On today’s episode of Taking the Hire Road, presented by Kuebix, DriverReach founder and CEO Jeremy Reymer chatted with Wendy Bartz, DriverReach director of sales and services, about building recruiting teams, embracing technology and addressing driver burnout.
As a former director of recruiting herself, Bartz said that starting a recruiting team begins with taking a step back and observing the day-to-day operations of the carrier. This helps a recruiter learn the company’s strengths and weaknesses, as well as become familiar with its safety operations and perhaps how it interacts with internal customers.
“Over the course of 60 to 90 days, being able to look and ask, ‘What are some changes that we could make?’” Bartz said. “But bite-sized chunks, not all at once, because it’s really important that you see what’s working and what isn’t before you go too deep changing those processes to make a difference and work with the internal customers.”
The next step, Bartz said, is to find a group of good driver recruiters in addition to coaching and mentoring for the recruiters currently in place, adding that “recruiting is sales.”
Bartz said that technology has to be at the center of your recruiting game plan, reasoning that you have to consider the application process from the drivers’ perspective. Would you want to drive for a carrier with a clunky website and fill out tedious application forms?
“I like to say that you have to change your approach to change your results,” Bartz said. “Companies that have a process like, ‘This is how we’ve always done it; we’ve never had this pressure and competition like it is today,’ are forced to have to take a step back and change that approach.”
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More from Taking the Hire Road:
Piecing together the driver shortage puzzle