Everything You Need to Know About Multi-Carrier Applications

Have you ever felt like a truck driver recruiting agency took advantage of you? You were promised hundreds of qualified applicants flooding your ATS, making hiring a breeze. Instead, you spent most of your time calling truck drivers who have no interest in speaking to you. Chances are that you purchased a list of multi-carrier applications.

Multi-carrier applications can serve a purpose but are very difficult to convert into hires.

Here is everything you need to know about multi-carrier driver applicants:

  • What are Multi-Carrier Applications? 
  • How can I Tell if I am Purchasing Multi-Carrier Applications?
  • Pros and Cons to Multi-Carrier Applications

driver recruited frustrated from poor results because of multi-carrier applications

What are Multi-Carrier Applications?

Truck driver applications that have been sold to multiple different trucking companies are multi-carrier applications.

Typically these occur when a driver submits an application to a job board site and has no clue which carriers receive their application. Oftentimes the driver’s application is continuously sold to companies even after they have accepted a position.

Agencies that sell these applications make their money by selling the same applications over and over again. They sell quantity, not quality.

Multi-carrier leads are cold leads. Calling a list of multi-carrier applicants is cold calling and can lead to frustrating results.

How Can I Tell if I am Purchasing Multi-Carrier Applications? 

Any company that uses language like “driver database”, “driver pool”, or “driver list” is trying to sell you multi-carrier leads.

Recruiting agencies will tell you that they have a database of driver applicants and will match your company with drivers that meet your requirements. These are multi-carrier applicants.

Every carrier who has the same requirements as you are sold the same leads you were sold.

A good way to tell if you are being sold multi-carrier applicants is asking the sales rep what their process is for finding applicants.

If they do not find fresh applicants specifically for your company then you are talking to a company that sells multi-carrier leads.

Pros and Cons to Multi-Carrier Applications

Pros and cons to multi-carrier applications

When you unknowingly purchase multi-carrier leads it can feel like they are useless. However, there are some positives to multi-carrier applications.

Pros:

  • The applications are not expensive
  • Guaranteed high level of volume
  • All applicants meet your hiring criteria

Cons:

  • The applications are cold leads
  • Drivers may not be looking for work
  • Lower conversion rate compared to direct applications
  • Take longer to hire the driver
  • Can be frustrating to contact

If you are intentional with how you plan to use multi-carrier applicants then they can be a useful tool. For example, carriers will use multi-carrier leads mixed in with direct and referral applicants. This allows their campaign to have high quality leads and high quantity.

Multi-carrier applications are very common in the industry. These leads are popular because you can buy a lot for cheap. However, you may feel ripped off after buying these applications because of the low conversion rate.

Having a plan and mixing in these applications with your direct applications can make for an effective hiring strategy. Make sure you know when you are purchasing multi-carrier leads and have a plan for recruiting these drivers.

Remarketing: What it is, How it Works, Why You Need it

Digital driver recruitment requires a lot of moving parts all working towards the same goal. One of those moving parts is remarketing. Done properly, remarketing is a key component to increasing the number of driver applications generated by a digital recruitment campaign.  Read to learn about remarketing: what it is, how it works, and why you need it.

What is Remarketing?

Have you ever visited a website, left without making any purchases, and then while scrolling through social media an ad for the site you just visited pops up? That is Remarketing.

Using a remarketing platform enables companies to show targeted ads to people who have visited their site previously.

For example, drivers that visit your company site will see your ads browsing other websites, watching YouTube videos, or reading the news.

Think of remarketing as a second chance for drivers to apply to work for your company.

How Does Remarketing Work?

The driver experience flow is straightforward:

  • Driver visits your website or consumes your brand’s content
  • That driver is now tagged with a cookie and added to a remarketing list
  • Ads are shown to drivers on the list while they scroll the web

Adding remarketing advertisements is also a simple process:

  • Setup an account on Google Ads (the Driveteks’ recommended tool) and get the remarketing tag. The remarketing tag is a piece of HTML code you copy and paste into the body of all landing pages on your site.
  • Collect a list of drivers that have visited your site. The HTML code will automatically start collecting the cookies of everyone who visits the site.
  • Create the content you need to advertise to potential drivers (images, videos, graphics, etc.).
  • Launch the campaign. Set your budget within Google Ads, and once you officially launch Google will send your ads out to everyone on the list. Driver flow of remarketing experience

Why You Need to Start Remarketing

As mentioned earlier, remarketing gives drivers a second chance to visit your site and apply. Remarketing is a reminder to the driver that they showed interest in your company.

According to Drive My Way, the average driver has at least 8 touch points with a company before taking actionable steps toward employment. Remarketing is an easy way to get one of those touch points. Your ad will reach them at an unexpected time and prompt them to reach out.

Without remarketing, drivers that visit your site will often forget about your company. This will happen no matter how great your site/ company is.

Remarketing is not going to be the reason a driver applies to work for you. Remarketing is the reminder that gets drivers thinking about all reasons they want to work for your company.

Any digital driver recruitment campaign that does not include remarketing is incomplete. No matter how strong your site design, call to action, or job offer is, drivers that visit your site need that reminder to go back and apply.

You Need a Well Designed Recruitment Landing Page

One of the key messages that Driveteks conveys is the importance of your company’s web presence. Last week I watched Latest Techniques for Finding & Recruiting Truck Drivers,a webinar by Kelly Anderson and Matt Lee, and in it they discussed how important it is to have a well designed recruitment landing page. Boost your recruitment efforts with a well designed landing page. A landing page is the section of a website accessed by clicking a link on another web page. During your recruitment campaigns, the link you provide on your job posts will take applicants to your recruitment landing page. Implementing a well designed landing page will create a great first impression with applicants, provide the necessary information, and increase the number of applicants.

Team building a well designed landing page together

Nail Your First Impressions

The first thing drivers will do if interested in your job posting is click on the link to your website. That recruitment landing page is the first interaction your company has with potential drivers. Studies show that your landing page has 50 milliseconds to make a good first impression.

Driver applicants are going to click on your link, visit your landing page, and before reading a single word, make a judgement about your company based on the design of the page.

A well designed landing page will look good on a computer screen and a mobile device. If applicants are having a poor experience on your landing page then your recruiters are fighting an uphill battle.

Drivers that are impressed by your landing page will become excited about the possibility of working for your company. They will be happy to work with your recruiters. In some cases, a powerful landing page can inspire driver applicants to contact you about open positions!

The best way to ensure your company has a well designed landing page is by working with a design agency (preferably one that specializes in design for truck driver recruiting).

Provide Applicants With Information That Sells The Company

Few things are more annoying to a potential applicant than when they look for information beyond the job posting and they are unable to find any. The recruitment landing page is the ideal place to provide all of the position specific information an applicant may need.

Provide details such as pay, benefits, routes, etc., but also include information that will sell the applicant on the position. Include photos that show off where the driver will be based out of, the truck they may be driving, and employees that are happy to be at work.

Positive testimonials from current/former employees are another great source of information that will sell applicants on working for your company.

Place yourself in the drivers shoes, would you rather apply for a company that a) has a malfunctioning website b) shares basic facts about the position c) shares the basics along with high quality photos, a video, and strong testimonials?

Recruit like a marketer and implement a landing page that shares exciting information with driver applicants.

Watch as the Number of Applicants Climb

Drivers will research a company and position before they apply. If drivers have a strong first impression consuming information that sells the company then they are more likely to apply. The recruitment landing page will get the driver excited about the company. Then a carefully placed ‘call to action’ will encourage them to apply. Driveteks built a new website, including a recruitment landing page, for Nagle Trucks and this is what they had to say,

“Using Driveteks changed the way we utilize our website as a business and recruitment tool. Our website went from a site to store information to a tool for our business development and recruitment process. We went from having 1-3 candidates a week to 25-30 candidates a week.”

A well designed website and recruitment landing page drastically increased the number of applicants Nagle was receiving.

In today’s recruiting landscape, digital strategies are becoming more and more important. The recruitment landing page is one of the most critical elements to any recruiting campaign. A well designed recruitment landing page will create positive first impressions, share information that sells the position/company, and increases the number of applicants your job postings receive.

Hand writing out its goals for 2017.

Driver Recruiting Plan… Do You Have One?

Demands of a consumer driven economy are causing the trucking industry to grow. The battle for drivers is intense. Because of this you need a driver recruiting plan.

Embrace the Power of the Web

Is your application process available on-line? If the process to apply for a job with your company involves downloading an PDF, faxing, or any type of paper application, it will be a never ending struggle to get enough drivers to keep your fleet fully staffed and on the road.

Is your application optimized for the mobile user? Today, as many as 70% of on-line driver applications are completed from a cell phone or tablet. Drivers are less likely to complete the application if it is a tedious process.

Are Drivers Able to Find You?

Can a potential applicant find you? I would like you to try a short exercise. Open an incognito window on your internet browser, and type into the search engine “Truck Driving jobs __________” And fill in the blank with your most relevant location. (Atlanta, North Carolina, Cincinnati, Utah, etc.)

Then, see how hard you have to look to find an opportunity to apply for a position with your company. This is the experience that a driver has trying to find your company. If it takes too long, or if you can’t find your own company, then there is some work to do.

Driveteks is a marketing company that understands the transportation industry. We are experts in online marketing, and use our expertise to gain wide exposure for our clients. This drives the maximum number of qualified applicants to them. Driveteks’ proprietary technology filters, screen, and qualify applicants. Because of this our clients are seeing the best of the best.

If you do not have a strategic on-line driver recruiting plan in place, or would like to improve your existing efforts, Driveteks is the best place to start.