Now that I have your attention, let me start by saying that I know your recruiters are almost certainly NOT lying to your candidates. Not exactly. What I mean is that they may not be empowered to tell the “whole truth” about your company, and that can be a problem.
If potential truck drivers and other candidates don’t get an accurate picture of your company, its culture, and the job they’re being hired to do, that can cause issues right out of the gate when they come on board, and build a bad foundation for retaining them over the long haul.
So how do you set your recruiters up for success, and give them what they need to tell your company’s whole truth? Read on to find out.
The truth is in the details
Occasionally, recruiters inadvertently omit important details about a job. I once heard a story about a recruiter working a position for a line haul driver where they failed to mention the position involved hauling a truck full of city garbage every day. Yikes!
That’s an extreme example. However, it does illustrate the importance of recruiters having complete and accurate details at their fingertips to share with candidates. All too frequently, misunderstandings occur because drivers ask pointed questions, and recruiters simply don’t know precise answers. They don’t know your company’s whole truth.
In my experience, some of the most commonly misunderstood details are related to questions about the following subjects:
- No forced dispatch
- No slip seating
- Hours/miles
- Freight-types
- Payroll
Making sure job postings are accurate, thorough and complete, and ensuring your recruiters know them inside and out, is the key to making sure they can provide candidates with absolute clarity around these kinds of important details.
Truth through continuity
One of the biggest contributors to the recruiter knowledge gap is a lack of stability on talent acquisition teams. If you let go of recruiters in leaner times, you lose continuity and your team (the new ones, at least) won’t know your company’s truth, and its nuances, as well as you’d like.
This is true of any department, of course, but it’s of particular importance for the people who are talking to candidates day in and day out.
As with salespeople, recruiters who have been with your company for a long time will know its truth much better. The truth about your culture, your driving jobs, and life at your company in general.
This is more important than you can imagine when you’re trying to project yourself as a genuine, positive, values-based carrier that’s committed to both its customers and employees.
Creating truth-sayers during slow periods
In periods when hiring is slow and recruiters are not as busy, you can help them continue to contribute while also becoming truth-sayers in a few unique ways.
- Have them focus on crafting and really understanding your job postings
- Embed them with your safety, ops, driving and HR teams to learn the individual needs of each
- Have them really get to know your equipment and technology so they can talk about it fluently
Treat recruiting as its own team
One of the most important things you can do to help your recruiters succeed is to recognize that recruiting is its own profession now. Its own team. Its own department. Not a subset of safety, HR or ops.
If recruiters serve one of those other teams, they’ll probably become biased toward that team’s needs when speaking to candidates. And that simply isn’t your company’s whole truth.
Instead of ticking the boxes for one team over all the others, recruiters must understand the holistic needs of your entire company in order to identify the candidates who will fit the best. (Good recruiters are matchmakers, after all.)
One way to accomplish this is to establish a VP of People to lead your talent acquisition team. Keep them separate from HR, ops or safety. Their role is to make sure the best people are coming into your company, and that they align to your company’s whole truth.
Make sure your departments are aligned
Sometimes, department biases can manifest in other ways outside a recruiter’s control. It’s not unusual for an ops or safety person to come in during orientation and inadvertently “interview” the new hire with their own questions.
Often, they end up asking the same questions over again, but in speaking with a new driver, their different biases and departmental needs can come through, potentially leading to different perceptions about the company and the job itself, or even information that directly conflicts. In some cases, this can lead to a driver questioning whether the recruiter was giving them the straight goods.
You can avoid these pitfalls by ensuring all your teams maintain a free flow of information around your company’s hiring priorities, and are aligned in what they say to candidates.
The truth will set you free (and help your recruiters succeed)
By now, you can probably tell we’re firm believers that truth and transparency are the foundations for building an effective talent acquisition program. Your entire team should be reflecting these values at every touchpoint with candidates, new hires, and long-time employees.
It all starts with your recruiters, and giving them what they need to tell your company’s whole truth. That will bring new hires into the fold on a solid foundation for a long and happy tenure at your organization.
Help your recruiters tell your company’s whole truth by following these practices:
- Ensure they are empowered to be transparent, thorough, and accurate with position details
- Build continuity with your talent acquisition team, and don’t drop recruiters in a downturn
- When recruiters aren’t busy, temporarily embed them with other teams
- Keep the talent acquisition team independent from the other departments
- Ensure all departments are aligned on what you’re saying to candidates
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Don’t Let Your Mechanics Fire Your Drivers!