Chapter 1
Recruiting basics

Drivers can’t go into a truck stop without being bombarded by recruiters and recruiting magazines. Major trucking companies spend millions on advertising and employ dozens of people in their recruiting departments.

As a small carrier, you need to find ways to compete for drivers, even though you may not have as much money to invest in your recruiting efforts. It’s critical that you make sure every dollar you spend on recruiting counts.

To become successful at recruiting drivers, you must view recruiting not as a personnel function, but as a key sales and marketing function. Recruiting requires your company to gain expertise in advertising, telesales and direct mail.

Many carriers resist treating recruiting as a sales and marketing function. Few companies want to sell someone on going to work for them, because they believe that any driver who must be sold on working for them probably won’t last long.

But the better you are at recruiting, or selling your company to potential employees, the more selective you can be in the drivers you hire. Becoming a better recruiter is a starting point in improving retention.

Like most sales activities, recruiting drivers is a numbers game. The chart on the following page illustrates the 10 steps in a typical recruiting process. To hire five qualified drivers, you may need to talk with 100 prospective drivers. How many drivers you hire is determined by the quality of the potential drivers, as well as your ability to pull as many qualified drivers through your recruiting process as possible.

Step 1: Answer driver inquiries
The first step to successful recruiting is to get prospective drivers to call your company. Most carriers focus on this step because inquiries can lead to hiring drivers no matter how good or bad a carrier is at recruiting. If you need to hire drivers in a hurry, getting the phone to ring is one of the quickest ways to get results.

Answering prospective drivers’ calls with intelligent responses is the surest way to weed hirable drivers out of those who call.

It’s critical that you treat each call as your only chance to talk to a driver. Assume your prospective driver has called five other carriers – all of whom are eager to talk. Unfortunately, most carriers do not answer every prospective driver call. The phone may go unanswered for several rings until the driver hangs up in disgust. The receptionist might answer the phone and transfer the call to the recruiter who is on another call so the driver’s call automatically goes into voice mail. A voice mail message might ask the driver to leave a name and number, but not every driver will do so. And few drivers are easy to reach with a return call.

For all of these reasons, it’s important to keep calls from prospective drivers out of voice mail. A live person must pick up the phone and talk to the driver. While most calls will be funneled to whomever does the recruiting – often the safety director at small companies – make sure you have at least two other people who can take the call if the recruiter is unavailable. This increases the hours during the day someone is available to take calls. It also provides a backup if the recruiter is on the line talking to another prospect.

To increase the number of answered phone calls, consider establishing a separate toll-free 800 number for prospective drivers. This will give you statistics on the number of prospective driver calls you miss.

Another way to increase the number of answered calls is to take calls on weekends or after normal business hours. Saturday mornings are when drivers often have time to call, yet few carriers have a recruiter available on weekends. Having a separate phone number for driver calls will tell you when calls are being missed so you can adjust your recruiter’s schedule accordingly. Be sure to include the hours you are taking calls on advertisements.

You can improve the quality of calls received by targeting your advertising. Carefully consider what types of drivers you want. How much experience do you require? Where can they live? Then target your advertising to reach these drivers.

Most small carriers will spend from $500 to $1,000 a week on advertising and pay little attention to results, other than the number of phone calls. But it does little good to have drivers in Texas call if you never go there. Evaluate how many qualified calls you receive per advertising dollar spent. One of the principles of successful recruiting is not to waste time answering calls from drivers you don’t want to hire.

Step 2: Screen prospects
Regardless of how well you spell out your needs in your advertisements, you will receive calls from drivers who do not meet your qualifications. Sometimes this happens because they did not read the information. The more time you spend with unqualified applicants, the less time you have for qualified drivers. This doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be pleasant and professional to all drivers who call. But during the first minute of conversation with a driver, the recruiter needs to determine if this prospect is worth the time.

Most qualification questions are straightforward. Where do you live? What is your work history? What type of driving record do you have? A question most recruiters fail to ask is if the driver is serious about switching carriers.

Step 3: Ask for an application
Once the qualification process is complete, recruiters can begin to learn what the driver is looking for in a carrier. A good recruiter focuses on why the driver is seeking another carrier and tells him how his company can meet his needs.

Too many recruiters simply give a standard sales story without getting to know the driver. In a good recruiting call, the driver should do most of the talking.

It is important for the recruiter to be absolutely honest about his company. While he does not have to point out the negatives, he needs to answer all questions honestly. It is better to be up-front with a driver than to have him discover something negative during orientation. If your company does not offer what the driver is looking for, both parties should recognize that fact and move on.

A good driver uses this part of the call to screen the carrier. Drivers know when a recruiter is being evasive. Only an honest rapport will recruit a driver.

Most major carriers don’t mail or fax an application. They try to take the driver’s application right over the phone. While they will mail an application to a driver who doesn’t want to complete a phone application, most view that as a sign the driver isn’t committed to switching carriers yet.

Like all sales processes, the key in driver recruitment is to ask for the sale. The hardest part for someone new to recruiting is to ask for an application.

Step 4: Approve applications
To stay competitive in recruiting drivers, you need to get applications through the approval process quickly. Major carriers try to process applications within 24 hours. Some take only four hours.

There are two parts to approving applications. First, get a 10-year work history for each applicant, in accordance with regulations. Second, verify whether the applicant meets your hiring criteria.

In the interest of time, many carriers work with the driver to get a mostly complete application over the phone. Some use recording devices to make sure they get accurate information and have a record of the driver approving a background check. Faxes go out requesting verification of employment to each of the driver’s prior employers. Some companies also use electronic searches to check the applicant’s driving record.

Despite their best efforts, few carriers can complete the background check within 24 hours. But if nothing negative shows up immediately, and the driver’s application meets their hiring criteria, many carriers will issue the driver a conditional offer of employment, provided that all the background information checks out as stated on the application.

Check with your lawyer to make sure conditional employment offers are lawful under your state labor laws.

Step 5: Offer employment
Speeding up the application process is based on the belief that the longer the period from initial call to job offer, the less chance the driver will accept employment with your company. He will either go to work for another carrier or lose interest in switching jobs.
When a driver calls to see if his application has been approved, you cannot afford to mishandle the call if you want to hire that driver. Those responsible for taking driver calls need a list of drivers they hope will call back. This challenge is another reason why relying on voice mail is not a good idea.

Making employment offers or turning down applicants is a sensitive task and a potential legal land mine. To be safe, only a qualified person should do it. But if that person is busy when the driver calls, the person taking the call should let the driver know that someone will call back to discuss his application with him. If the person in charge of hiring is not available, indicate that a letter will be sent to the driver’s house.

If a driver does not call back on the day he was expected to, call his house, say you have good news and ask the driver to call. In addition, send a letter to his house with the job offer and other information about your company.

You will not know why the driver did not call. He may have gotten too busy. Maybe he decided to give his current employer another chance. Either way, it is always worth the time and money to follow up with a qualified driver.

Step 6: Schedule orientation
Once a driver accepts your job offer, the real indication of how serious he is about working for your company comes when you schedule orientation. Even after agreeing to attend, many drivers don’t show up. Sometimes the reason is legitimate such as an emergency at home. Other times, the driver has accepted another company’s offer.

Drivers who are serious about switching jobs usually apply to several carriers. If they are good, they will get several offers. Many of these drivers wait until the last minute before deciding which orientation to attend.

To increase the number of drivers who show up for orientation, the owner or president of a company should call each driver the week before he is due at orientation. Nothing impresses drivers more than talking to one of the heads of the company. The call can be simply an introduction and an informal greeting telling the driver you are looking forward to meeting him.

If the driver appears hesitant, address the issue of multiple offers. Ask him which orientation he plans to attend. At that point, many drivers will commit to coming to work for you because you took the time to call.

If a driver says he is going to work for someone else, all you can do is leave the door open. Ask him for his reasons but do not try to talk him out of his decision. If he has decided to stay put, don’t try to persuade him to make a premature job jump. By respecting his decision, you show respect for him as an individual. In the long run, this will do more to attract this driver than any selling you can do.

Step 7: Follow up with no-shows
If – despite your best efforts – a driver fails to show up for orientation, call him at home immediately to find out why. If the reason appears legitimate, decide whether to give him another chance. This should be based on the strength of the driver’s application. To simply not show up, regardless of the reason, may indicate that this driver does not take his job seriously.

Step 8: Complete drug test, physical and road test
Either before or at orientation, prospective drivers must pass their drug screens and physicals. Many carriers try to get drivers tested at a clinic close to their home before coming to orientation. This speeds up orientation and avoids that awkward problem of what to do with a driver who tests positively for drugs.

Don’t treat the road test casually. It reveals what kind of driver the applicant is. Mistakes made during the road test will be repeated in actual job performance. Set a high standard and don’t be afraid to fail drivers. In fact, if everyone passes your current road test, the standards are probably too low.

Step 9: Complete orientation
Once drivers pass the drug test, physical and road test, most will complete orientation. This might not be a good thing.
Given the need to recruit drivers over the telephone, the first time a carrier can actually meet and observe many drivers is during orientation. Too often, drivers fall asleep during orientation, demonstrate illiteracy or argue with the instructor. Yet they pass.

If a driver shows signs of being a problem during orientation, part company in a respectful and professional manner. Weeding out “bad apples” sends a message that your company has standards. This is hard to do after you’ve invested so much time and effort in getting the driver to orientation, but the alternative – hiring a bad driver – is far worse. Problem drivers affect everyone in the company, and they can make your employees cynical toward all new drivers, even potentially good ones.

Surprisingly, one of the hardest parts of implementing this advice is getting the person who is conducting the orientation to terminate the problem driver. Athough the evidence is there, he may be uncomfortable making a termination decision.

Let the people who conduct orientation know that you do not expect every driver to complete the course. If they have concerns about a driver, tell them you want to know right away. Then do what needs to be done.

Step 10: Follow up
At every stage of the process there will be drivers who do not make it to the next step. For example, they may only have six months’ experience, and you require one year. Or they could decide not to change jobs.

Companies that excel at recruiting use the names of qualified drivers gathered throughout the recruiting process. If the driver disappears during the process, they send a letter wishing him well. The driver without enough experience receives a letter as soon as he gets enough time behind the wheel. Some companies even send birthday and Christmas cards to prospective drivers. Such thoughtful gestures send a strong message, particularly to drivers whose current company doesn’t put forth the same effort.

You’ll get better results from your marketing efforts if you direct them toward prospects who meet your qualifications and at one time expressed interest in coming to work for you.

In Summary
Successful recruiting requires your company to view finding qualified drivers not as a personnel function, but as a sales and marketing function. Even though you may not have a huge recruiting budget, there are ways to attract qualified drivers. Proper handling of phone calls from prospective drivers is key. Moving qualified drivers quickly through the screening, application and job-offer process helps ensure your company won’t lose a good driver to a competitor. Even if a qualified driver fails to complete any step in the recruiting process, stay in contact with him. Focusing your marketing efforts on qualified prospects that have expressed interest in your company will pay off.