Tag: tips

5 Unique Tips for Driver Retention

Posted on by Jake Peters

The ability to retain truck drivers is a major source of competitive advantage in the trucking industry. If you are bad at driver retention then you are stuck competing in a market with a severe shortage and high hiring costs.

Common advice for driver retention includes things like increasing pay, treating drivers with respect, and collecting driver feedback. However, there are plenty of other ways to make your company stand out as a place drivers want to be. Here are 5 unique tips for driver retention.

  1. Encourage Drivers to Drive With Pets 
  2. Provide Top-Notch Amenities 
  3. Party Party Party and Party Some More
  4. Promote from Within
  5. Social Media Spotlight Posts

Encourage Drivers to Drive With Pets

For decades truck drivers have been sneaking their pets on board with them to take on the road. Drivers had to sneak their pets onto the truck because in the past companies forbid any furry friends on the road.

Long voyages on the road can lead to drivers feeling alone and depressed. Across America, 1.5% of people suffer from depression, among truck drivers that number rises to 13.6%. Feelings of loneliness and depression lead to job dissatisfaction and ultimately leaving the industry.

Encouraging truck drivers to drive with pets is one of the best ways to help keep your drivers happy. Your drivers will never have to be alone on the road and pets are known mood enhancers.

Deploying a pet-friendly policy may be the reason why a driver sticks with your company instead of accepting a higher-paying position with someone else. Truck drivers who love driving with their pets will want to stick with carriers that support their pets.

The driver recruiting manager demonstrates the retention strategy plan.

Provide Top-Notch Amenities

While sitting in a conference room discussing retention strategies, it can be easy to overlook the amenities. However, to truck drivers, the amenities are crucial to a comfortable OTR trip.

Amenities include things such as a microwave and refrigerator, a comfortable mattress, room for storage, temperature control, and anything else that makes living in the truck more pleasant.

The truck cabin is not the trucker’s home, but amenities can make the truck feel as home-like as possible.

Keeping your drivers comfortable on the road is a great incentive for drivers to stay with your company. Even if they start looking at positions with other companies, your drivers will look at the amenities provided by your competition. If you offer nicer amenities than the competition, then that is a heavy incentive to stay with your company.

Party Party Party and Party Some More 

Who doesn’t love to party? A company culture that prioritizes celebrating accomplishments, milestones, and great performances is a culture that people want to be a part of.

If you are only celebrating the bare minimum (major holidays, driver appreciation week, etc.) then you do not prioritize celebration. Drivers may be influenced to leave for a company that “has more fun” than your company.

Also, celebrating your drivers is going to make them feel like they are appreciated. Appreciation is one of the cornerstones of driver retention.

Promote From Within

Not all truck drivers want to be drivers for their entire career. Some drivers have aspirations of accomplishing other things within the trucking industry.

You need to identify the drivers working for you that are eyeing other positions outside of “driver”. Give these drivers a chance to be promoted to the position they desire.

Promoting drivers from within your company sends a message to all of your drivers that they can grow with you. Plus, promoting drivers to managerial positions helps your management team be more empathetic towards the challenges of being a truck driver.

This dedication to letting your drivers grow and increased levels of empathy will help your company retain your drivers.

A team of workers on a gray background. The concept of personnel selection and management within the team. Dismissal and hiring people to work. Human Resource Management. Headhunting. Talented worker

Social Media Spotlight Posts

Like I mentioned earlier, drivers want to be appreciated by their employers. Company parties are one way to internally appreciate your drivers. Social media is a way to show your appreciation externally.

Spotlight posts let you share with your network outside of your company how much you appreciate your drivers. Plus, the driver that the spotlight is on gets a chance to show their network that they are a high achiever.

Check out the 7 Tricks to Social Media Marketing for Trucking Companies to learn more about social media spotlight posts.

All of these tips are to be used as supplementary strategies to boost your main retention efforts. Plenty of other trucking companies know the key components of retention. This means you need to go above and beyond to gain an advantage. Use these 5 unique tips for driver retention and differentiate yourself from the competition.

5 Tips For Driver Recruiters to be More Persuasive

Posted on by Jake Peters

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.

A 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!

4 Tips for Recruiting Owner-Operators

Posted on by Jake Peters

Recruiting owner-operators is an enticing strategy for many fleets. This is because the responsibility of the trucks falls on the drivers. Becoming an owner-operator is enticing to drivers that have an entrepreneurial spirit, but the career is riskier than being a company driver.

The risk deters many people from becoming O/Os making it difficult for carriers to recruit them. Follow these 4 tips and your company can begin recruiting owner-operators:

  1. Prioritize Facebook Advertising
  2. Establish Trust in the First Conversation
  3. Embrace the Entrepreneurship of O/Os
  4. Have Patience and be Consistent

Owner-Operator Semi Truck Driver Words 3d Illustration

Prioritize Facebook Advertising

The Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association states that the most common age for owner-operators is 36. Also, the OOIDA has found that on average owner-operators have been driving for 20 years.

This information tells you that you are recruiting seasoned truck drivers who are older in age.

69% of U.S. adults use Facebook. Knowing that owner-operators are typically older and Facebook is popular among U.S. adults, it is safe to say you can reach roughly 70% of all owner-operators through Facebook alone.

Facebook advertising has to be your top recruiting priority.

In addition to the majority of owner-operators being on the platform, Facebook’s targeting tools allows you to pinpoint the drivers you want.

Professional Facebook advertisers will be able to use your ad-spend to show your recruiting content to targeted audiences. Only the people you want to apply for your positions will see your ads.

Using Facebook enables your company to not waste a single cent on owner-operators that do not match your company’s demographic requirements.

Establish Trust in the First Conversation

Becoming an owner-operator is a risky endeavor that has great rewards. Due to the risk, owner-operators are extra cautious when taking on work from a new carrier.

Owner-operators do not want to lose money because they trusted the wrong company.

To overcome this, you need to establish your trustworthiness immediately.

Here is how to do it:

Testimonials.

Above all else, owner-operators believe one another. You need to film your current O/Os talking about how much they enjoy working with your company.

If your company is just starting to recruit owner-operators and you do not have any working for you, film testimonials from current employees and company drivers. These testimonials are not as influential as O/O testimonials but they are still effective at establishing trust.

Owner-operators you recruit will trust you if your testimonials are strong.

Building Trust words on a speedometer to illustrate a brand company working to establish a reputation and earning customer loyalty and repeat business

Embrace the Entrepreneurship of Owner-Operators

Truck drivers that transition from being a company driver to an owner-operator are driven by an entrepreneurial spirit.

Owner-operators are motivated to take on higher levels of risk by the idea of being their own boss and potentially earning more money.

This means that treating owner-operators like you treat company drivers is a recipe for failure.

A company culture that lets owner-operators continue to be their own boss and offers growth opportunities is a necessary recruitment tool.

Have Patience and be Consistent

Recruiting owner-operators is a long term action. Rarely are O/Os ready to work for a new company at the drop of a hat.

Throughout the process of recruiting an owner-operator you need to be consistent in your messaging and patient. Give the driver the space they need to decide for themselves after consuming your recruitment content.

Getting impatient and changing your messaging to sound more “attractive” is only going to upset the driver.

Patience and consistency are the best route for recruiting owner-operators. Unfortunately, not all the drivers you speak to are going to be interested in your offer. However, remaining patient and consistent will ensure respect from all prospective owner-operators.

Many carriers find that working with owner-operators is more beneficial than hiring company drivers in certain situations. Working with owner-operators means the carrier has less risk to manage. However, to successfully recruit owner-operators you need to know it is a longer and more expensive process.

5 Tips to Get Truck Drivers to Engage With Your Content

Posted on by Jake Peters

Content creation has always been an essential element of recruiting truck drivers. In the past trucking companies would create newspaper ads and radio advertisements. Today, recruiters need to be creating content that engages truck drivers online.

This is the question:

How can you get prospective drivers to interact with the content you work hard to create?

Here are the 5 tips to get truck drivers to engage with your content:

  1. Create Different Kinds of Content
  2. Create Content That Interests Drivers
  3. Post Content Where the Drivers Already Are
  4. Invite Drivers to Follow You
  5. Pay to Play

Create Different Kinds of Content

Everyone on the planet enjoys consuming content differently. Some people like to read, some enjoy infographics, and others love videos. Depending on the scenario an individual is in, their preferences may be completely different than what is normal.

Truck drivers are the same way. Each of them enjoys uniquely consuming content.

To get drivers to engage with your content, you need to cover all of your bases. You need to be creating content that drivers can read, view, watch, and listen to.

cartoon person creating different kinds of content

Create Content That Interests Drivers

It is tempting to focus solely on creating content that persuades drivers to work for your company. However, this is not a good strategy if you want drivers to engage with your content.

If all you are posting is content that tries to recruit drivers they will quickly begin to ignore your posts. You need to create content that will provide value to drivers other than introducing them to your company.

An example of a trucking company creating content that interests drivers is Driveteks’ client, Wave Express. They frequently post about things like driving safe in the winter, avoiding tired driving, and best road trip snacks.

Effective backlinking strategies will encourage drivers to click from your non-recruiting content to your recruiting content. Think of the non-recruiting content as a lure that brings drivers to your site. Once on your site, they are more perceptive to your recruiting content.

Post Content Where the Drivers Already Are

If you have not posted much content online in the past then chances are your company has a very small following, if at all. Growing an online following takes a lot of time and diligence.

Fortunately, there are already groups built for you filled with your target demographic. Find as many as you can and join them.

Posting interesting content to social media groups filled with truck drivers will immediately kick start your company’s web presence.

Invite Drivers to Follow You 

Once you begin posting in trucking groups and are getting truck drivers to engage with your content you need to invite them to follow you.

This can mean asking them to follow your social media, subscribe to YouTube, signup for emails, etc.

Nearly every piece of content you publish should have some reminder (that is not annoying) to follow your company.

The larger your following is, the more prospective drivers you will be able to reach for free. Plus, if people go out of their way to follow you, that means they like your company. It will be easier to convince these drivers following you to apply to work for your company.

Excited man inviting the reader

Pay to Play

As frustrating as it is, paid advertisements are the best way to get your content in front of as many eyes as possible.

Facebook and other platforms make a lot of money from advertisements. It makes sense that they would build an algorithm that limits exposure for free content and encourages paid advertising.

Working with a trucking company advertising agency will ensure that your ad spend is being used optimally. You will not waste money on ineffective advertising. The money you spend will generate the maximum amount of impressions, clicks, and engagement.

Without content, it is nearly impossible to recruit truck drivers. Content creation is useless if potential drivers are not interacting with it. There is much more to engagement than simply posting the content. Follow these 5 tips and you have potential drivers interacting with your content in no time.

5 Tips for the Best Trucking Website Design

Posted on by Jake Peters

Having a strong trucking website design is mandatory for recruiting quality truck drivers and generating business. Your company’s website is the first interaction drivers and customers have with your company. First impressions matter! Follow these 5 tips to ensure that your company has the best trucking website design.

Top 5 Tips for the Best Trucking Website Design

  1. Avoid Clutter

  2. Repeat Your Main Message

  3. CTAs Throughout Your Website

  4. Mobile First Design

  5. Easy to Digest Content

magnifying glass searching for the best trucking web design

You Must Avoid Clutter!

Keep it simple stupid. Nothing turns away site visitors like a cluttered home page. Visitors should be able to instantly know your company’s main mission. Sometimes your mission may be hiring drivers, other times it is promoting business.

You only have 50 milliseconds to nail your first impression with site visitors.

Site visitors will be able to process your message better the less they have to read, click on, or watch. Images and videos are excellent pieces of content, but not when they are overwhelming.

Each page of your site should have only a couple high end images and any videos need to serve a purpose. Do not put videos on your site for the sake of having a video.

Having a strong heading structure will make it so that visitors will be able to skim any writing on your website and understand the gist of what you are saying.

Be Redundant… Tastefully

Your main goal is displayed loud and proud on your home page. Now what?

As visitors interact with your website and scroll through different pages they will forget about that main goal.

For example, if your main goal is to recruit more drivers you would say that right on the homepage for drivers to see. Then as the drivers click through your site to learn more about your company they will forget to to apply by the time something else grabs their attention.

This can be avoided if you are strategically redundant.

Each page of your website needs to have a call back to your main goal. This will ensure that site visitors do not forget about that goal and they will be far more likely to act in favor of that goal.

Calls to Action Littered Everywhere 

Call to action symbol

The call to action is where you reach your handout and invite the site visitor to act in a way that benefits your main goal.

Most websites have a call to action at the top of each page, which is good but not best. In order to maximize on your website, you need to sprinkle your CTAs throughout your site.

Spreading CTAs throughout the pages on your site gives the site visitor more opportunities to act. Placing only one CTA at the top of a page is asking for the site visitor to act before you have convinced them to do so.

However, having CTAs littered throughout allows the site visitor to click on the CTA the moment they are convinced to do so. They do not have to scroll throughout the site to find the CTA again.

Mobile First Design

The majority of people that visit your site will be doing so on their mobile device. Studies have found that in the second quarter of 2020, mobile devices (excluding tablets) accounted for 51.53% of global website traffic.

Mobile users on the web have become so prominent that Google now crawls your site for mobile usability first before desktop usability.

Your website must be designed to be easily navigable from a smartphone. Doing so will make your site more accessible which increases the amount of traffic you receive. More traffic leads to more driver applications and more business.

Easy to Digest Content

Content is king. It is the best way for carriers to build relationships with potential drivers and customers.

The reason that people visit your website is because they have questions about your company that they want answered. Easy to digest content is the best way for your company to answer those questions.

Plus, well curated content will be shared on social media platforms and generate awareness for your company.

Your website should be filled with short videos, well written blog content, and info graphics.

Content is King

The website is oftentimes your first impression, and the first impression is the most important. Having the best trucking website design compared to your competition will lead to your company hiring more drivers and booking more business.

5 Tips to Get the Most Out of Video Interviews

Posted on by admin

In person interviews have not been possible since March. This means that if you have hired any drivers in the past three months, you had to conduct a video chat interview. Whether you are using Zoom, Google Hangouts, etc. you need to be prepared. Follow this guide to get the most out of your video interviews.

Man gets the most out of video interview

1. Set the Bar for the Meeting

As the interviewer, it is up to you to be an example of what it means to be a professional at your company. You need to set the bar for the interview.

One way that you can set the professional bar is by dressing professionally. Working from home it is tempting to remain in your comfortable clothes, but when you interview you are the face of your company.

Drivers are going to judge your company based on you. So dressing professionally will send the message that your company takes themselves seriously. Professional drivers want to work for professional companies.

The next thing you need to do is find a space that has quality lighting and is in a quiet space. Doing this will ensure that the driver will be able to see you clearly and there will not be any interruptions.

2. Understand Technical Difficulties

You need to remember that this world is new to the drivers as well. Many of them are going to struggle with interviewing remotely.

If a driver you are interviewing hops on the call late because they could not load the page, or if the call drops, you need to work with them.

Do not rule out hiring a potential driver because they could not figure out the video interview. Have patience, rushing to judgement will lead to you ruling out quality drivers.

3. Record and Review Later

There is no doubt that interviewing drivers in person is the best way to gauge a potential employee. However, video interviews have certain advantages.

The biggest advantage that video interviews have is that it is easier for you to record the interview and review it later.

You will become fatigued if you conduct multiple interviews in one day. This can lead to you overlooking a great driver.

Recording and reviewing the video interviews will help ensure you offer your positions to the most qualified driver.

4. Provide Clear Instructions

As mentioned earlier, drivers are likely to struggle technically with the video interview. The best way to avoid this is to provide clear, step-by-step, instructions prior to the interview.

The more you can do to eliminate technical barriers, the more you can focus on the driver. This way you can get a better idea of who the driver is as a person.

5. Ask Questions That Generate Articulation

Because you won’t get to have the human interaction like a typical interview, you need to ask questions that get drivers to explain themselves.

Here are some common video questions to ask drivers:

  • Why did you decide to apply with our company?
  • Why are you a truck driver?
  • Describe the best work environment you have been a part of
  • How did you manage driving your toughest routes?

Driver providing articulate answers on video interview

Video interviews will not allow you to test a driver’s capabilities so you must get drivers to describe their skills to you. You will have to make your hiring decisions based on how drivers are able to articulate their thoughts. Because of this, the questions you ask directly affect retention and overall company performance.

If you don’t know what you are doing with video interviews, it can lead to hiring the wrong person. Follow these 5 tips to get the most out of your video interviews.

7 Tips to Improve Your Employer Brand

Posted on by admin

Your company has an employer brand whether you actively work on it or not. Quality drivers are well aware of the best and worst employers. Here are 7 tips to improve your employer brand.

Benefits of a Strong Employer Brand and What it is

Employer branding is how potential drivers perceive your company. This is your reputation as an employer.

An employer branding campaign aims to improve your company’s attractiveness to the top drivers and increase retention rate.

Building your company’s employer brand will lead to lower recruitment costs. Drivers will know that your company is a great place to work and will actively seek out opportunities to work for you. Your company will not have to spend exuberant amounts on job postings.

The strongest employer brands attract the top quality of drivers. Truck drivers that are true professionals, and take pride in their craft, want to work for carriers that are the best of the best.

Lowering your recruitment costs and hiring the top talent is going to lead to improved company performance.

What's your brand written out on clipboard

How to Identify Your Employer Brand

Before you embark on building your employer brand, you need to assess where you are starting from.

Employer review sites, like Glassdoor, are the best place to begin identifying your employer brand. Glassdoor gives you quantitative ratings and how each rating stacks up against the competition.

Computer tab open to glassdoor

After reviewing your rankings on sites like Glassdoor, the next step is social listening. Social listening is done by searching your company on social media. You need to read your mentions and interactions. Reddit forums and trucking social groups are a great place for social listening.

If your employer turnover is high, that is a key indicator you have a weak employer brand.

7 Tips to Build Your Employer Brand

  1. Define What You Want the Culture to be

    If your company does not have a clearly defined culture then it is up to you to define it. Write out a clear vision and mission statement. 

    Once you have your vision and mission statement, establish 3 – 5 company values. These values are at the core of your company’s decision making process.

  2. Hire Culture Fits

    After defining what the company culture is, start hiring drivers that match your culture.

    You can do this by communicating the company values to potential drivers in the interview process. The drivers that you hire should strongly identify with at least two of the values.

    Potential hires that do not align with company values will not do well in your company and will hinder your employer brand.

  3. Treat Potential Drivers as Customers

    Quality truck drivers are the most valuable asset to your company. Companies that employ top notch professionals experience lower turnover rate and higher profits.

    During the hiring process, you need to treat the drivers as customers. It is up to you to ‘wow’ them. Sell the drivers on why working for your company will make their lives better.

    Treating potential drivers as customers will help you attract the top professionals.

  4. Use Storytelling

    You need to be frequently producing content that tells the story of your company. Tell stories about how much your current drivers love working for you.

    Potential drivers and passive candidates will interact with these stories and recognize your company as a great place to work. Positive stories build up employer brands.

    Hand writing Tell Your Story in expo marker

  5. Act on Feedback

    As you are going over your reviews on Glassdoor and conducting social listening, you will come across plenty of feedback. Assess whether this feedback is legitimate.

    If you come across positive feedback, double down on what you are doing well. Negative feedback that is brought up repeatedly needs to be fixed.

  6. Increase Driver Perks and Benefits

    The quickest way to get your drivers to brag about your company is by paying them more.

    However, solely paying your drivers more is not enough to build up your employer brand. You need to utilize all 7 tips.

  7. Be Authentic

    Drivers will see through you if you are not being authentic.

    To avoid this, come up with company values that your staff truly identifies with. Do not set values that you think potential drivers want to hear. That is inauthentic.

Whether you are aware of it or not, you have an employer brand. Drivers are taking note about which companies are best to work for. Follow these 7 tips to improve your employer brand, attract the best drivers, and increase company profitability.

6 Tips For a Successful Digital Driver Recruitment Campaign

Posted on by admin

Digital recruitment campaign graphic

57% of the world’s population are active internet users. The internet has changed nearly every aspect of our lives. Because of this, it makes sense that recruitment campaigns are becoming more web based. Companies are shifting from print media and career fairs to digital driver recruitment campaigns. Digital driver recruitment campaigns are more efficient than the old methods and they provide a higher ROI. Here are 6 tips for a successful digital driver recruitment campaign.

1) Create Relevant and Engaging Content

Prior to publishing any recruitment content you need to decide who your ideal candidates are. Are you hiring for diversity? Are you in need of a driver with specific endorsements? Do you want to hire team drivers? Use these answers to guide what type of content you create. For example, if you are wanting to hire team drivers you must use images of team drivers in your ads.

2) Be Active in Trucking Social Media Groups

Facebook and Linkedin have hundreds of groups dedicated to connecting drivers with recruiters. Being active and establishing a presence within these groups is an excellent way to find new drivers. However, it is important to note that there is a lot of competition in these groups. Drivers are bombarded with job opportunities from recruiters. Standing out from all the other job postings in these groups can be a challenge. It is important to be active in these groups but do not put all of your eggs in this basket.

3) Build Your Reputation as a Company That Prioritizes Drivers

Drivers talk with each other constantly about the companies they work for. Your company will be discussed online between drivers. If your company prioritizes its drivers, word will spread. On the flip side, drivers will know if your company does not prioritize its drivers. By building a reputation as a company that prioritizes drivers, applicants will keep an eye out for your job postings. Build a reputation as a company that prioritizes its drivers by incorporating trust into the hiring process and using effective retention strategies.

4) Use Tools That Screen Out Unqualified Applicants

Implementing a digital recruitment campaign allows you to use digital tools that streamline the process. Programs like Zapier or ZipRecruiter filters make it so that you never have to see any applicants that do not meet your requirements. Recruiters do not need to waste their time with unqualified driver applicants when digital recruitment campaigns are used.

5) Geo-Target Drivers in Your Hiring Region

Geo-targeting  enables you to send ads to drivers in specific regions. Do not waste your time sorting through applicants from outside your hiring region. Digital recruitment campaigns will only be seen by potential drivers within your hiring region. Another advantage to geo-targeting is that you can send ads to areas that you know drivers will be. You can target truck stops, driver conventions, CDL schools, etc.

6) Design a Landing Page That Encourages Drivers to Apply

A well designed landing page is essential for any digital recruitment campaign. Even well crafted and placed ads will not generate applicants if the ad is not linked to a landing page. Drivers do not want to click on an ad that takes them to the homepage of your company’s website. An ad should link to a landing page that sells the driver on working for your company and allows the driver to apply on the page. According to Kelly Anderson, shortening the recruiting cycle will lead to more quality drivers applying for your positions.

Digital driver recruitment campaigns can be a daunting task. If you do not know what you are doing then you will see poor results and feel as if you wasted time and money. However, follow these tips to start seeing positive results. Digital driver recruitment campaigns will become your go to recruitment strategy.

How to Keep Drivers From Backing Out

Posted on by admin

Hiring qualified truck drivers is hard! That is no secret. Writing enticing job posts, getting drivers to apply, going through the interview process, offering the position, and putting the driver through orientation is a long and expensive process.

The average cost to hire a new driver is $8,612. As a recruiter, nothing is more deflating than going through 95% of the process only to have the driver bail. Unfortunately, this occurs far too often.  A survey conducted by Robert Half staffing agency shows that 28% of people admit to backing out of a job offer after accepting it. Here is how to keep drivers from backing out before orientation.

Offer Competitive Benefits, and Shout Them From the Rooftops

Many truckers feel that they are underpaid, overworked, and treated with little respect. This feeling is one of the driving forces behind the high turnover rate. If your company is offering benefits that are on the low side then drivers are likely to back out.

The Robert Half survey mentioned earlier found that of all the employees who backed out of an offered position, 44% of them did so because they received a better offer from another employer. Offering competitive benefits is only part of the equation.

As the recruiter it is up to you to make the benefits of the position abundantly clear. Handing the applicant paperwork that lays out the benefits is not enough. Repeatedly through the hiring process you need to highlight the benefits offered.

Get the applicant excited about the opportunity. If you do not ingrain the company’s benefits into the applicant’s mind you are leaving the door cracked for another company to use their benefits to lure the applicant away.

Slow Onboarding Speeds Increase Frustration 

A slow onboarding process can be frustrating for new hires. Being hired by a company  is an exciting moment for drivers. Either this is the driver’s first driving job, it is a second chance, or they are being hired for a position that better aligns with their personal needs.

However, a painstaking onboarding process can kill that excitement the driver felt when initially hired. Difficult paperwork, manually submitting documents, figuring out how to get to orientation, delayed drug tests, etc. are all headache inducing actions.

In addition to increasing the levels of frustration, a prolonged onboarding process increases the amount of time other companies have to lure your hire away from you. High levels of frustration combined with an extended amount of time for competition to poach your applicants is a recipe for disaster.

Tenstreet has some excellent tools for increasing the speed of your onboarding process.

frustrated driver on the verge of backing out of their new job

Personally Call Your Applicants at Each Step

In the past, we have written about the importance of calling leads immediately after they apply. Phoning does not lose its importance as the hiring process goes on. In fact, phoning becomes more important. You must be calling your applicants as much as you can.

By calling the driver you will establish a personal relationship with them. 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. Applicants will feel loyal to you if you take the time and effort to build a relationship with them.

As a truck driver recruiter dealing with applicants backing out of a position is part of the job. That does not make it any less frustrating. By taking a few extra steps, you can keep drivers from backing out before orientation. Make sure the driver knows the company benefits, speed up your onboarding process, and build a personal relationship by calling the driver frequently.