As a recruiter for truck drivers, you know that the driver shortage means that finding the best talent can be difficult. With turnover also being high, retaining drivers can be even more challenging. The best companies are offering great truck driver benefits in addition to good salaries and bonuses. While salary and cents per mile are important figures, drivers know they aren’t the whole package. The experienced driver recognizes that a strong benefits package can be more valuable than sign-on or referral bonuses.

Benefits also build a driver-centric company culture where drivers feel valued and respected. Word-of-mouth about benefits will soon spread to attract other drivers. While there are some industry standard benefits that you should definitely offer, you can also supplement them with your own unique additional benefits that reflect your company and brand. With so much on the line, here are three components to include to improve your truck driver benefits package.

1. Insurance and retirement plans

Providing health insurance and a 401(k)-match plan is an industry standard practice, so you don’t want to skip these for your drivers. Drivers know that the cost of health insurance has skyrocketed, so they’ll be looking for employer-based plans as better alternatives to individual plans on the health insurance marketplace. Any package worth it’s weight should include medical, prescription, vision and dental. Look for insurance policies with reduced premium incentives, low co-pays and a health reimbursement account deposit for wellness. Dental plans should include standard preventive care (such as teeth cleaning) fully or almost fully covered. Vision coverage should ideally cover an annual eye-exam with a low co-pay, and some allowance for prescription glasses or contact lenses.

Drivers will be concerned about the cost of health insurance for their families, so most of your standard packages should provide coverage for their spouses and dependents

Consider including flexible spending accounts, which give drivers the option to put aside pre-tax income from their paychecks to pay for non-reimbursed medical, dental, and vision expenses.

Most trucking companies will include a 401(k)-matching plan for retirement savings as well. Drivers will first be able to place a percentage of their pay into the plan pre-tax. The matching amount by the company can vary based on the percentage. Some companies boast being able to match 100% on the first 4-5% of salary deferred. The exact specifications of your retirement and insurance options will depend on how strong your company is financially. Just keep in mind that drivers will be mindful about noticing whether the company is investing considerable resources into benefits packages for their employees.

2. Lifestyle Benefits

While retirement and insurance are industry-standard benefits, you can craft your own additional benefits based on unique resources and needs.

Many drivers are attracted to benefits which allow them greater flexibility in their lifestyle, both on and off the road.

For example, more drivers would like to be able to work in larger cabins with more personal space. Fleet amenities such as kitchen appliances and satellite radio/TV allow for comfort, cooking, and entertainment. Your company should already be investing in the best truck equipment, and many of these will come fully equipped. A pet policy lets drivers with a canine or feline companion bring them along on the road. See if your company can craft a pet policy with small restrictions on a weight limit and a refundable pet deposit.

Similarly, some drivers would like to bring their spouse or children along with them on the road and view this as a major benefit. Drivers will view a passenger policy by your company as a great advantage when considering their home life and how to spend more time with family.

Paid-time off is another important benefit for work-life balance. Some companies differentiate between vacation time and sick time, while others offer a more general PTO category. These PTO days should increase per every year worked, and ideally, roll over to the next year.

3. Driver Loyalty Programs

Finally, consider creating a driver loyalty discount program, or similar package. Offer rewards or benefits to drivers in the form of points based on credit card purchases, or discounts at select partner locations across the country. For example, your company could partner with a nation-wide hotel or restaurant chain for great deals. Similarly, you could partner with a credit card company to pair with the rewards points. Such perks will help drivers feel valued as they look for places to stay or eat across the country.

4. Tuition Benefits

Finally, some companies have been offering college tuition coverage and college scholarships for drivers and their families. The tuition plan is simple—for as long as drivers remain with the fleet, the company will pay for a portion of college tuition and room/board expenses for the dependents of drivers. As you can imagine, this is a very appealing program for drivers and addresses retention concerns extremely well. In addition, your company can offer a handful of college scholarships every year based on a number of factors. Many drivers will want to send their children to college but will consider the cost of higher education to be prohibitive.

Offering college tuition aid programs signals to drivers that you value them and their families’ priorities and can help give the gift of education

While these options can be financially taxing, they would be considered one of the greatest benefits for drivers in your company which goes a long way toward retaining them and building loyalty.

5. Other Perks

In addition to the standard benefits of insurance and retirement plans, many companies offer other optional perks. These optional plans won’t be used by every driver, but rather depends on their personal and financial situations. Offering these as an alternative will show drivers you value their needs, and it won’t break the bank. Accident insurance and critical illness insurance plans are for those rare circumstances where things go drastically wrong on the road. They communicate to drivers that you want them to know that you have their back.

In addition to insurance, consider offering a CDL legal defender plan to drivers. Your team of lawyers can represent a driver and their claims in the rare possibility of a legal scenario. Offering short-term disability means if drivers get injured on the road, they have financial peace of mind. This extends to drivers who must be away from work for a short period of time. Some companies offer voluntary life insurance plans for additional financial security. Engage in conversations with your drivers about which of these optional benefits would be useful to them.

There are two main approaches to bringing in truck driver leads in the industry. The first focuses on sheer numbers. Cast as wide a net as possible and you’ll have dozens of potential leads to consider for open jobs. The second focuses on lead quality over quantity. This can be a more time-consuming and tedious process, and you’ll have to narrow the search a bit. Then you focus your efforts on the high-quality applicants to convert them to drivers for your fleet.

Taking the quality approach ultimately wastes less money and time. While we aren’t going to solve the quality versus quantity debate, we do know that there are a few things you can do as a recruiter to increase the quality of your leads. Here are four strategies to focus on to improve the quality of your truck driver leads.

1. Narrow the Candidate Pool

Focusing on quality means that not every job applicant should receive the same amount of time-investment on your part. Once you narrow down the pool of candidates, you can focus more on the high-quality leads rather than lose time and energy on candidates who are not a good fit for you.

Finding the right fit can be made easier by using qualifying questions in the job application and initial contact.

There are many questions you can ask to decide whether candidates are a good fit for your organization and for the jobs you have available. Consider asking about years of experience, type of experience, driving record, region of operation, and preferences about home time. After learning this information, you can easily sort out the candidates who don’t fit the profile your fleet is looking for. Narrowing the pool as early in the game as possible will save you more time, energy, and money on not pursuing leads who don’t meet your criteria. You can and should save these leads for future reference as you may want to contact them in the future.

2. Lead Scoring

Now that you’ve narrowed down the pool, you can focus on the leads who are strong prospects for the job. Eliminating them using qualifying questions is just the first step though. The leads who are remaining aren’t all equally suited for the job.

You have limited time and resources to spend on pursuing a lead, so use lead scoring to help prioritize who to talk to first.

You can assign lead scores based on some of the same criteria which are attributes of the jobs you are trying to fill or based on the attributes of the drivers themselves. Which of your truck driver leads has experience with ice road trucking? Who only drives local? Which ones prefer over-the-road or team driving? Match these with the jobs you are looking to fill. Assigning each prospect a score will help you keep track of how much time and energy you should invest in pursuing them. Follow the highest scoring leads first and soonest, at the expense of the lower scored ones if needed.

3. Understand Why Drivers Decline Jobs

Okay, so you’ve eliminated the leads who aren’t suited for your fleet, and you’ve prioritized the rest based on your lead scoring system. Now you need a method to contact them fast. The longer you take to contact your prospects, the more likely it is they will be driving for a different fleet. We’ve written earlier about how the top reason drivers decline jobs is because they recently accepted another position which was offered to them first. This is another reason to implement lead scoring and prioritization.

4. Contact Drivers Quickly

Losing your leads to the competition is bad enough but losing top candidates is worse. If you wait too long, you’re more likely to lose the best candidates first. Then, you might be stuck with the prospects toward the middle or bottom of the pool. Use your lead scoring system to prioritize which leads to contact first. Then, focus on improving your contact rate. Start the conversation with prompt initial contact. After, follow up with more details and questions at a convenient time for them. Keep moving each lead through the recruitment pipeline, but start from the top of the list, and focus your energies there.

Focusing on truck driver lead quality over quantity has many benefits. Although the approach requires having a much more methodical recruitment system and some start-up cost, it can end up saving you time, money, and energy in the long-run.

You want to make sure you are not wasting time by pursuing the drivers who are wrong for your fleet. Regardless of which approach you take, there are strategies you can use to improve the quality of your leads. Narrow the pool, prioritize prospects using lead scoring, understand why drivers decline jobs, and contact drivers quickly. Each of these strategies helps maximize the chances of your fleet landing quality drivers.

In an industry like trucking, it can always be difficult to find new talent. This is especially true given the ongoing driver shortage. Truck driver recruiters need to constantly use a mix of old and new tactics to search for, select, hire, and then retain qualified drivers. Here are some of the best ways to recruit truck drivers using sound practices.

1. Try a New Spin on Old Methods

On the one hand, recruiting tools like job boards and referral programs bring tried and tested results. On the other hand, all your competitors are doing them as well. This means you’re losing the advantage of doing something special. Try a new spin on traditional methods to distinguish yourself from the competition. Most companies will offer a sign-on bonuses and a retention bonus for every year drivers stay on the job. Try offering a bonus for every six months instead. Posting job ads on a generic job board only goes so far.

To reach a specific audience, look for niche job boards that are industry-specific or demographic-specific.

Employee referrals are also a great way to connect to new drivers using your current drivers as resources. Why stop there? Use crowd-sourcing to find even more diverse talent. Internal referrals usually bring more of the same type of employee or talent. If you extend your finder’s fee to those outside the company, it will increase your chances of reaching a more diverse candidate pool. When using referrals, take care to structure the rewards properly. What will really incentivize your current employees to refer someone else? Maybe it should be a cash bonus, but maybe it could be a few extra days off or a chance to win season basketball tickets.

2. Harness Social Media

If you’re not using it already, advertising through social media is a great tool to reach drivers. Facebook even lets you advertise your jobs to specific people based on their region, demographics, or interests. The power of social media comes not just from the business side, but from the personal side as well. Encouraging your current employees to share job ads on their social media profiles will dramatically increase the number of people who view them. While you can’t force your employees what to post or not post on social media, you can incentivize it. Including social media recruiting outreach by employees in your referral program will help you reach more people than if you just posted on the business side of Facebook.

Some ads only reach those who have already expressed an interest in trucking jobs, but you can also use social media to reach passive job candidates who aren’t searching just yet.

There are many ways you can use digital marketing and recruiting to your benefit. Paid ads are just one of several options. When posting paid ads, try to write an exciting hook to catch the audience’s attention. Drivers are bombarded with ads from trucking companies which all look and sound the same. Anything you can write that differentiates you from the rest will be an advantage. Specifically, remember the power of multimedia: photos and videos make the content more engaging and will capture someone’s attention more than just text.

3. Look Beyond Your Core Demographic

You definitely need targeted advertising to those who are most likely to consider truck driving. But it would be a mistake to limit yourself to just that demographic.

It’s a good idea to balance reaching your current core demographic with making yourself appealing to future potential demographics.

Don’t just focus on those who currently apply to truck driver jobs. Women in truck driving is a growing demographic which would be crucial to tap into. This is essentially 50% of the job market which not all companies are reaching. Women with similar interests and backgrounds also consider working as drivers, but sometimes get discouraged by the industry. Make sure all your advertising is gender-neutral in language and can appeal to everyone. Take special care to reach women in trucking groups and tailor your recruiting message to them as well.

When interacting with different audiences, make sure you tailor your message to their perspective and address their needs and concerns.

Veterans are another demographic who often consider truck driving as a job. Go the extra mile by marketing to prospective drivers where they already exist, like veteran specific job boards or social media groups. Some of the best candidates for a new driving job may be someone who applied for a previous position which you already filled. Just because they weren’t suited for that job doesn’t mean they were a bad candidate in general. Keep in mind old leads and keep in touch with them in case something more suitable for them comes up.

4. Good Marketing is Good Recruiting

Don’t forget that a major part of recruiting is just plain old-fashioned marketing. Your company needs to be able to appeal to drivers before they will consider applying to work there.

In fact, you should be reminding the marketing department that they have two different audiences to market to: the customers and the employees.

To this extent, make sure there is a dedicated hiring page or careers page on the company’s website to shepherd those interested in working for you. In addition to your website, all your marketing channels should have engaging content which makes it attractive to work there. This will be particularly true on social media and other digital marketing channels.

Driver-centric content will show your prospective employees that the company cares about drivers needs and values.

People want to work in a culture and environment which supports and values them. It isn’t enough to foster a people-first environment where drivers will want to work; you need to market this as well. Highlighting driver experiences, testimonials from current employees, driver appreciation events, and a culture of professional development will go a long way toward making the right impression to your ideal job candidates.

Streamlining the recruitment process is a marketing tactic in itself. Make the application quick and easy for job applicants by making it mobile-friendly is a must. While conducting interviews, go out of your way to address concerns with some candidates will have. Contact your prospects soon, often, and on the phone so that they don’t get scooped up by competitors. These tips may sound like obvious ones, but you’ll be surprised by how many industry recruiters don’t engage in these practices. Make these practices routine, and you’ll impress drivers enough that they’ll want to sign on with your fleets.

Recruiting in an industry like truck driving can be particularly challenging. These are some of the best ways to recruit truck drivers which we recommend since they combine the old-fashioned with the latest methods. Using these methods will add strength to your recruiting methods and help you find the best drivers for your fleet.