Better Branding Maximizes Truck Driver Recruiting

April 11, 2013

branding_iron

A compelling brand strategy is the most cost-effective weapon you can have in your driver recruiting arsenal.

Ever ask yourself how Apple can charge $1500 for a $750 laptop? Because it’s worth it to the people who buy them. That’s the power of a great brand. Ever ask yourself why the typical self-respecting Southerner would sooner take a bullet than serve Pepsi at a party? Because it’s not Coke. That’s the power of a great brand.

So how can you ensure that your brand is as strong as it can be, and effectively supporting your company’s recruiting goals?

Start With A Thorough Brand Review.
A brand is a lot more than the slogan of the month. It’s who you are, from your people to your service processes. It’s what comes into people’s minds when they think of your company or product. So what comes to mind when people think about you? It’s a good question to start the ball rolling. And don’t just ask yourself that question. Ask others.

Develop A Positioning Statement And Brandline.
Your positioning statement (or elevator pitch) should reflect the central benefits your company offers a driver or team. And a memorable, strategically-sound brandline (IE, Apple: Think Different.) can serve as the foundation for all of your marketing communications.

Make The Necessary Internal Adjustments.
If your brand review indicates others perceive you differently from how you perceive yourself (or how you hope others perceive you), simply re-working you brand message is only the start. You’ll also need to make changes in the company itself.

Be Consistent.
Once you’ve identified all the necessary changes, you’ll need to deploy your new brand strategy through all your communications channels. Driver recruiting ads are important. But they’re only part of a truly effective plan—which should encompass everything from your Social Media strategy to the way your recruiters handle incoming calls.

Stick With It.
Study after study has demonstrated that businesses who maintain a consistent advertising investment average significantly higher sales growth than those who don’t. The same applies to driver recruitment. Particularly during recessions. After all, if your competitors are cutting their ad budgets, what better time to reach-out to their drivers and prospects?

Think of it this way: If you’re in a room with 20 people talking at once, all you hear is noise. But if 19 go silent, suddenly the one person who’s still talking can be heard loud and clear. Now that’s taking advantage of opportunity.

FOR FURTHER READING:

3 Tips For Making Your Driver Recruiters’ Calls More Effective

Recruiters: Is your company keeping the promises you’re making?

Three Lessons From MATS For Truck Driver Recruiting


Build Your Facebook Following For Truck Driver Recruiting.

September 26, 2012

How One Small Company Made A Big Splash In Social Media.

(Photo from Baggett’s Facebook albums)

Now in its third generation, Birmingham’s Baggett Transportation is a family-owned company specializing in military transport. When Director of Recruiting Daniel Buckhannan joined Baggett in mid-2011, he knew he wanted to increase the company’s Facebook following; he just wasn’t quite sure how. That’s where his agency came in.

Where To Begin? Where Else?
“The agency had already done an exceptional job of re-establishing Baggett’s brand identity in the driver market, so their first piece of advice was: Whatever we do, it has to be true to the company brand.”

Why?

1) Your brand is, by definition, what comes into people’s minds when they think of your company. It’s the foundation on which you build loyalty, with everyone from drivers and customers to office employees.

2) Social is the place where your company should engage fans and drivers in open conversations—not tin-eared sales pitches.

3) Any conversations you initiate, or (much worse) tin-eared sales pitches you make that are inconsistent with your core brand will ultimately weaken loyalty to your brand—and, therefore, to your company.

In short, the most effective Facebook pages consistently speak with a voice that matches their company brand. Which is why (to use an extreme example) promoting a daily diet of Colt 45 and primo weed is perfectly consistent with your brand if you’re Snoop Dogg, not Justin Bieber.

Baggett’s Brand: Family Oriented, Military Pride.
“We knew we wanted a campaign that would boost our fan base and strengthen our brand identity,“ Buckhannan continues, “and our agency came-up with a perfect strategy: For every new person who Liked us, we contributed $1 to National Veterans Homeless Support for the 2011 Christmas Holidays.

“We strategically launched our campaign on Veterans Day (November 11)—with the goal of generating 2000 Likes before Christmas. The agency had already helped us build-up a significant fan base over the previous few months [from roughly 39 to 1839], but the results of this campaign were beyond anything we’d anticipated.”

Exceeding Expectations Weeks Ahead Of Schedule.
Baggett reached its goal of 3889 Fans by December 6—less than three weeks after launch, and nearly three weeks ahead of schedule. Just as importantly, during the campaign, Baggett’s “People Talking About” rate averaged nearly 19%. And, Buckhannan notes, the “talk” was overwhelmingly supportive.

To put that 19% rate in perspective, industry blog Social Media Today has said, “A decent ‘People Talking About’ number works out to be anywhere between .5% and 2% of your total fans. More than 2%, and you’re a rock star.”

Strengthening Retention With A Private Page.
Baggett’s latest Social success is a private Facebook group—established in March of 2012, and open only to existing drivers. “So far,” Buckhannan reports, “about 40% of our fleet has joined the group. Driver posts on the page range from friendly small talk to serious discussions of safety rules.”

Since Baggett doesn’t publicly promote the private page, it’s not a draw for attracting new drivers. But it’s certainly proving effective at boosting retention. While the company’s annualized turnover rate for 2012 is roughly half the industry average (47%), turnover among its private Facebook group is an almost-unheard-of 3.5%.

And that’s a number you can deposit in your bank of brand goodwill any day.


7 Tips For Recruiting Younger Truck Drivers Through LinkedIn

August 16, 2012

Implementing a LinkedIn strategy now can pay huge long-term dividends in your driver recruiting efforts—particularly if your driver force is aging quickly.

It’s been over 18 months since I originally published this post. Since then, the results you could get from a LinkedIn search for “Truck Driver” more than tripled—from under 20,000 to nearly 62,000.  Granted, that number is  a drop in the bucket compared to LinkedIn’s reported worldwide membership (175 million as of June 30)—but it’s clear that divers are catching on. Particularly younger drivers—who are, obviously, much more savvy Social Media users than their elders. All of which is why I figured it was time to update this post.

In an early-2011 article, recruiting industry veteran Tim Giehll offered four tips for establishing an effective LinkedIn strategy for your recruiting. In retrospect, I’m adding three more.

  1. Create a strong company and career page on LinkedIn. Make sure your company profile is up to date, informative and compelling. Make your job postings rich with keywords. This will help job seekers find you more easily.
  2. Converse with other HR professionals. You can start with LinkedIn’s Hiring and Human Resources Questions page to see what other HR people are talking about. And there are many links to questions and answers about personnel, staffing and recruiting.
  3. Search for candidates via keywords and employers. Smart LinkedIn candidates will have keyword-rich profiles and detailed employment histories—so that they will be found by recruiters like you.
  4. Consider one of LinkedIn’s paid services. These include: LinkedIn ads. The LinkedIn Referral Engine. LinkedIn Recruitment Insights. And LinkedIn Recruiter, a powerful search engine specifically designed to help recruiters locate and communicate with candidates.
  5. Join as many LinkedIn groups as you can. Then plan a strategy for posting relevant content to those groups. I underlined relevant, because the same message may not be appropriate to every group. Some groups (like Logistics Manager Jobs) are pretty close to online job boards—where lots of members post job openings. Others (like Driver Retention Network) are forums for sharing ideas and content, not sales pitches. Groups like that might not yield direct results in hiring, but can certainly contribute to your overall strength as a recruiter.
  6. Build your network of contacts. There are any number of theories about who should be in your LinkedIn connections. I tend to avoid connecting with direct competitors—whereas my good friend Scott Simon (who had 27,580 connections on the day I re-published this post) credits much of his considerable success in recent years to his policy of connecting with anyone and everyone.
  7. Send personal messages with your invitations. One of my pet peeves is the LinkedIn (or Facebook) invitation from a total stranger who didn’t even bother to explain why they chose to send an invitation. To me, it’s borderline Spam—and it tells me they bring nothing of benefit to a potential connection. So take the time to write something—and use invitees’ names in your message. You’ll get a much higher rate of acceptance.

All that said, don’t expect instant results. Like all Social Media, LinkedIn isn’t a panacea solution for recruiting. It’s just one part of the puzzle—but clearly, it’s becoming a bigger part every day.

CEO of Global Recruiting Software manufacturer Bond Talent, Tim Giehll has 25 years of financial, operational, and technology management experience in large companies such as Manpower.

Click on the following links to read Tim’s articles, “LinkedIn to Replace Monster & Careerbuilder” or “The Use of Social Networks in Recruiting Continues to Grow”


Recruiters: Is Your Agency Taking You For Granted?

May 18, 2012


If you asked me, all too often the answer is Yes.

In the years since my firm has been serving the trucking industry, I’ve talked with a lot of recruiters who were referred to me by friends and contacts. Referrals which, more often than not, included some variation on this suggestion: “You should call them because they’re not happy with their agency.”

I honestly can’t tell you how many conversations I’ve had that sounded a lot, or entirely, like this:

Do you and the agency regularly review your numbers together?
—No.

When was the last time they made adjustments to your plan?
—Months ago.

Are they aware that your numbers are way down in the past few months?
—Yes.

And they haven’t suggested any adjustments?
—No

Tell me about your Social Media strategy.
—We don’t have one.

How does your turnover compare to the industry average?
—It’s actually a lot higher.

So what steps has your agency suggested to help you bring that down?
—We’ve never talked about retention.

I notice the website they did for you doesn’t really say anything about what makes your company unique.
—No, I guess it doesn’t.

Why not?
—They’ve never really explored what makes us unique.

Have they ever interviewed any of your drivers, to determine your strengths and weaknesses in recruiting and retention?
—No.

So how do they determine the strategy and content of your messaging?
—That pretty much comes from me.

(And finally, the pièce de résistance—which, admittedly, I’ve heard only once): Who’s your account rep at the agency?
—I don’t know.

Friends, if you have the same answer to any one of the questions above, your agency is not doing everything it can to support your recruiting goals. Granted, there are often legitimate reasons for that; for starters, you may be handling a lot of those responsibilities in house.

But if your agency relationship sounds a lot like the conversation above, and they have more than a bare-bones budget to work with, chances are you’re being taken for granted. In which case, there’s no two ways about it: you’re not getting your money’s worth. That’s wrong.

One of our long-time clients had virtually the same experience with their previous agency. (Click Here if you’d like to read about it). Needless to say, they saw a need for change, and they made it.

So if your agency relationship sounds a lot like the conversation above, here’s my question: Why haven’t you made a change?


Integrated Recruiting: If You Knew It, You’d Do It

May 11, 2012

In an excellent piece for BusinessWeek magazine, Steve McKee explains why it’s so important for all your recruiting efforts to work together.

While McKee’s original column addresses the broader issue of marketing, his points are directly applicable to driver recruiting. Here are the key points I pulled from his piece—adapted to your specific needs as a recruiter:

New marketing channels pop up every day, from apps to publicity stunts and beyond. Audiences (and attention spans) are becoming increasingly fragmented. That reduces the chance any message has of getting through.

How do you overcome fragmentation? Integration. That means communicating a consistent identity from message to message, and medium to medium. More importantly, it means consistently delivering on that identity.

Everything you do to attract, convert and retain drivers should be integrated—including your human resource practices, your training programs, even your compensation and employee evaluation metrics.

So why don’t more companies implement integration strategies? They don’t start with a strategic messaging foundation, and they don’t have the patience to see it through.

Companies that maintain healthy growth over time tend to have more durable messaging strategies and longer-lasting campaigns, while those that struggle tend to change direction more frequently.

That’s exactly what’s happening in the cola wars. Coke has remained focused and consistent for years, and is winning market share, while Pepsi recently fell to an embarrassing No. 3  in the market behind Coke and Diet Coke. That’s why Pepsi is now reexamining everything about its brand.

What’s the first step?
Take a close look at all of your company’s messages to prospective and existing drivers. Compare those messages with what your drivers experience once they sign-on with you. If it doesn’t all connect for you in some meaningful fashion, it won’t for your prospective and existing drivers, either.

If your messaging strategy is weak (or off the mark), you may need to do what Pepsi is doing, and reexamine everything.

It may be that your problem is more a matter of execution: You’re simply not doing what you’re promising.

Or it could be that you haven’t pulled the trigger because you haven’t seen a flawless plan for integrating all your recruiting and retention efforts.

Here’s the good news: There’s no such thing as a perfect integration plan. Over the long haul, the companies who have the real recruiting advantage simply do it better than their competitors.

Steve McKee is the author of When Growth Stalls: How It Happens, Why You’re Stuck, and What to Do About It.

Click Here to read his original article in its entirety.


UPS Delivers Truck Driver Recruiting Success Through Social Media

April 15, 2012

A good Social Media strategy can deliver an excellent ROI for Truck Driver Recruiting and with 955 total hires through Social Media in 2010, UPS is living proof.

Todd Raphael, a writer with the Journal of Corporate Recruiting Leadership, recently published two online articles documenting UPS’s efforts, and the results. Here are the highlights:

Facebook Delivers Data.
UPS launched a Facebook page for careers in early October of 2009. By February 2011, the page had 14,365 fans. Analyzing fan data, UPS has determined that 78% of its Facebook audience is 18-44. And that 95% of its fans are from the U.S.

Social Media Delivers More Conversions.
Using both Google Analytics and its own talent acquisition system, UPS captured data on social media visitors who applied for UPS jobs. They determined that Facebook and Twitter delivered double the conversion ratio of created applications to hires, compared to all other online media.

By the Numbers:
UPS’s 2010 hires through social media break down like this:

  • Twitter: 45
  • Facebook: 226
  • Text-Messaging: 84
  • UPS’s Mobile-Friendly Careers Page: 600

Matt Lavery, UPS’s Atlanta-based corporate workforce planning manager, says that all these numbers are based on actual tracking. What’s more, he says the 955 figure is probably understated.

Cost Per Hire Drops Dramatically.
Based on an initial combined investment of $15,000 to launch its Twitter and Facebook pages UPS’s Social Media cost per hire in 2009 was in the $1,000 ballpark. Now, it’s more like $60 – $70.

With No Ad Spending.
UPS didn’t use paid media to spread the word and lure people to visit its jobs pages. It used social media.

A Work In Progress.
Even UPS is still feeling its way around Social Media. But the company is clearly convinced of the space’s effectiveness. So much so that they have made a profound shift in where they’re spending their recruiting ad dollars. Five years ago, UPS spent almost all its recruiting-ad dollars on traditional media, including print, TV and mailers. Now, it’s spending less than 1% on that sort of media—shifting its money (and time) to job boards, social media, and search engine optimization.

What makes all this information so relevant is, of course, the fact that UPS hires a lot of truck drivers. So if you haven’t already launched a Social Media strategy for your recruiting efforts, there’s no time like the present.


When Online Complaints Impact Your Truck Driver Recruiting.

January 23, 2012


Seven steps you can take to repair your
company’s damaged reputation.

Between Social Media, and dedicated sites like RipoffReport.com, it’s easier than ever for disgruntled drivers to launch effective attacks on their ex-employers’ reputations. It’s one reason behind the rise of image-repair websites like Reputation.com—which today serves customers in 100 countries worldwide.

We’ve seen it first-hand.
In the past couple months alone, my agency has had extensive conversations with two separate companies facing that very problem—and from what I know, most of the complaints aimed at them are unfounded.

Again, that’s most of the complaints, not all of them. Which leads to the first, and by far most important, step your company can take to repair its reputation: Eliminate the root cause of the problem.

It may first take drastic action
I’m reminded of a policy maintained by one of the industry’s leading flatbed trailer manufacturers. The CEO once told me that whenever one of his plants faced a significant unionization threat, the first thing he did was fire the plant manager.

Why? 1) The fact that employees were dissatisfied enough to consider unionization told him they weren’t being treated as well as they should be, and 2) Firing the person at the top told everyone that nobody’s job was guaranteed.

The point, of course, is that heads may have to roll before your problem is solved. So let’s assume you can fix the problem. Here are six critical steps you should consider next.

Re-Brand
Your old brand may not fit your newly-fixed company. Presenting a new, and accurate, brand identity is the first way to show driver prospects you’ve changed.

Reach Out To Complainants
Very often, ex-employees’ complaints are entirely due to poor communication in the first place. There are a variety of techniques (direct and indirect) for mending fences, and securing retractions from complainants. It might even lead to some valuable re-hires!

Communicate More Efectively
Better communication means better relationships. Which means fewer and fewer complaints in the future. What’s more, it’s important you improve communications across multiple platforms.

Revisit Your Driver Orientation
When your orientation program creates unrealistic expectations, you’re setting the stage for future problems from Day One.

Establish A Complaints Contact
Make sure your drivers know the company is committed to hearing, and addressing, their concerns. Very often, the very opportunity to air a grievance is enough to keep a problem from escalating.

Use Social Media
Develop and implement a proactive and reactive social media strategy. Proactive, in publishing positive information. Reactive, in quickly responding to feedback—especially negative feedback.

Will these steps eliminate all complaints?
Probably not. Some drivers simply can’t be reasoned with. But if you’re doing all the right things, it’s not really your problem. It’s theirs. And most good drivers know a crybaby when they see one!

For Further Reading:

Build On Your Strengths To Improve Truck Driver Recruiting

With Truck Drivers, A Recruiter’s Work Is Never Done

What’s Brand Got To Do With Truck Driver Recruiting? Everything.

Improving Truck Driver Recruiting With A Satisfaction Guarantee


Truck Driver Recruiting: Lots Of Changes In The Online Recruiting World

March 17, 2011


Several new tools have emerged which can make your online recruiting efforts easier, and more efficient, than ever.

Self-described Job Doctor Jeff Dickey-Chasins has been doing his homework. In the process, he’s identified a number of services which could be of real benefit to your driver recruitment efforts. Here’s what he has to say:

There is a lot of activity in the online recruiting industry now. More than I’ve seen in many years. Why now? Part of it comes from the rise of social media and mobile, spurring innovation and new thinking about old recruiting problems. Part is dissatisfaction with existing models.

In a recent article, Jeff lists 7 online recruiting developments and services. Below are the 4 that offer the most relevance for truck driver recruiting.

  1. Jobfox Boost: A social media take on the traditional resume database. Allows recruiters to build ‘networks’ of contacts based on their specific criteria – but the real twist is that JobFox will ‘autobuild’ a network from its database of 7 million candidates. Includes a ‘spiff’ option that lets recruiters offer cash for referrals. The sheer size of JobFox’s existing database makes this an immediately compelling product.
  2. Bullhorn Reach: Similar in some ways to Boost, Reach provides a super simple, stripped down way for recruiters to communicate with candidates via social media channels such as Twitter, Facebook, etc. It has two basic pieces: “Jobs”, where the recruiter can create and broadcast a job to her network, and “Radar”, where the recruiter can track, connect, and expand her network. Extremely easy to use.
  3. Zuzu Hire: An interesting approach to candidate screening – offers video, voice, text, and multiple choice screening. Ideal for the company HR exec who just can’t make up her mind.
  4. JobRooster: Although some job sites have sent job ads via text messaging, JobRooster polishes and extends this idea, adding analytics and the ability to prescreen candidates. In a world where smart phones are not yet ubiquitous, this product makes sense.

One final thought for driver recruiters: Whenever there is a proliferation of new tech products and services competing in the same space, there follows an inevitable shakeout. It’s always good to know what’s out there, but you might not want to become overly reliant on just one. You never know who’s going to survive for the long term.

Read Jeff’s full article, Are you awake? Lots of changes in the online recruiting world!


Truck Driver Recruiting: Social Media Success Stories

March 14, 2011

If you can imagine a single job post reaching tens of thousands within hours (if not minutes), the power of Social Media is within your grasp.

As host of the popular internet talk radio show Truth About Trucking “LIVE” and  two well-known blogs, AskTheTrucker and TruthAboutTrucking, Allen Smith has evolved into something of an industry authority on the power of Social Media. He’s certainly built an audience in that space—with nearly 3200 followers on Twitter and some 3460 friends on Facebook by early 2011.

Smith’s audience is primarily drivers, but a lot of his experience can be easily applied to companies recruiting drivers.

Social’s Biggest Advantage Is No Surprise.
“It’s the power to make contacts,” says Smith. “Because they spend long periods in their cabs—either alone or with a single partner—drivers have a tendency to think of themselves as often being isolated from the rest of the world. But through social media, they can be connected to hundreds, even thousand of people, just by logging onto the Internet with a smartphone or wireless laptop.”

Going Viral. By The Numbers.
“Just by posting a single mention on Facebook, we’ve been able to find work for drivers who’ve been out of work for as long as a year.” And Facebook’s real power is its ability to spread messages virally.

Consider this simple model: The average person on Facebook has 130 friends. So if only 1/10 of Smith’s 3460 friends re-post a job listing, simple multiplication tells you he’s already potentially reaching 44,980 people (346 x 130) after a single round of re-posting.

Arrow Truckers Saved By Facebook.
“Here’s a perfect example of Facebook’s power,” Smith continues. “In 2009, when Arrow Trucking shut down, that left literally thousands of drivers stranded, with no way to get home, all around the country. Worse still, it left those drivers without jobs.”

“Well, the Facebook community got to work, and we got all those drivers home. And we also got a lot of those drivers new jobs.”

Just one example why Facebook would now be Smith’s choice for the strongest platform for reaching truckers in Social Media. “Not long ago, I would have said Twitter was the most powerful, but lately Facebook has really taken over the top spot.”

All of which leads to a pretty obvious question: If Facebook helped thousands of Arrow drivers get new jobs in 2009, how could it help you get new drivers today?  Check out some of these articles for answers.

Get your company profiled in an article! Just send me an email outlining any recruiting and/or retention issues you deal with. CLICK HERE for contact info.


Truck Driver Recruiting: Liability And Social Media

February 23, 2011

Don’t let liability concerns prevent you from using common sense in evaluating driver candidates through social media.

Social Media often feels like a new frontier, and in trucker recruiting (like any profession) we’re often more comfortable relying on the tools we’ve had for years. Like instant background reports. But as we’ve pointed-out elsewhere, those tools have their own liability risks. And very often, they only show a small part of a candidate’s Big Picture. Which is why Social Media can be a great way to fill-in the gaps when evaluating prospective drivers.

In an article for Workforce Management, HR expert Kris Dunn lists five new rules of evaluating candidates using social media. Here’s what he had to say.

“Liability is so top of mind that there’s a whole industry dedicated to telling HR pros what can get their companies sued, and how to avoid it. But there is one thing the HR police/risk management industry will never evaluate for you: The liability associated with not using your common sense as an HR pro.”

You’ve got a job to do. Here are 5 rules for evaluating truck driver candidates using social media:

  1. You can’t afford not to Google a candidate and see where the digital trail takes you.
  2. Hiring managers and HR pros are becoming much more tolerant about what they see in a candidate’s social media footprint—like party pictures. Our threshold for what constitutes a red flag is much higher, and more related to whether someone can do the job.
  3. You don’t give many candidates the real reason they were rejected, and that doesn’t change simply because social media is at play. Unless the candidate in question has a skills gap, most organizations don’t share the real reason for rejection. Why should questionable pictures or content mined through social media be held to a higher standard?
  4. Privacy settings have eliminated much of the liability related to social media. By far, the biggest risk to your company is digging into a social media account that is intended for nothing but personal use by a candidate.
  5. Evolution means some species don’t advance. You pay your employees to exercise good judgment related to what, and how, they communicate. This requirement is on display daily in your company, and when someone shows they can’t do it, you terminate them..

The HR risk management industry wants you to be scared. What should you do? Don’t be scared. Manage the risk and engage.

Click here to read Kris Dunn’s complete article. Note: You must join to read but membership is free and will provide you with access to thousands of articles, tips, policies, forms, product listings and more, and receive the popular free e-mail newsletter Workforce Week.

An additional article that may be of interest, “The Pitfalls of Using Background Reports In Truck Driver Recruiting”


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