How to Recruit Drivers in 2019: Part 1

Almost 9 months ago I began a new career in the transportation industry. Having worked for myself in a different industry for most of my adult life, I really didn’t know what to expect. My closest experience to that of a truck driver was the time I decided to drive a boxtruck 36 hours straight to Reno, NV. 

It’s a long story but basically a buddy and me were desperate to make some money during college break one summer. We traveled across the country selling shoes at various tradeshows. We became master shoesalesmen and most of our profits were spent on beer and cheap motels. Anyways back to the point…

My first month in the new gig, I had the opportunity to do some sales training with David Dulany from Tenbound. I remember my first session quite well. David recommended I really get to know my prospects and to put myself in their shoes. He suggested I take some recruiting managers out to lunch to better understand them and their role. I began learning as much as I possibly could about driver recruitment and the issues that recruiters face daily. With the help of my coworkers and some of our customers, I was able to get up to speed pretty quickly.

LESSON #1: SYSTEMS RUN THE BUSINESS AND PEOPLE RUN THE SYSTEMS

Although I had never recruited a driver before, I did have plenty of experience selling. I had done just about every type of sales role imaginable. From my first business in middle school selling CDs all the way to closing multiple 6-figure deals with Amazon, I understood the importance of building relationships and providing value. In order to do this consistently, it was crucial for me to have the right systems and processes in place.

Specifically, when it comes to sales I have a structured approach that enables me to close deals faster. Through a set of repeatable steps, I am able to take a prospective buyer from the early stage of awareness all the way through the closed deal. In my opinion, recruiting should be done in a similar manner, especially in the competitive landscape of today. A good recruiter has to be able to manage the hiring experience for multiples leads simultaneously. That applicant management consists of everything from the initial contact with the driver or prospect all the way through onboarding and orientation.

In recruiting, many of the same concepts apply. Just as sales professionals are constantly working to bring more quality deals into their pipelines, recruiters must similarly work to attract and qualify more drivers. This competitive, prospect-driven mentality is typically associated with the sales industry, where each deal is treated as a life-or-death matter.

Phil Jones said it best on the Recruit & Retain: Trucking Edition Podcast when he explained that recruiting is simply figuring out how to get people to pick you out of the crowd because they like you best. If anyone can relate to this pressure, it’s a salesperson. in through more channels, your recruiting team has a wider pool of talent to work with, leading to increased conversion rates. 

It is important that these channels and pipelines are being measured. Sales-driven organizations are leveraging technology in order to operate faster and more efficiently. Recruiting departments must do the same if they want to compete in today's environment consisting of a shrinking pool of talent.

In sales, we use CRM (Customer Relationship Management) software to manage and track our activities. I absolutely live in my CRM. It makes my life much easier and enables me to "work smarter". There is no possible way I could do my job the way that I do today without this beautiful tool. In the past 6 months, I have made over 8,000 calls, sent more than 1,000 emails and set 300+ demos all without ever having to leave the system.

In trucking, there is a modern solution that can do for recruiting what HubSpot (my CRM) does for me on a daily basis.

Thanks for stopping by and reading my first article on recruiting. If you liked what you read please comment and share your thoughts below.

Also if you'd like to learn more about myself or DriverReach's modern recruiting management system, here is my contact info:

Email Dgoff@driverreach.com Phone 317.752.0536