Brad Vaughn, Maverick Transportation vice president of recruiting, joined DriverReach founder and CEO Jeremy Reymer on this week’s episode of Taking the Hire Road. The two dive into recruiting drivers and recruiters, in addition to “The Maverick Way” and the underrated power of video marketing.
Driver recruiting amid the pandemic has been harder than it’s ever been for the industry, according to Vaughn, as COVID-19 dramatically hindered driver school graduations across the country and disheartened talented drivers from job hopping.
But this didn’t stop Maverick from pushing forward. The Little Rock, Arkansas-based transportation company deployed an effective advertising campaign, using simple and inexpensive tactics.
“We really embraced technology in terms of social media and texting, trying to reach drivers where they want to be reached, not sending them an email that won’t be seen or mailing a letter that no one will open,” Vaughn said, explaining how his team instead went about creating videos for its social media followers as well as prospective drivers via text messages.
Driver testimonials became an effective way for employees to speak their mind honestly and answer questions that new hires would really like to know — straight from the horse’s mouth, so to speak. Vaughn urges more companies to follow suit as it’s cheaper and easier to hire a videographer than work through a firm, plus it’s arguably more effective.
He acknowledged that the best way to convince upper management of deploying a similar advertising strategy is to simply go ahead and put together a video for them. It doesn’t have to be fancy, he said; an honest, good quality video about a day in the life of your fleet should do the trick.
“Testimonials go a long way,” Vaughn said. “We’re really lucky to have a group of drivers that are more than willing to send referrals in and sing our praises out on the road.”
Equally as important in the recruitment process is the recruiter, but what makes a recruiter inherently good at his or her job?
Prior trucking experience seems like a logical prerequisite, but Vaughn argues that sales experience is a better predictor of success. He expressed that competitiveness goes a long way, and that it’s a lot easier to teach a salesperson about trucking than vice versa.
“A lot of people consider sales a bad word — ‘sales means that you’re tricking people.’ It’s not that at all,” Vaughn said.
More from Taking the Hire Road:
Taking notes on recruiting from sales playbook
