by Women In Trucking Staff, on Jul 30, 2023 1:39:26 PM
Michelle Siebert, Director of Finance, Kristi Randall, VP of Operations, and Sadie Church, Director of Recruiting & Marketing for Artur Express, Inc.
The more an individual can picture working for your company, the more exciting your recruiting efforts will seem to others.” - Shane Keller
Finding reliable and loyal talent to work for a business is a struggle for any industry, and the stakes are even higher when talking about the trucking industry. Companies are looking to recruit younger drivers to replace their outgoing workers. Several industry subject matter experts offer their advice on how to optimize driver recruiting results.
What Employers Say About Recruiting
Centerline Drivers has connected more than 50,000 professional drivers with Fortune 1000 and mid-sized companies since its founding in 1975. According to the company’s annual State of the Trucking Survey, 72% of employers last year said they’re having a harder time recruiting drivers, according to Managing Director of Recruiting Shane Keller.
“That’s a significant increase from the previous year, when only 57% said they were having a hard time,” Keller says. “We learned during that survey that the problem may really lie in a lack of outside-the-box thinking. Less than 25% of companies surveyed reported doing anything creative when it came to recruiting drivers. Even among those 25% seem to be doing kind of the same old things.” 
According to Heather Jewell, Director of Marketing Strategy for Fusion Now, an agency specializing in driver marketing and recruiting, a large part of her job is to identify those challenges in the recruiting process. She said most companies are missing the mark with conversion rates.
“A large part of that has to do with the length of the process, and the time to hire that carriers have in keeping drivers interested and engaged during that process as well,” Jewell says. “On the process side of things, I always recommend at least monthly sitting down and looking at what your process is from a driver’s perspective and being a little bit more empathetic there.”
How to Get the Attention of Potential Drivers
The way drivers are drawn into the industry has to change. Strategies for engagement initiatives have evolved over time. Jewell says Fusion Now is taking the approach of telling stories to highlight driver efforts and offer them more acknowledgment for their successes.
“About 90% of companies are going to say that they have industry leading pay, or that they treat drivers like a family member. That’s something that drivers have been fed for their entire career, even dating back to when truckstops were very popular for recruiting purposes,” Jewell says. “Instead of carriers really highlighting what those benefits are… they should let their driver’s success sell the position for them.”
Jewell mentions sharing pictures, videos, interviews, and celebrating the success of drivers based upon what companies have to offer is a new and creative way to grab potential drivers’ attention.
“If you do have industry-leading pay…show that a driver just purchased their first home because they’ve been driving with you for six months,” she says. “Show an example of where you’ve treated the driver like a family and really bring that home because if a consumer, or in this case a driver, is going to apply for a position…they’re going to see and want to see why that’s going to affect them and how that’s going to affect them.”
Use Diversity and Inclusion Initiatives to Recruitment
To attract a diverse group of potential employees, Artur Express intentionally has several employees who speak different languages, as well as a large population of transgender drivers. The nationwide transportation and logistics company is very cognizant of using employees’ preferred names and pronouns, according to Sadie Church, Artur Express’ Director of Recruiting and Marketing. The company continues to look at alternative sources for driving talent.
“The more an individual can picture working for your company, the more exciting your recruiting efforts will seem to others,” adds Keller and suggests that non-traditional demographics can provide additional sources of candidates.
“As you’re positioning your advertising, think about who’s in your ads,” Keller says. “Use a variety of genders, use a variety of nationalities, use whatever diversity representation you can that will generate the candidates you’re looking for. This helps everyone see themselves at your company.”
This article was originally featured in Edition 1 of 2023 in our official magazine, Redefining The Road. Download the latest edition here.
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