Looking for real advise from Team CDL Drivers!

sbarrett

Expert Expediter
Motor Carrier Executive
Fleet Owner
Hey guys, first I wanted to say it was really good seeing a lot of you at the Expo!
And before I begin, I want to make sure everyone knows this is not a classified ad..haha
I'm just curious, in this day and age...what are some of the things you look for when choosing a company to drive for? What are your biggest concerns? What can I do to improve my recruiting efforts?
Any advise will help...thank you!
Steve Barrett
Barrett Directline
 
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Turtle

Administrator
Staff member
Retired Expediter
Just follow the Golden Rule. Expect (demand) the same from drivers.
 

TeamCaffee

Administrator
Staff member
Owner/Operator
Be honest with the miles and the pay. Give out averages so a potential recruit can decided if they can afford to do this or not. Let them know the areas you have freight, what kind of support team do you have for them? Who can they call when they get stuck somewhere and do not know where to move. Treat the person with respect before and after they get to the company. Figure out how to say Thank You when someone goes above and beyond to provide extra service or to solve a problem for the customer.
 

paullud

Veteran Expediter
The big thing that I would look at if I was changing companies and there were no major issues with perspective companies would be a sign on bonus. A sign on bonus says that a company may really have freight and needs drivers to move it. Just don't take after some of the big trucking companies and offer some huge sum that pays out at their 20 year anniversary because that will put a bad taste in someone's mouth in a hurry. It doesn't even need to be cash in hand but it could be something like covering start up costs or QC fees for a year. Changing companies can be very expensive and the extra assurance that someone won't be bogged down in fees that certain companies use as an income stream could help draw people in.
 
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Mailer

Veteran Expediter
Owner/Operator
Early in my driving career, I used to team. And, I would have stayed if the following questions were met.

What are some of the things you look for when choosing a company to drive for?
MONEY. The bigger the pay, I would fine it hard to leave.

What are your biggest concerns?
HOME TIME. May be not right away. But eventually, I would leave if home and work are out of balance.

What can I do to improve my recruiting efforts?
My thoughts...
It was mentioned above.....Load 1. Also, may I add Crossroads. John and Murray have always been on EO forum, proactively. We have never met but I felt like I have known them for years. If I were to look, they are on the top of my list. Just because.....they were talking with us almost daily thru the forum.

And from the net search, in my previous career, this method works very well.

"Employee Referral Rewards: It is always better to hire someone who was referred by a current employee. A current employee understands your company culture and can give a sense of whether a new person will be a good fit for the organization. To incentivize employees to refer others, we offered different items, such as cash rewards, free iPads and Flip cameras, etc. to employees who referred people to join our company that we ultimately hired. We staged their reward so that they received the smaller prizes upon hiring and the bigger cash rewards came after the employee had been onboard for a stated period of time. By staging it, this incentivized our employees to refer long-term hires, rather than people that were only planning to stay with us for a short period of time. Some of our more aggressive employees went to the extent of placing Now Hiring flyers with tear off phone numbers on the inside door of bathroom stalls in office towers. Watching employees compete to find new creative ways to recruit others was as rewarding as the recruiting results themselves."
 

geo

Veteran Expediter
Charter Member
Retired Expediter
US Navy
keep drivers inform on what's going on in company, have open door were dispatcher and drivers are able to talk to each other,
how Roberts express used to be, some dispatcher could ask drivers to cover a run and they would
because they new they would be take care of later
don't let thing become us and them, where there is no trust in company or the drivers
be like family
 
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Jim Tropf II

Active Expediter
Carrier Management
My opinion is all based on theory at this point, but I have to believe that honesty, transparency. and appreciation are the driving factors in retention. The best recruiting tool has got to be reputation now more than ever. It has become very apparent that owner ops are extremely leery of "recruiters" and usually for good reason.

Hi Steve.
 

TeamCaffee

Administrator
Staff member
Owner/Operator
Ragman I agree that is another sign of distrust is we treat you like family.... Have you seen how some families act? That is scary. I want to be treated like the professional that I am and I will treat the carrier as the professional they are.
 

paullud

Veteran Expediter
I look at a sign on bonus different. If there is a large sign on bonus you have to wonder why they are having to pay to get drivers? Are there so many drivers leaving they have to pay to get drivers to come in the front door or sign on?

Large turnover would fall under the major issue thing that I mentioned and could easily be figured out with basic research. I'm saying if I narrowed my search down to a few companies knowing that I wouldn't have to pay a bunch of fees when earnings are likely to be lower it could be a deciding factor. Or the same with a cash sign on bonus. A sign on bonus wouldn't make me sign on with a terrible company.
 
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jjtdrv4u

Expert Expediter
I look at a sign on bonus different. If there is a large sign on bonus you have to wonder why they are having to pay to get drivers? Are there so many drivers leaving they have to pay to get drivers to come in the front door or sign on?

interesting to see that a lot of the larger companies in the expedite business are offering sign on bonuses for tractors and straight trucks (none for anything smaller);

where you see most being offered is in general freight business, where all the tractor guys having been doing it for years, and they are always looking for drivers for the big rigs.
 
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davekc

Senior Moderator
Staff member
Fleet Owner
Probably several factors to look at. The primary one is the revenue and the consistency of it. No way around it. If a carrier has the greatest dispatchers in the world and can tell you nicely they have no freight, that is a problem. People are generally more tolerant of stupidity if the revenue is there. With that said, some carriers are their own worst enemy.
Spending outrageous sums on recruiting while at the same time having rude or "high school" dispatchers. Goes on all the time, and then wonder why they have high turnover. Just amazing. Hear a lot of "us verses them".

Transparency is the other one. Just too much information out there via he internet for carriers to engage in a lot of silly game playing. They know who they are. Game playing with foolish fees, dispatching errors, intentional and otherwise, insurance and fuel surcharge games, the list is endless it seems.
As long as carriers engage in many of these practices, they can't be surprised by the results that they currently get.
As of late, it seems that "sins of the past" have caught up or are catching up to many carriers. Why they can't grasp the concept of a partnership is beyond me.

With regards to sign-on bonuses, they help to defray some of the cost to move or add a truck. But, it wouldn't be a deciding factor on what carrier I would look at.
 

akkshole

Veteran Expediter
Owner/Operator
US Air Force
Well I have always thought that if the bigger carriers don't have company vehicles, it is because they know that there isn't much money...and since many do not pay even a modest amount of money for our time "on call" as owner ops, none of them care enough about the drivers. Sadly if they needed us more, they would pay us, similar to owner ops in the general freight with tractor trailers.
 
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Jim Tropf II

Active Expediter
Carrier Management
The intent behind the sign on bonus is what is important. Many carriers understand the costs involved with moving a truck to a new company and are willing to help with that cost as long as certain criteria are met.

Some carriers use large sign on bonuses just to get people in the door, and then have so many rules around the bonus that they are practically impossible to attain.
 
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