The American Trucking Associations continues to update it’s forecast that driver doomsday is coming. The same dreary news comes out of Canada. However, freight isn’t rotting on the shipping docks, our stores are full of merchandise, and people are getting where they need to go. The law of supply and demand hasn’t been repealed yet – you’re just on the wrong end of this law. There isn’t a lack of drivers, there is a lack of quality drivers for you to hire. Which means, there doesn’t need to be a driver shortage at your company. The driver shortage is for your competition.
Werner Enterprises President Derek Leathers confirms our point in this FreightWaves article that they hired about 2,700 of 100,000 applicants last year. Werner is one of the largest carriers in the U.S., but 100,000 applicant proves that there are plenty of drivers out there. Quality is another story.
We’re in the driver recruiting business so we’re not naive enough to think bucking the driver shortage is an easy proposition. Our 2% lead to hire ratio is comparable. Most applicants just aren’t hireable. Some have bad driving records, many can’t pass a drug test and others have medical conditions that make them too risky to put on the road. You only want the good ones; safe, courteous, friendly, professional and conscientious. The solution starts with building the recruiting funnel.
Targeted Advertising
Generic, mass media advertising brings you all types of drivers – but not drivers who will love working for you. Effective advertising is targeted advertising. You want to find drivers who are going to value the job(s) you offer. By clearly defining who loves to drive for you, your ads are more effective. Targeted ads also improve your conversion ratio because you’re ads are attracting the right people to your front door. As we’ve been preaching over the years, this process starts with by creating your drivers personas. Click the image below to use our Driver Persona Template to build yours.
Recruiting Process
Once you have effective advertising based on your driver personas, you’ll need an easy way for applicants to apply for the job. Quality drivers already have a job, so you have your work cut out for you.
Here’s a sample driver’s hiring journey: your new, catchy ad caught their attention while they were skimming through Facebook, they had enough interest to click on the ad and were attracted enough to submit their name and phone number. Advertising conversion! Now your job is to jump on that lead in minutes (not hours) and uncover the pain point of that driver. By using a driver-centric Applicant Tracking System, you have the ability to track your notes and progress of the driver and all messages you send can be branded and personal.
At a 2% lead-to-hire conversion rate, you need to systematize the communication process so mass emails/texts feel personalized. Drivers can see through the mass marketing bologna and want to know that you care about them as an individual.
An Applicant Tracking System like ApplicantCare is a must to manage the volume of leads necessary to meet your hiring goals.
Watch a 40 minute webinar that outlines the process by clicking the image below:
