Driver Lifestyles

The Life of a Recruiter

There are two types of recruiters in the trucking industry: company recruiters who work out of a company office, and third party recruiters who contract with a company to provide hirable drivers or contractors.   While both types of recruiters do basically the same thing - find employable drivers - each goes about it slightly differently.

Company, or in house, recruiters work out of the company offices. A few work from home networking into the terminals.  The company may or may not have online applications through their websites.  If they do, the recruiter looks over the very basic information provided and then contacts the driver to gain further information or answer any questions the driver might have if they are hirable under company requirements.  If no online application is available, then the recruiter works from calls or walk-ins to the company by drivers who are inquiring about employment there.

Company recruiters usually work nine to five Monday through Friday.  During the day, they may do other types of work within the company usually in the safety or human resources departments; they work on salary with some receiving a bonus per hire.  Some companies may send their recruiters out on the road to job fairs, or place ads in local papers with responders coming to a temporary office.  The best thing about company recruiters working in a terminal is that if asked a question they do not know the answer to, it is simple for them to find the answer.

Third party recruiters may pre-hire drivers for several companies.  They usually work out of their house or own office utilizing online applications and advertising; some are forwarded calls from the company ‘hire’ line.  These recruiters know the basics of the companies they hire for, but may not know the finer points of working for a specific company. They may work on weekends and evenings to be able to contact drivers when the driver has time to talk and get faxes.   The best thing about third party recruiters is that if they are hiring for several companies, they can fit the driver to a company.  Third party recruiters work on commission, receiving a specific dollar amount per employable driver.

While both types of recruiters do application checks, third party recruiters may not do in-depth checks; some just check to make sure the application is filled out properly with all information needed.  Sally, who works for a small company and takes care of hiring, says, “The worst thing is when a driver does not give accurate information, or has an incomplete application.  We either have to try to get the information from the driver or find, say phone numbers, ourselves.  This takes extra time.”

Lying on an application, even if found after a driver is hired or signs the lease, usually leads to automatic termination.  Sally tells this story of a owner operator that this happened to:  “John Doe came in and wanted to lease on his truck with us.  We had him fill out the application and I went to work on it.  We do not use DAC, so I contacted all of his work references as required under regulation. There were only two or three, as he said he did not like to change jobs. The responses were great.  We sent him in for his pre-employment drug/alcohol tests that came back clean.   After our mechanics inspected his truck, we leased him on.” 

Everything was good for several months, then the company owner got a call from another company saying that John Doe had a bad claim record.  One of their drivers had seen him and his truck with Sally’s company logo on it.  The former company said that Sally had not contacted them for reference.   Sally knew she had both spoken on the phone and faxed a release to that company and received a response.   Going back in, Sally compared numbers and found that John Doe had put down false numbers for every company using friend’s numbers instead.  John Doe was immediately brought in and terminated for falsification of application.

The life of a recruiter is not as easy as it might seem; they might talk to a hundred drivers a day. They work hard to keep drivers working for the company and some keep working with those drivers to resolve any issues even after the driver is hired on.  However, next to dispatchers and mechanics, recruiters are at the heart of any successful company.