How to Recruit the Right Drivers for Your Team

How to Recruit the Right Drivers for Your Team

As a fleet manager, it’s essential to have the right team to positively affect business operations. To grow your workforce, you’ll have to recruit good drivers and non-drivers to ensure your business runs smoothly and efficiently. If you want to attract the top talent, you’ll have to showcase your work culture and discuss the advantages of working for your fleet. In this article, we’ll cover recruiting tips so you can attract the best candidates to add to your growing workforce.

What Qualities to Look for in Drivers and Non-Drivers

If your fleet needs more workers, you may be wondering what qualities are the most important to look for in applicants. When hiring for your organization, look for drivers and non-drivers with the following qualities before hiring:

  • Patience (on the road for long periods at a time)
  • Stress-management skills (driving on the road can be stressful)
  • Alertness & Awareness (need to be prepared for anything that can happen while driving)
  • Time-management Skills (must make deliveries on time)
  • Reliability (be able to trust them to do the work correctly and efficiently)
  • Customer Service (provide quality service when performing deliveries)
  • Communication Skills (be able to effectively communicate information no matter the subject matter)
  • Independent (be able to work alone for long periods)
  • Mechanical knowledge (knowing how to take care of a truck in case of a break down or other mechanical issues)

Promote Your Organizational Culture

One of the first things a job seeker is going to look for is if the company has a positive work culture. Does your fleet have a welcoming, family-like work culture? Is open communication encouraged? Do their core values match with the company’s? This is the time to look inward into your organization’s beliefs, values, and culture to demonstrate to others what kind of working environment your business promotes.

People want to work at companies that care about them, are transparent, and value respect. Make sure to feature employee testimonials, display core values, and showcase everyday life at your job to give applicants a better sense of the company and if it aligns with their expectations.

Use a Referral Program to Attract Top Talent

Want to hire the best of the best? Utilize your employees as a tool to recruit like-minded workers who want to work in the trucking industry. Word of mouth is one the most common recruitment methods used to grow your workforce. If you want to recruit good drivers, then rely on the good drivers you already have to do the work for you.

Incentivize your workers with a referral program to influence them to spread the word about your company. By offering bonuses, more PTO, vacation, raises, etc., your workers will likely recruit for your business.

Be Transparent In Your Job Board Postings

Listing your open positions on job boards is a go-to way to recruit new talent. In your job board postings, it’s critical to be transparent to bring in the people who best align with your organization. Be honest about the job’s expectations, qualifications, pay, and benefits of working for your company. It will be up to the applicant to decide if these qualifications meet their needs and/or expectations.

Transparency establishes trust with new applicants and is an extreme advantage. Many organizations tend to leave out vital information, which can lead to a recruit quitting early once they discover the whole truth.

Brand Your Company

Does your organization have a quality logo, website, or presence? The first thing new applicants will do when applying is search the company on the internet, look at your social media, or read employee testimonials online. Your brand’s presence is one of the most important touch-points that can decide if someone will apply to work at your company or not.

Investing in branding services can build your brand to ensure your fleet is recognized as top-tier and a great place to work. If you do not have an in-house branding department, partnering with an agency to handle all of your branding needs can be pivotal for your organization’s recruitment success.

Offer Competitive Pay

As an organization, you’re more likely to recruit top talent if you can offer competitive pay. This way a driver is more inclined to leave their current job if they know they can make more at your fleet.

Think about it in this sense. Good drivers do their best to deliver shipments on time, think about fuel costs, consistently maintain their vehicles and comply with all road rules and regulations. A good driver saves your business money in the long run by prioritizing cost-effective solutions for your business. By offering competitive pay to recruit the best of the best, your organization will save money in the long run.

Want to Learn More About How to Trucking Recruitment Strategies?

We hope this article covering how to recruit top talent for your organization helps with your search. At TCI Transportation, we have an entire website dedicated to trucking careers, with a variety of non-driver and driver positions to choose from, each with benefits, competitive wages, and a great organization to work for. We recognize that people are the key to our success.

We are dedicated to serving the trucking industry by providing the latest equipment, drivers, management, and cost-effective tech solutions. If you want to stay up to date with the latest trucking information such as this, sign up for our email newsletter to have leading industry news sent straight to your inbox.

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