The driver shortage has been one of the transportation industry’s hottest topics for years, and the coronavirus pandemic has put additional pressure on the shrinking driver workforce. In an industry reeling from early retirements and halted driving school programs, an effective strategy for recruiting and retaining drivers is more important than ever.
With these challenges, simply getting drivers in seats can feel like an uphill battle. Carriers often spend endless hours searching for the most effective job boards and submitting ads, hoping to get their openings in front of the right people. From there, it can be hard to know which ads are working and which are underperforming, making it difficult to manage marketing campaigns and overall spend.
Tenstreet has made a name for itself in the driver recruiting space. The company’s Job Store is a natural extension of these efforts. Job Store offers a streamlined approach to job postings by giving you one point of entry to over 20 job boards, cutting out redundancies and removing the opacity surrounding ad performance.
EJ Freight used to rely on a do-it-yourself job posting strategy that relied heavily on publishing individual ads on Craigslist, according to Puneet Bawa, EJ Freight vice president of operations and finance.
Now, EJ Freight relies on Job Store’s services to aggregate job posting sites for the company, allowing positions to be posted to several boards simultaneously. Tenstreet’s Job Store platform makes it easy to compare ad performance between sites because all postings are managed in one simple platform, allowing carriers to better manage their ad spend. The company also uses Job Store’s Concierge feature, which lets them work closely with a Tenstreet specialist to receive bespoke advice on their advertising strategy and analysis of their performance.
While Bawa knew there were more efficient ways to manage job postings, the small poultry transporter continued to rely on cobbled-together, DIY-style solutions until potential applicants started asking why the company was not using Tenstreet. That’s when Bawa realized the company needed to streamline its processes to attract the best drivers possible.
In addition to making ad management a breeze, Job Store customers get free advertising of their open positions in Tenstreet’s Driver Pulse app. They also benefit from Pulse Match, which ensures postings are only shown to candidates in Pulse who meet the qualifications for the job, keeping scattershot applicants at bay.
Not only does Job Store help ensure postings reach the right drivers, but Tenstreet’s other offerings, like IntelliApp, make it easier for drivers to apply to jobs once they see them. These mobile-first applications allow drivers to finish the process straight from their smartphones in under 10 minutes.
“It is important to realize that drivers are tech-savvy now. That realization helped us close the gap in the recruiting space,” Bawa said. “Before Tenstreet, it would take us a week to gather all the information we needed from drivers, then another week to process the drivers’ backgrounds.”
Since partnering with Tenstreet, EJ Freight has been able to take drivers from application to orientation in under one week. This quick turnaround prevents applicants from dropping off in the middle of the hiring process or falling through the cracks, which is critical when competing for drivers in a strained labor market.
Ultimately, companies hoping to successfully navigate the worsening driver shortage will need to take advantage of the tools and partnerships available to them. This is especially true for small to midsize carriers without the name recognition and marketing budgets of larger carriers.
Click here to learn more about Tenstreet’s Job Store offering.