Recruiting Truck Drivers by Going Outside the Box

Every fleet operator wants the best possible applicants when recruiting truck drivers. With today’s tough hiring market, finding the right driver is more difficult than ever. Smart fleet operators are recruiting truck drivers by going outside the box and looking into new areas for potential hires.

While the ultimate goal should be increasing the quality of applicants, it never hurts to increase the quantity as well. So how can you get more applications to your job post? With a steady approach, you can find the right applicant for your specific trucking job.

Recruiting Truck Drivers by Going Outside the Box – Get More Applications

It sounds, and it is simple; if you have more truckers and applicants to choose from, you have a higher chance of finding the perfect candidate for the job. This means using resources that are not typically used to recruit.

Use General Job Boards

To find as many candidates as possible, you need to post your job opening on as many boards as you can. The internet has thousands of job boards you can choose from, but it’s best to start with the ones that have the most users and are regarded as the quality, reputable sites. To expand your efforts, set a goal of creating a profile and listing jobs to 10 new sites this month, then stick with the ones that work and try five new sites next month.

General job-board sites that can bring in truckers include:

• Indeed.com
• Craigslist
• SimplyHired

Beyond the well-known job sites, other good places to post are local and regional job boards. While the site traffic is not as heavy, interested job seekers will find your listing much easier, and the appeal of a local company will be stronger. Newspapers, county and state government agencies, and employment agencies all are resources which may have these job boards.

Use Trucking-Specific Job Boards

After you have posted your trucking job to general job boards, you can narrow down your focus to trucking-industry job boards. These sites are highly effective for finding and sorting through candidates, and many drivers start their job search at these sites. Some allow you to post your job and wait for applications from drivers, while others have you create a profile and automatically receive suggestions of drivers who have registered with the site.

Trucking-specific job boards include:

• Truck Driver Jobs 411
• Big Truck Driving Jobs
• Class A Drivers

Create Search-Friendly Job Descriptions

It’s tempting to get creative with your job descriptions, writing titles like “Now Hiring Over-the-Road Rock-Stars.” But how many trucker drivers go to Google and type in “rock-stars”? It’s much more effective to write job descriptions and titles that are search-friendly, allowing search engines to accurately connect your job post with reliable drivers.

Give your potential hire the best chance to find your position by using clear, commonly-used language, such as “driver,” “trucker,” and “owner-operator.” In the body of the job description, you have plenty of opportunities to get creative with your post.

Rejuvenate Job Descriptions

Almost every job board you use will favor newer job posts over those that have sat for a month or more. If you want to get better results, make sure all of your posts are updated at least every other week, so they don’t get buried in the shuffle.

Many boards allow you to create a clone of your recent job, which essentially gives the old post a new date. You can also create an entirely new job post to keep things fresh. However, you need to be very careful with recreating posts, as many sites will punish you for continually posting the same job over and over again, which is seen as spam.

Modify and Enhance Your Site

Maybe you don’t need a bunch of job boards at all. Perhaps all you need is to refresh, update, and expand your site. Make your site search-engine friendly by touching up the content with key phrases, such as “recruiting truck drivers”, “trucking jobs,” “hiring truckers,” and “jobs in trucking.”

You can create a wide variety of landing pages that target specific keywords, and you should consider creating a blog for your company, then posting articles on hiring truckers. Sometimes basic modifications to your existing site are just what you need to bring in more trucking applications.

Important Note: Quality Should Matter Over Quantity

The topic of this article was getting more truck drivers to apply to your job opening, but remember that what matters to your company is the quality of job candidates over the quantity. It’s much better to have two high-quality candidates that fit the position than 200 people who randomly filled out an application.

So when you are making changes to enhance your number of applicants, don’t make changes that will sacrifice the quality of candidates. Stick to clear, specific job descriptions; when used in conjunction with our suggested changes, your results will be much better.