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How to Recruit Truck Drivers in 2023

driver shortage, hire drivers, recruit drivers, Trucking Industry August 1, 2023/by Emily Bihm

Recruiting and retaining quality truck drivers is one of the biggest priorities for companies across the country in 2023. As one of the largest occupations in the United States, companies are always looking for new ways to hire. The question is, how do you recruit truck drivers, while simultaneously increasing your retention rate? The answer is to get creative and stand out from your competitors.

What Are Truck Drivers Looking for in Their Next Job?

With so many options available, truck drivers are making careful considerations before they accept a job offer. Trucking is one of the toughest jobs out there and drivers want to make sure the company they work for aligns with their career goals and personal needs. Some of the most common benefits that drivers look for include:

Fair Pay
Consistent / predictable home time
Health Insurance

Retirement Options
Versatile Schedule & Paid Time Off
Ongoing Training & Development

When deciding how to recruit truck drivers to your team, you will want to ensure that you offer a comprehensive benefits package that is appealing to drivers in all stages of life, including those who are single, married, have children, etc. Offering competitive pay, bonuses, and regular raises is also key in attracting and retaining drivers. Ultimately, each driver you hire is going to have unique needs, so working with each person to understand what he/she wants during the recruitment and hiring process is also important.

Who Are Your Potential Candidates?

When companies consult with us about how to recruit truck drivers, we always want to make sure we help them identify the type of candidates they are looking for to fill their open positions.

How much experience would you prefer they have?
What are the routes you need filled?
What can a driver expect in terms of pay, perks, and benefits?
Do their values and work ethic match the company’s mission?
Do you need drivers interested in team jobs?

It is also important to remember that the demographics for truck drivers have evolved in recent years and your top candidates may not be the same as they were ten, or even five, years ago. The United States Census Bureau states that, “Among younger truckers under age 35, more of them are women, Hispanic and more educated than their older counterparts age 55 and older. They are more likely to be high school graduates and have some college education.” With that said, old recruiting tactics may no longer apply in trying to connect with a younger demographic or with women entering the trucking industry.

Millennials

A key demographic that is emerging with truck drivers is Millennials. This age group ranges from 27-42 and were born in, or after, 1981. This age group is less than the median age of truck drivers, which sits at 46, but offers potential for companies looking to recruit new talent. Truck drivers in this age range are looking for positions that will fit well with their lifestyle including benefits packages, flexible schedules, opportunities for advancement, positive work culture, and community. Recruiting a younger demographic requires creativity and willingness to foster an online presence on social media.

Women

“The percentage of professional drivers who are female has increased to 13.7 percent in 2022, an increase of more than three percent since 2019,” according to the Women in Trucking Association (WIT). With this substantial increase, companies must be more cognizant of the female demographic and what it will take to recruit female drivers to their teams. WIT offers a couple strategies to help recruit and retain drivers including broadening the talent search to include underrepresented demographics, including the female demographic, as well as offering opportunities and benefits that would resonate with female drivers.

By recognizing the unique capabilities of different demographics, you can diversify your candidate pool and recruit talent from across the board.

A Few Things to Avoid During Recruitment

According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, “between 1995 and 2017, the annual turnover rate at large TL carriers averaged 94.0 percent and that at small TL carriers averaged 79.2 percent.” This alarming statistic shows that recruiting new employees is more than just onboarding; it is an ongoing relationship that must be fostered to be mutually beneficial for company and employee.

Recruiters can follow all the best tips out there when it comes to finding top truck drivers to join their teams, but certain mistakes can end up costing even the most experienced recruiters a new hire at present, or later down the road, if an employee feels unhappy with his/her position. During the recruitment and onboarding process it is vital to remember:

Communication is Key: From the first interaction to successfully onboarding a new driver, communication is the foundation of a successful relationship. People feel valued when they feel that employers are keeping them updated on where they are at in the hiring process and have a support system once they accept an offer. Even after onboarding, touching base with your recruits and asking for their feedback, goes a long way in establishing loyalty and increasing retention.

Hire More Than the Stereotypical Truck Driver: As discussed earlier, the demographics for new drivers entering the market are very different than they used to be, so it’s important to keep an open mind when it comes to reviewing resumes and interviewing candidates. Don’t rely on referrals alone, consider the benefits of hiring younger drivers, female drivers, and even new drivers, especially for team jobs.
Make It Personal: Drivers want to feel that they have a connection to your company, so offering personalized feedback is a nice touch during the recruitment process. Company-wide, it is also important to create a culture that makes each employee feel valued and that there is a community atmosphere.

For more tips on recruiting truck drivers, download our Ultimate Guide to Truck Driver Recruiting. We look forward to helping you recruit and hire for your team!

Hiring Drivers? Read These 5 Important Tips to Set Realistic Recruiting Goals

hire drivers, recruit drivers, retain drivers, truck driver shortage, Trucking Industry July 27, 2023/by Elijah Larson

Recruiting truck drivers can be tricky. With the ongoing driver and freight shortages, coupled with evolving hiring practices industry wide, it is important to have clear standards and policies that follow realistic and measurable recruiting goals.

Every company has different hiring practices depending on fleet size and capability, so setting realistic recruiting goals is an important step for your company to find top talent who are the right fit for the job. Keep reading to find out Drive My Way’s 5 tips to set realistic recruiting goals that will take you from hiring to onboarding in no time.

Understand and Define the Need

How many drivers do you need? Do you know which drivers are necessary for each market? These are important questions to ask yourself when setting foundational goals in recruiting. If you set goals regarding how many drivers you need and the necessary qualifications, you will be able to assess if your sourcing strategy will provide enough candidates that fit the criteria needed for your company. This is why it is essential to know where potential candidates are looking for jobs or industry updates.

It’s also important to understand why the opening exists to be able to create hiring goals. If a driver is retiring, how far in advance should you be looking for a replacement? If you’re anticipating growth within your company, how should this reflect in your hiring practices? Defining your company’s demand is an important step to creating specific and attainable recruiting goals.

Set Goals on a Timeline

Setting goals is a key part of working ahead of time and being prepared. The hiring process can take a lot longer than you anticipate. Background checks and drug clearing house processing alone can add days or weeks. Allotting extra time and being flexible when creating will help you remain on track and still be able to measure your success.

Even with goals set, you should still start ahead. Strike up connections with potential candidates, even if the time isn’t right yet. You’ll thank yourself later for being proactive now, by networking with drivers who could be a fit down the road.

Establish Clearly Defined Minimum Qualifications

Save yourself time and money by setting recruiting standards specific to your company. Well defined hiring criteria will ensure that every candidate meets the basic requirements, so you can spend more time with these candidates to eventually find the perfect match. It’s also important to be up front about your minimum qualifications. For example, if your company requires hair-follicle drug testing and you mention this on the job posting, candidates may self-select out and save you both in the long term.

You also can’t have unrealistic expectations for applicants. You might prefer drivers to fill out an extensive application, but in today’s competitive market, drivers tend to not fully complete applications until all their questions have been answered. Be sure to make job listings mobile-friendly, and don’t be afraid to reach out to candidates with partially completed applications or you could lose top talent by setting unattainable goals.

Provide Goals with Incentives for Recruiters

Providing recruiters with incentives is a smart move to encourage high hiring rates and team morale while achieving your recruitment goals. When doing this, it is also important to make sure to have goals measuring quality metrics and not just hiring volume.

As potential candidates progress through the phases of the hiring process (sourcing, screening, interview and selection, background check, offer and acceptance, orientation and training), it is important to measure your conversion rates through each of these phases to ensure efficient and effective practices. Providing incentives for recruiters successfully bringing candidates through this process will help you achieve your goals while keeping your team invested in the company.

Set Goals From Recruiting to Orientation

You have to look at the total candidate experience. As a recruiter, the job isn’t finished until the driver has officially started, and retention is a key measurement of recruiter success. To improve retention rates, hold the recruiter accountable for not just hiring the driver, but also for retaining them. By setting goals and providing incentives along each stage of the hiring process, your recruiters will ensure that they will create an open channel of communication with the candidate that should exist even after they’ve been hired.

Metrics like volume of candidates attending an orientation, the speed of the process, and the amount of support they receive along the way are important markers to monitor and adjust when creating recruitment strategies.

Setting goals for driver recruitment can help you achieve the results your company is looking for, but it’s important to keep one more thing in mind. Every step of the recruitment process should be measurable and able to be evaluated at any time. This means that recruiters should do a good job at marking where candidates are in the process, and management should organize and remain up to date on qualitative and quantitative results.

Here at Drive My Way we’re always looking to learn more about the best recruiting processes and hiring strategies. If you have any ideas for us, please reach out on our social media so we can continue learning!

4 Ways Recruitment Automation Can Help You Hire Drivers Faster

recruit drivers February 10, 2023/by Reid Smith

recruitment automation The first goal for any truck driver recruiter is to bring in the best drivers to their organization. The second is to bring those drivers in quickly and efficiently. We’ve talked about how important it is to keep drivers moving through your hiring pipeline quickly, but what’s the best way to do this? Here are 4 ways that your carrier can use recruitment automation to hire drivers faster.

1. Finding and Engaging Drivers

How to Use Recruitment Automation to Hire Drivers Faster Your recruiting team only has so many hours in the day, and sometimes those hours can get allocated to tedious, clerical tasks that aren’t directly related to hiring drivers. Using recruitment automation technology helps with those tasks so your recruiters can spend their time connecting with drivers.

Engaging and Nurturing Drivers

Once a driver applies to your job, what happens next? Is the driver contacted immediately or does it take your team a bit to reach out? Automate this process by introducing nurturing campaigns that instantly contact interested drivers with next steps, all while not sacrificing the personal touch. Consider platforms that have multi-channel capabilities including chatting, emailing, and texting.

Automated Job Distribution

When you post a new CDL driver job on your website, do you then have to manually share that opening across all the other channels you want it to be on? Save hours of your time by partnering with channels that will automate your job distribution efforts to different job boards and hiring sites.

Corporate Website and Career Page

Your website is your virtual first impression to driver candidates. If a driver is interested in working for your carrier, can they quickly find the information they need? Within one or two clicks, are they able to find your open jobs?

If not, making some updates to your website is something you should consider. In addition, keeping your career page updated with open positions and integrating application forms with your recruiting software will save you time in the long run.

2. Tracking Applicants and Interviewing

company pitch Once you have a steady flow of driver applicants for your open positions, what’s next?

Applicant Tracking System

Pushing your interested drivers to your Applicant Tracking System (ATS) is another way you can use automation to improve the speed of your hiring process. You can continue to nurture drivers once they are added to your ATS by setting up and monitoring campaigns that allow you to automate periodic interactions.

Interviewing

Once you’re ready to start interviewing drivers, automating the process around scheduling interviews and following up with candidates is key to saving you time.

3. Verifying Employment and Background Screening

Screening is an important part of the hiring process in all industries, but it’s vital for making safe hires in transportation. Using the right tools to automate your screening process can be the key to ensuring you’re hiring safe, qualified drivers.

Employment Verification

The FMCSA requires that every candidate go through a comprehensive screening process before they’re fully hired. A big part of this screening process is verification of employment (VOE). If you’re still doing VOEs on paper forms and faxing documents to verify a driver’s work history, you can save time and money in the long run by having this process automated.

Background Screening

In addition to verifying employment history, a full background screening is necessary to ensure quality hires. The following information is typically collected during a background check:

Criminal records check
Drug and alcohol test
License check
Motor vehicle records check
Physical health exam
Sex offender status

There are different applications out there that can run background checks for you automatically, so you know you’re not missing any critical piece of information that would cause you to not make a hire.

4. Hiring and Onboarding

exit interview We know that recruitment automation can help you find driver candidates more quickly. But what about after you find them? Where can you continue to automate processes with your employees?

The hiring and onboarding process is another part of the hiring pipeline that can benefit from automation. Using electronic forms instead of requiring candidates to come into the office to fill out paperwork is a huge time saver for both the driver and the carrier.

If your team is looking for a better way to recruit drivers, consider working with a recruiting partner like Drive My Way. We’re ready to help you put together a plan that best fits your needs, and help you recruit drivers that are the best fit for your open positions.

Comprehensive CDL Recruitment Solutions

Ready to start recruiting the right drivers? Our solutions experts are happy to answer any questions and show you how Drive My Way uniquely approaches CDL driver recruitment.