If you’re in the for-hire trucking industry, it’s no secret there is a major shortage of truck drivers. Despite the national unemployment rate being over 7%, the industry struggles to find enough qualified drivers. The current shortage of roughly 25,000 means the recruiting market is highly competitive.
Are you familiar with the term “direct response recruitment advertising?” If it sounds complicated or you’re thinking, “Oh great, another method I need to learn,” then stop right there! Direct response advertising to recruit drivers is actually very simple, and you’re probably already using it in your truck driver recruitment strategy. But as everything goes, there’s always room for improvement.
A lot of the time we talk about driver recruitment advertising, the best channels to place your campaigns, how to optimize your strategy, etc. Today we’re going to remind you of an essential part to finding and recruiting truck drivers: retaining them. Because what’s the point of going through the steps of hiring applicants to just have a high driver turnover?
With the driver shortage showing no signs of abatement, trucking companies and recruiters are feeling the heat across the board. It’s time that employers of transportation professionals around the country take note of the gap between the driver need and driver availability. The era of the Millennial generation is here and it’ll take a well-developed recruitment strategy to get in front of this new crop of prospective drivers.