“This driver needs to go. We never should have hired him.”
Sound Familiar?
When asked what their biggest problem is, trucking company executives and recruiters will always start with “We can’t find qualified drivers. Too many previous jobs, too many driving violations, accidents, tests positive on drug testing” and so forth. But then they finally find a candidate who seems like a good hire on paper.
But how do you really know?
Today, so much hiring is done by brief conversations about the job and background and virtually no conversation about the person. Just like dating sites, the picture and bio look great but you have to start talking to the other person.
- Think about what is really important to know about a driver before hiring.
- When hiring drivers, follow this three-word formula: S+E+T = a good hire.
Hire for Skills, Experience and Traits. OK, so recruiters can tell from the application and other sources the experience of the driver. Road test will reveal skills as a driver.
But is this enough?
A brief story told to me recently by the CEO of an intermodal trucking company will show the mistakes recruiters make in hiring.
- A customer of the company asked that they move 10 chassis and containers out of the rail yard, across the street, not 500 feet, to a staging yard. They would pay really good money for this opportunity. The CEO asked one of his independent contractor’s drivers to handle this job and would pay the driver $1000 for about five hours work.
The driver’s response was “No, I don’t want to do it. I’ll burn too much fuel, so I’m going home.”
- What kind of driver did they hire as respect to the TRAITS of the person?
- They have no way of knowing by all the usual and routine interviewing methods.
Start thinking of one more step to add to your hiring process application by adding just few questions for a pre-employment assessment. Takes just a few minutes and results are delivered instantly to the recruiter. Result: better insights, decisions and the big bonus, better retentions.
- Sometimes you may have to disqualify a qualified driver unless you learn more about the person.
What prevents you from doing this? Check out these links:
jobehaviors.com; predictive index.com; the humanadvantage.com