The competition is ruthless on everything related to trucking industry. Getting good drivers is not exception. In fact, it’s probably the hardest thing in business.
Is it even possible to get great drivers anymore? It’s not easy like it used to be, but yes it is. Not in traditional ways though.
But, let’s not jump to conclusions. It would be better to analyse this issue first, and then see what can we do about it.
That’s why I will briefly introduce the problem of drivers shortage in trucking industry, before showing the path to the truck drivers. Later on you can check useful tips about organizing the interview with your potential drivers, as well as the questions to prepare for it.
Let’s start.
Truck Driver Shortage
No matter if you are starting a trucking business or you are 10+ years in the industry, you always want to hire a great drivers. The problem is shortage of truck drivers in general.
This didn’t come suddenly. A lack of trucker drivers in USA is an issue for over a decade.
However, the number is rapidly increasing, and by the end of this year, truck driver shortage will be over 70.000 in USA.
Source: ATA’s Truck Drivers Shortage Analysis
At the moment, the median annual wage for a trucker is around $40,000 and it will keep going up. The truck drivers wage is something you can’t afford to get cheap on.
A huge demand for truck drivers will result in lowering the criteria the companies were setting. It’s another big reason to put effort in process of hiring drivers.
Post a Job Offer on the Internet
The fact is that truck drivers rare goods and they are very much aware of their current value. That’s why they will look and compare different job offers.
How will they do that?
Imagine for a moment that you are a truck driver drinking a beer and thinking about changing your current company. How would you be searching and evaluating your potential employers?
Simply by pulling out your mobile phone and typing something like: truck driving jobs; best trucking companies; best paid trucking jobs etc.
This is happening, and it’s happening very often. Just type some of that phrases in Google’s Keyword Planner and you’ll get the idea.
Phrase truck driving jobs was typed averagely 22.200 times every month, for last 12 months.
Obviously, most of searches was from people looking for these jobs – truck drivers.
They were probably using Google for the search. So, if you want to be spotted by these online searching job truck drivers, Google have to display you as the result of the search.
Can this happened to me? Yes.
Do I have to be a big brand name? No.
How to get Seen on Google
A great job offer, won’t bring you big number of truck drivers interested to work for you if they don’t know about your job offer.
What’s more, the truck drivers will never know about it if you are not on the first results they see after typing phrases related to their search for truck driving jobs.
Get FREE White Paper With Top 8 Questions That Truck Drivers Are Constantly Asking On Interviews
Because all of this, your goal is to get on the first Google pages for relevant search. There are two ways to achieve that:
- Through paid ads on Google
- Through Google’s organic search
Google Adwords (Paid ads)
First of all, you should know that your competitors are aware of Google’s search potential, and they are willing to bid for top phrases.
In other words, if you decide to pay for ads, it will cost money because the competition won’t get any easier. But, comparing to traditional marketing it’s still a bargain.
At this point, it would be best to hire a company specialized for Google advertising.
One of that companies is Hiring Driver Now. They cover major search engines: Google, Yahoo and Bing. It may look like an expensive one, but they will the job more efficiently then you can do on your own.
Their offer includes various of services:
If you calculate the time, effort and eventually the money you would use for your campaign, you will come to conclusion that hiring an internet job posting specialist is truly a smarter choice.
Organic Search Rankings
Another way to reach the truck drivers (or the way for the truck drivers to reach you) through search engine is to reach high organic rankings. It’s a process that requires time and skills.
Firstly ,you need to have an optimized website with quality content, that creates good user experience.This way you will build your domain and pages authorities, over the time. More on this at Moz.com.
LEARN 12 SECRET STEPS HOW TO MAKE $950 MORE PER TRUCK / MONTH
Hey! I'm George J.Magoci and I will send you a FREE eBook where you can learn 12 secret steps how to make $950 more truck/month.
Achieving and retaining good rankings is a never-ending process. Still, it really should be a big part of your long term strategy. Website with good rankings will bring the benefits in different aspects of your trucking business.
Again, the best thing would be to find SEO experts for this job, or at least to encourage your team to develop into this direction.
An Interview with the Truck Drivers
Once you have collected the job applications, next step is organizing the interview.
Start with setting the criteria you want your drivers to meet, including skills, personality, and professional experience.
You may need to change the standards during the process depending on applicants. Be flexible but don’t lower your scale too much. Wrong choice could cost you much more than organizing one more round the interview.
After filtering candidates with a reviews of their applications, it’s time to make a good old phone call.
DISCOVER 100 BEST TOOLS TO RUN TRUCKING BUSINESS
Hey! I'm George J. Magoci and I will send you a FREE eBook where you can Discover 100 Best Tools to Run Trucking Business.
While discussing their applications, and explaining them your expectations you should get a feel of candidates attitude and manners. Based on that, call them (or not) for a personal interview. Remember, they are your future representatives.
When it comes to personal interview, you should have the interview questions prepared. Also have all the paperwork related to your candidates with yourself.
12 questions to ask a truck driver on the interview?
Depending on what you think is a good truck driver, make a list of questions for the interview. Answers should provide you feedback that will clear any doubts.
