I made a huge mistake back in my early days of recruiting that I'll share in just a minute.
First, let me ask you a question:
Say you get a driver lead, and he isn't yet qualified to drive for you.
For example, he needs 4 more months of CDL experience...
...or her record will be clear of a traffic violation in 8 months...
...or there's some other condition that doesn't fully DQ the driver but simply keeps her from driving for you right now.
What do you do with that lead?
Truthfully, I'm shocked when I ask that question to other recruiters and hear the response.
Most recruiters drop that lead like a hot potato and move on to the next one. Ouch!
Think about this:
- Advertising dollars were spent to get that driver in the door.
- The driver expressed interest in working for the company.
- The recruiter spent time screening the application.
And after all that...the lead is sent packing. Have a nice day.
Poof, they're gone!
Are you telling your leads this?
Now, maybe the driver was politely told to "Come back in 4 months when you have enough experience."
Frankly, that's better than nothing, but it puts the burden on the driver to remember and falls far short of what can and should be done.
Look, when I was wet behind the ears in driver recruiting, I routinely made the HUGE mistake of just throwing away those good leads.
Later, when demand picked up and I couldn't find enough drivers, I was kicking myself thinking about all that "recruiting gold" I tossed in the trash.
Good drivers that wanted to work for me but weren't yet qualified.
I had them right in my hands and I threw them out!
As a result, I was left scrambling for drivers in a tight market. More time, more advertising, more headaches.
Had I done then what I do today, I could have found the drivers I needed a lot faster and for far less money...and saved a lot of my hair!
You see, it was then that I fully grasped the importance of "building my list" and staying in touch with these near-ready leads so that when the time came I had a pre-screened pool of applicants to dip into.
Without all the scrambling. Without all the cost of new advertising. Without all the headaches.
Frankly, building and nurturing my list of driver leads is one of the main reasons my CDL driver staffing company experienced double-digit growth in recent years.
You might be saying, "Yeah, that sounds great, but it's also a lot of work."
I won't sugar-coat it...there is some effort involved in getting a system in place.
After the initial heavy lifting though, most of it is automatic...if you have the right tools.
And when you compare it to the cost and struggle of doing things "the old way", it's an absolute no-brainer!
At the heart of all this should be a customer relationship management (CRM) system.
A CRM system stores your driver leads and allows you to set up follow-up communications and tasks.
What can you send to driver leads? How about:
- Company or driver newsletters
- Important industry news
- Invitations to company events
- Surveys and contests
- Driver tips and tricks
Set the emails to go out automatically at a set time or send one-off broadcast messages whenever you want.
The idea is to stay in touch, provide helpful information and build trust.
Next, create follow-up tasks and reminders for each of your leads.
In an earlier example, create a task to contact that driver who will have enough experience in 4 months.
In DriverReach, creating a task takes just a few clicks, with an automatic reminder sent to the recruiter on the due date.
Follow-up task with auto-reminder
The beautiful part is that most of the communication and tasks can be automated based on a set schedule or a specific event.
This makes communication and follow-up a breeze.
And most importantly, starts building a relationship and trust with your leads...
...giving you a rich lode of "recruiting gold" to mine later.
-Jeremy Reymer
Co-founder and CEO
Anyone else having success with this approach? Any questions for me? Please share in the comments!
