This fireside chat recap is from the FreightWaves Sales & Marketing Summit.
FIRESIDE CHAT TOPIC: How to recruit drivers in a tight market
DETAILS: Competition for truck drivers is as fierce as ever, with carriers offering lavish bonuses and upping the ante with higher and higher rates. So what does it take to successfully recruit drivers?
SPEAKERS: Matt Beach, president of Ten4 Recruiting, chats with Thomas Wasson, FreightWaves’ enterprise trucking carrier expert.
BIO: Beach has served as president of Chattanooga, Tennessee-based driver recruitment firm Ten4 Recruiting since 2020. Beach’s previous roles include director of recruiting at Covenant Transportation and national training lead at Masco.
Key quotes from Beach
“We went from fishing in a huge ocean to a large lake to now we’re all fishing around at the same farm pond. And right now, to build that relationship with that truck driver, you have to pick up the phone.”
“What’s hard to train people on is: Do you have the willpower to sit down behind your desk for eight hours a day in your home office, wherever that is, and literally pick up the phone and make at least 100-plus calls a day to truck drivers?”
“I guarantee you there are five to 10 other carriers hounding that driver — calling him, texting him with something else or 1 cent more pay raise, whatever that is. You can come and have all that in your arsenal, be able to communicate that to him, but at the same time there has to be a good recruiter-driver relationship.”
