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We live in such a technology-driven world that it’s impossible to run your business without it. Think of all your processes: how you capture and manage leads, how you measure results, your ATS, etc. Technology plays a big part in your fleet.
There’s also the matter of how you reach drivers. Many of the drivers you are looking for are online. According to our research, 60% of company drivers and around 30% of owner-operators use the internet to search for jobs. The majority of each driver type search on Google.
So, it’s clear. The trucking industry needs technology. You may be fully aware of this but are you really getting the best out of those tools? The pressure to keep up with digital trends can encourage you to incorporate every new platform and program out there into your recruiting strategy, but that doesn’t mean any and everything works for you. To find out what does, it helps to understand the part technology plays within recruiting. So where do you begin?
Let’s say you have the human aspect of recruiting covered. Your recruiters are great. They have great conversations with drivers, follow-up throughout the process, and are good at keeping drivers interested. But even with recruiters that good, being human still presents certain limitations. At the end of the day, they cannot answer every call, get back to every single lead on time, or avoid losing a few leads along the way. So how do you deal with these shortcomings?
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Know the Importance of Balance
We’ve seen the shortcomings of depending on human effort alone in your recruiting, but leaning too heavily on technology can also create shortcomings. For example, you can create drip campaigns which can be effective, but if the content isn’t good enough, it can turn into spam.
Another example is in mobile-friendly websites, which are a necessity for recruiting. About 80% of the driver traffic on our recruiting sites is mobile. So let’s say your website uses mobile-friendly technology. If you crowd your site with pop-ups and chat bots, technology becomes an annoyance. Your brand can feel devoid of humanity. This shows that balance between Human effort and technology is key in your recruiting.
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Understanding the Strengths of Both
If you take a look at the strengths and weaknesses of human effort and technology, you’ll see that where one is weak, the other is strong.
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Create a Partnership
To get the best out of both the human side of your recruiting and technology is to partner the two. So now that we know the strengths of both, let’s take a look at how this partnership works throughout the recruiting process.
Budget
Your Role: You are responsible for getting the emotional buy in needed from decision makers at your fleet by presenting your ideas and plan to take recruiting to the next level.
Technology’s Role: Use data to tie your plan to revenue. Here, we provide our clients with a recruiting calculator that mathematically justifies the budget that’s being requested.
Securing Leads
Your Role: You use your creativity to create not only aesthetically appealing ads, but ads that tell real stories about real people.
Technology’s Role: To improve efficiency, A/B test ads and use data to see what works.
Contacting Leads
Your Role: You decide on the best method of contact, the frequency, and the message.
Technology’s Role: You can automate method of contact, frequency, and the message according to the guidelines you design. This way you respond to leads faster and more often.
Finding Qualified Drivers
Your Role: You define who is the right fit for your fleet not only when it comes to qualifications, but also what drivers suit your culture.
Technology’s Role: Using data, you can target more of the right driver internally through lead scoring, and externally through hyper-focused messaging using data.
Scheduling Drivers for Orientation
Your Role: With good coaching, recruiters can effectively listen, show empathy, and align needs with solutions.
Technology’s Role: You can record phone calls, as well as collect and analyze data.
Our world becomes more saturated with technology every day. To keep up with the effect technology is having on your industry, there needs to be a balance between the human effort put into your recruiting and technology. You may be good at what you do but you have limitations. Use technology’s strengths to supplement yours.
