

The applicant may remember applying for the position. However, they will have forgotten the information that made them want to apply.

By calling immediately after application the driver will still have all of your information fresh on their mind.

Also, a quick response time generates a “Wow Effect” with applicants. Place yourself in the driver’s shoes for a moment. You have applied to five trucking companies that are all claiming to value their drivers and take care of them more than the competition.

Four of the five companies take two days to call you about your application. One company called you within five minutes of submitting the application. Which company would you feel like wants you the most?

Applicants that receive a call immediately after submitting their application exhibit an emotional response. That emotional response creates a feeling like, “this is a company that truly wants me to be a part of their team.”

Tips for Decreasing Your Response Time

Hand starts stop watch to measure response time

Now that it has been proven how critical a fast response time is, you are now probably wanting to place a response system within your company to improve your response time. Here are some tips to help you:

  • Track your team’s response time: If you are not already tracking your response time then you must begin. This will give you a baseline to work from and enable you to prove you have made improvements to your response time.
  • Set goals: The ultimate goal for your team should be to respond in under five minutes of an application being submitted. However, if your response time is two days then it is unrealistic to expect your team to begin responding within five minutes. Start by trying to get the average response time down to one day, then twelve hours. Slowly work your way down to five minutes and then let your team know that five minutes is the expectation going forward.
  • Automation: Using a tool like Callingly to automate the response process is a sure way to improve response time. Callingly integrates with your website and will call your team as soon as a new lead comes in, routing the lead based on territory and schedule.

A fast response time is an essential element to any recruitment campaign. Slow response times are causing your recruitment campaigns to not be as successful as possible. By improving your response time you are bound to see more success with all of your recruitment campaigns.