The driver shortage and a lack of resources impact every small-to-midsize carrier. However, they are not the reasons why you are dealing with empty trucks.
You can be hiring drivers and growing your business. But first, you must address the real causes preventing your company from accomplishing these things.
Here are the 4 reasons why your company isn’t hiring truck drivers:
- Poor Lead Generation Execution
- Slow or Nonexistent Recruiting Processes
- A Bad Job Offer
- Overworking Your Truck Driver Recruiters
1) Poor Lead Generation Execution
You will never hire truck drivers if they never apply to your open positions.
Also, if you are relying on low-quality leads you are going to have low-quality results.
Having strong lead generation procedures is the foundation of effective hiring. Once your company begins filling your hiring pool with high-quality leads you can build processes that keep your trucks on the road.
You would not build a house on a weak foundation, so don’t build recruiting processes on the foundation of weak leads.
Effective lead generation includes: high-quality advertising, lead source management, and automated lead nurturing.
Contact Meramec Solutions to learn more about best lead generation practices.
2) Slow or Nonexistent Recruiting Process
Your company must have an established process to follow each time a lead comes in.
Winging it, or waiting until you have free time to recruit leads is a recipe for failure. The drivers will have moved on to the next company by the time they are contacted.
Another critical element to hiring truck drivers is a fast recruiting process.
The optimal time for calling interested drivers is 5 minutes or less. Waiting 30 minutes to call a lead will make recruiting 21x less effective compared to calling in the first 5 minutes.
Mapping out your process for each time a lead comes in will make it easier to respond quickly and hire more drivers.
3) A Bad Job Offer
The biggest reason that your company is failing to hire truck drivers is that you are promoting a bad job offer.
Even strong lead generation practices and fast recruiting processes cannot solve the problems associated with a bad offer.
Many carriers think that they cannot afford to provide a job offer drivers are interested in. This is not true.
Your company can offer many things that are of no additional cost to the company but will be appealing to drivers.
Respect and company culture are two things that you can prioritize for free and make your company an attractive employer.
4) Overworking Your Driver Recruiters
Your driver recruiters are just that, driver recruiters!
Do not overburden their workload with tasks outside of recruiting.
Too many carriers expect their recruiters to be digital marketers, social media managers, hire all the drivers, run orientation programs, and also retain drivers.
Assigning too many tasks to your recruiters is leading to poor performance on each task.
Think of golf, you don’t use your driver for every shot on the course. Instead, you have specialized clubs for each unique situation.
Hiring truck drivers is similar to golf in the sense that you need to utilize specialized talent for each step of the process. That, and when you are doing it right there is nothing more fun.
Conclusion
Too many companies use the driver shortage and lack of resources as excuses for empty trucks.
The fact of the matter is that your company can hire despite these two challenges. But first, you must address the real reasons why your company isn’t hiring drivers.
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