At a driver recruiting and retention conference in Nashville, Tennessee late last month, the talk turned to how to methods that can be used to help keep driver turnover down. Among the suggestions presented was a thought that most drivers would probably see as a no-brainer: stop lying to new drivers as a recruiting tactic.
The conference, the annual ACS/TCA Recruiting and Retention Conference, is largely attended by carrier executives, recruiting directors, and industry consultants and focuses mainly on the problems that carriers face in bringing on new drivers and keeping the old ones in their trucks and on the road.
The suggestion about not making lying a part of the recruiting process came when Greg Finzen, Recruiting Director at Hirschbach Motor Lines, explained that driver retention has to start with responsible recruiting. He said that his recruiters try to provide the applicants “with expectations that align with what they find when they start” rather than giving them estimated earnings based on experienced drivers’ numbers.
In response, John Simms of the HNI Truck Group talked about a recruiting program he was working with who had been able to get an increase in their driver retention numbers. “I asked the head of recruiting how they’d done it,” he said. In response? “We stopped lying to them.”
Another major suggestion was to stop treating drivers as second-class employees. John Elliott, CEO of Load One, pointed out that many companies treat their office employees very differently from their drivers. Some companies even have signs at their locations that say something like “No Drivers Beyond This Point.” While it may seem like a small point to fleet owners, it does not exactly make drivers feel like they are valued when they have signs barring them from access to dispatchers, executives, and even bathrooms.
Next Story: Automatic Vehicle-to-Vehicle Communication Coming For Trucks?
How about you address the yellow elephant in the room and bump up the 1980s payscale and focus on more flexible and regular hometime? And how about paying higher for detention and actually paying for other things a driver has to do like drop and hooks, waiting on loads, waiting for repairs, waiting to meet another driver, waiting and waiting and waiting, etc. If doing what it takes to keep your business from becoming a revolving door of unexperienced workers (aka Bottom Feeder) will upset your profit margins, perhaps you should look at the rates you are moving your freight for.
Remember, in the end, you always get what you pay for.
I totally agree. We work 80 plus hours per week how about we get for them.
That would take driver’s coming together and refusing to work for peanuts. But unfortuately, you can’t get 2 out of 10 driver’s who agree what the weather is doing.
Thomas hit the nail on the head…I remember when I first started driving there was a grass
roots movement for all truckers to shut down for three days so talks could start about
contracts, pay, benefits etc. etc..It was @1990 and the flyers were floating around to everyone
and the date was set. Well, it worked in France, but not here….only a small percentage actually
shutdown for one day let alone three… Very sad. They can’t export truck driving. I’m retired
now (living on peanuts) but you guys need job security, pay and benefits to reflect the
dangerous job you do. Teachers and Police get it, so should you.
They can’t export trucking but if truckers don’t get themselves organized they will import drivers to make the conditions and pay unchangeable if not worse………
Amen,u pretty much sum it up but ya know darn well about any of the situations in the truckin industry will u find a straight answer lol
So OTR is paid by the mile and when you are not driving….your time is free to the boss, including
fueling, air the tires, etc., yet free Gratis. Then why is OTR on a logbook which is a time clock??
Sounds like u work for the wrong compANY
The question is: Where is the right company? They all suck.
Well i have been driving for 20 yrs..When i started driving or i drove carhaulers…made good money now i here its not as good as it was then…i now work for a company that i never thought i would. But i make more than i have in the last 10 years…i get paid for everything i do weither it’s moving a trl 2 miles.. or running a load.. home Sunday and Monday and 2 nights a week and still make over a grand a week..but they like and lied when i was hired l I ke the rest. I just depends on what u will put up with…The company i work for is jb..
My opinion is yes it sucks because of the diff rules an regs that r aplied now,but it leads to not properly bein trained which probably lead to e logs,gov trucks,the new restart etc etc
Well put…… Those are the reasons I got off the road this year. It felt like I was hated at arehouses………and the 80’s payscale…..WHEW!
Sounds like a pay per hour company is what you need. Alot of companies think there is no money to be made paying this way but we are doing fine!
Michael , Two things would help your company. Because I am most likely one of your drivers. One is have a open door policy or next best thing is to allow drivers to come to the office next to yours and have a moderator to address legitimate grievances between the driver and yourself. Number two is allow upflow driver feed back, so we can make you aware of what’s going on in the field through a company blog . Such as ; At the safety meetings we are constantly threatened with being terminated from our jobs for one reason or another. And equipment operators frequently talking on cell phones while loading and operating.Field Mechanics that refuse to change a fiber filter that is caked in dirt (10 minute job) resulting in sinus infections. Formans that use the Motorola to chit chat the night away about useless,non work related garbage. Yes , a company blog would be a good idea.
Unionize!!!!
Mike is right,.
Unionize the whole industry will fix the problems we have..You don’t hear complaints from Teamster drivers…
Mike is it right,Unionization would fix the problems that plague this industry
I work for a reputable company that is not unionized and get paid far more than union companies. Not to mention that I am home every night. I get paid for the time that I start on the clock, till the time I am off the clock. And didn’t need a union for all of it.
My first job out of truck driving school, I was quoted the pay per mile “in the first year,” but not until the last day of a five-day non-paid “orientation” were we told we would earn half that during our first three months. Then during the last hour we were told that since we were team drivers we’d have to split that. In my first month I made less than $800 and by the time I had existed on truck stop junk food for a month I had barely $400 to pay bills.
Holy crap. The top exec,s only needed 25 years to figure this out. I believe every driver has had to quit a job after only a month because of the bullshit some recruiter told them and every company loses so much money andtime on training a new employee it’s incredible to believe it’s taken this long for company’s to figure it out
The recruiter at PTL a few years back told me “ten days out – two days home”.
I soon found out, after I went through all the hoops and was hired, that that was
a lie.
First they keep you out eternally unless you request hometime.
Second requesting hometime will be granted only if they don’t have something
more important for you to do, like keep driving.
Like most lying companies the place was a revolving door.
Mainly because the dispatchers treat the drivers like dirt, and they lie through
their teeth.
Yes I worked for PTL as an O/O for about 6 weeks. Their recruiter fed me full of so much BS it was unreal. My biggest complaint about them was they constantly had me hooked to 40,000 lb plus loads and in the mountains. Second complaint was they shorted me first 12 % of my total miles and then a second time 20%. As an O/O fuel can be a killer and if they short you miles on top of heavy loads all the time. When I told them I was done they wanted to make the shortages right, but by then I was already pissed and ready to move on. I compare these recruiters to military recruiters. They do everything they can to get you in the door and then you find out the real truth. Its the same way with company drivers and O/O as I have been both. And as far as an O/O goes with these big companies, you are just a glorified company driver, taking on all the expenses. Personally I have learned that you need to get away from these big companies. A small company in your home town is the way to go. You are home a lot more, I am home every 4 to 5 days, imagine that. You can actually talk to the owner, and you will actually be a loss to them if you left.
To your recruiter, who has the luxury of going home every night, maybe to them “home” to you should be considered being out on the road. Trucking is a slimy business and recruiters lead the charge. Perhaps they (recruiters) should be required to drive for 2 years and have a perfect record before they become recruiters.
I worked for JBS Carriers,the dispatcher couldn’t figure out why I needed 1 hour and 30 minutes to go 70 miles I said well,you have several towns with 30-25 mph speed zones,takes 35 minutes just to go the first 20 miles then to get to the load on time..Same thing dispatchers should be required to have at least 2 years driving experience before handling this responsibly.
Excellent……2 years Highway plus 2 years City driving………..
Amen Rick! I only lasted 6 months with PTL. The only way I could get home time (after 32 days out) was to quit. I put “blue truck” in for the longest time only for them to change it behind my back to “green.” And since you have to go to the main terminal to get any money back for equipment and see the head of orientation, that’s music to his ears that you’re leaving – means job security for him!
I used to tell young drivers that a good dispatcher is one that won’t lie to you ALL the time. They have to lie to the customer, the driver and the boss all at the same time to hold it all together. And they have to be good at it.
I had a recruiter give me the following lines –
You’ll be out for 4 weeks, and get 7 days home time
You’ll start off at .94 / mile after six months you will be up to 2.25/mile
Our perdiem reimbursement is immediate and only requires minimal documentation
You will be taking a dedicated 700mile round trip drop and hook route
All our freight is no-touch
We do not do forced dispatch
All our DM’s are professional and will only contact you via QC
If you find a safety issue with a trailer you can reject the load without repercussion
OMG you should of seen that as not being right!
So can I ask how did it turn out….what was the real deal? lol And which company was it?
I am not a fool. 11 years of driving and this is just a small sample of the lines given potential employee’s. KLLM gave me the biggest whoppers (not the burger). Surprisingly enough, Swift was very straight forward and didn’t try to feed me a line of BS. I’m sure everyone who has experience with Swift Transport can give 10 bad examples to every one good.
Swift never lied to me. I didn’t stay long anyway, but for the time I did it went the way the recruiter said.
And, I would say to the recruiter..PUT IT IN WRITING.
If agencies are dissolved and companies go back to employing full time personnel there will be no shortage of drivers- drivers will stay longer and employers will reap benefits far reaching from the tax break they get through employing agency drivers- i.e. standing the agency costs against their tax return- this is in my opinion a corruption given by government as they control taxes and supplied to employers merely so politicians can lie about employment figures as they depict a man in work as a man in work not the agency driver doing part time hours as it is in reality- who can get a mortgage on part time work? GET RID OF AGENCY MIDDLE MAN LEECHES!
Seems so basic. If the driver managers (or whatever a company called them) had to talk with a driver before they are hired I’m sure they would tell a different story to the drivers.
Stop lying?Wow!WhaT a concept!!!?,,,……………………………………………………………..
I recently worked for a company that for the most part was pretty good, except they waited until I was in orientation to let us know the trucks were turned down and the top speed was 62 mph. As it turned out, my tractor would only do 62 mph going downhill. Otherwise, it did about 60 mph. As I see, if we are compensated by the mile, the tractors we drive should be able to do the speed limit posted no matter where you are. That being said, the tractors of all drivers being paid by the mile should be able to do 75 miles mph allowing them to drive the speed limit in virtually every state in the Nation. You want to allow the insurance companies to call the shots or for some other reason restrict the tractor I drive to 60 mph, then pay me $25.00 per hour.
Say my friend please dont take this the wrong way cause i totally agree with everything u have said,its alot of these hands not properly being trained is y yalls comp trucks r that slow. I mean come on u can train after so many months workin for someone lmao,or lease lol really lease uhhh ok it aint ur truck u make whatever comp alot of $ & its still gov at whatever these sliw weird off the wall 62,64 or whatnot speed,yes its a insurance gig,so lets see just off top my head if ur mvr aint so good well u get in a 65mph truck and DO NOT get dispatched west of ms river,if mvr maybe has 1 or 2 things an will fall off soon then cruise in a 70mph ride an go lil further west bound,but u have good mvr or if u can find a owner op an ride his or her ride then cruise where ever BUT use ya dang head when ya strollin 75mph,i do it every dang day 75mph unless traffic dont allow me,i am pretty sure what i said makes since if we can properly train these hands an its to simple take 1 raggity truck on whoevers yard set it slow an tell insurance ok our trucks do this an turn in the read out an if the hands out there take advantage of it then ur fired
You’re exactly right, Craig. They castrate these trucks to save fuel costs and it only works because they pay us by the mile. They’re not accountable financially for the lost productivity that we eat in the form of fewer miles. I drove a couple years in a 61mph rig and I had to push my clock (electronic logs) right up to 11 hours to cover the same ground a regular driver could make in 8-9 hours.
As a recruiter fro over 20 years, when I read this I just laughed. Through the years Ive lost recruits caused I didnt want to lie to them unless the co fed me BS to tell them. The truth is … you tell them theyre going to make $35-55k , GROSS PAY, (depending upon run & hometime-e) be away from home & th Manyey dont want to believe you cause recruiter X told them theyll make $1200-1500 week & many time you try to get them to do the math and they wont listen. why?? for the same reason the numbnuts in America re-elected a LYING incompetent president. They dont want to hear the truth.. Cause the truth & reality of life is not always easy to take… Add to that, 1 day off for 7 out & you cant figure out retention? LOL .. This is a laughable article, even when I hear “experts” LOL yeah Bernie Madoff was a FINANCIAL EXPERT too… Bottom line.. they want decent pay, DECENT HOMETIME & respect… most co dont follow this sadly, so, they lie, most have no choice sadly , to survive. Welcome TO REALITY.. Like I said .. look at our politicians & they get reelected ALL THE TIME & you wonder about recruitiers lying ? hahahahahahaah
Sorry for the typos in earlier post…. but I feel for the guys trying to make a living , feed their families while TRYING to keep their familes together… Its a balance of PAY, Hometime & respect. Its gotten worse last few years.. with all the NEW Govt regulations , the business climate is dog eat dog. The drivers also need to SEE REALITY and understand what the heck is going on and why. However, the “exaggerations: will continue both from co. recruiters, 3rd party and even other drivers… At least with 3rd party recruiters, you often have a choice of jobs & if you dont get seated, hired & stay.. both the driver & recruiter LOSE $$$. When YOU CALL the co. direct? The recruiter gets PAID their salary either way…. Think about it.. who’s looking out for you
I work for a company where I consistently average $1000/week (pre-tax), I’m home almost every weekend for at least a 34-hour restart (sometimes longer), I drive no-touch dry-box freight (with one customer that’s an exception – that one is driver-assisted unload, and I’m paid for doing it when I do), and (in general) I get treated about as well as I treat my co-workers.
I applied directly to the company, principally because their main terminal was within 10 miles of my home. I have been with this company since April 2013, and I had just under 2 years over-the-road when I joined the company. (Previously I drove for about a year each, for two large nationwide carriers that were deceptive and disrespectful to their drivers.) I’m not exactly sure how many drivers this company has, but my truck number is over 800. The company has been in business for over 25 years, and was started by an owner-operator. It grew out of a fleet that he was running for the company that he used to drive for.
We run electronic logs via Qualcomm. In general, we are compliant with Hours-of-Service, although I have run over on rare occasions. I drive a 2013 Mack tractor, which was pre-equipped with both refrigerator and 1500-watt AC inverter. I am governed at 67mph, and I idle whenever I feel the need, for as long as I feel the need to do so, winter or summer. I have not yet been harassed about my idle time, so I try to be considerate about my idling. I’m sensitive to heat, so I idled a lot, in summer. I could idle less, in winter, but I don’t, because I don’t want the truck to freeze up. I run Northeast regional, and it has been a rough winter. Some of our trailer suck, but only some.
Our recruiter does not need to deceive to attract drivers; in fact, she does not actively “recruit” – Just processes the applications that come in. It *is* possible to treat drivers fairly and respectfully, and still be profitable. Many companies just choose not to do so.
Full disclosure: I do not get incentives for referring new drivers to the company that I drive for. At least, I’m not aware of any such program – I suppose I should ask and find out… In any event; I’m not disclosing the company name, lest this be interpreted as a bald-faced recruiting advertisement.
Are u pretty much sayin that its ok cause its just freakin life so deal with it? Uhhh ok sure
I go into visits with schools with the same message….I am not going to lie to you because I am a trucker first. I tell them what is great about my company and warn them to all do their homework. I tell them to use all the trucker forums to ask the right questions and to go visit truck stops. I tell them that my company is not perfect, that at our core we care about our drivers but to never believe without researching what a recruiter says. I find the recruiting practices of some companies immoral. I especially find the recruiting techniques used to attract vets immoral. These companies have fancy names for programs promoting the support of hiring veterans…make them believe that they receive more money FROM the company because of their service when in all actuality that vet is tapping into their GI benefits. That company gives them no extra money out of their pocket but undoubtedly receives some sort of tax incentive to do so. Please make no mistakes I love hiring veterans and supporting our military but I won’t lie to sway them our direction. Maybe I’m just a different kind of recruiter but at the end of the day I would rather have drivers come to this company that chose us because we were right for them. I would rather quality of drivers over quantity.
what..someone in this industry has a conscience?
Thank You!
The bigger lie is that the recruiters don’t have to lie. The bigger truth is that the drivers new and old don’t ask any real questions other than how fast the truck will run, can they bring a dog, and how many pennies per mile are they going to get..
Many drivers don’t expect to be lied to – or deceived, which is not exactly lying, but not exactly better than lying, either – so they aren’t looking for ways to expose deceptions. Frankly, if your recruiter is deceiving you, then they will deceive in their answers to your questions, designed to expose the deceptions, in any event. You will not get to the truth by asking more questions; all that you can hope to do is to expose the deception. How deeply do you probe? If the deception is not immediately apparent, to you keep looking for it until you find it? How will that work with an honest and fair employer? Trust is an essential part of the employment relationship – if you find yourself searching your payroll stubs for signs of deception and/or thievery, every week, then you need a new employer. I’ll point out that your employer knows when you aren’t at home, and they know where you live – if they steal from your check, do you really think that they won’t steal from your house? A thief is a thief, and if the office staff are stealing from you for the benefit of the company, why wouldn’t they also steal from your home, for their own benefit? Do you believe that there is some sort of ethical line that they won’t cross, involved?
Drivers (and all employees) want to trust that their employers will treat them honestly and fairly. When employers fail to do so, drivers (and employees) leave. Good clues that you have a bad employer include things like term contracts (such as leases, or programs requiring you to pay for “training” if you leave before a certain period of time); if an employer (or landlord, or even cellular telephone service provider) knows that they are treating you honestly and fairly, then they don’t need to try to force you to stay with them, by imposing penalties for leaving. If they know that they are not treating you fairly, then you’re likely to see term contracts of this sort. Some other signs of employer dishonesty include armed guards, bulletproof glass, barriers, buildings, or signs separating classes of workers from one another. If an employer knows that they are treating you unfairly, they are likely to be concerned about your reaction, when you inevitably find out that you have been taken advantage of, and they are likely to take preemptive measures to protect themselves. If you can’t consistently find the owner or chief executive of your company, then he’s probably hiding from you – and he probably believes that he has good reason to do so. If your dispatcher sits on the other side of a bulletproof glass window when you go to the terminal to talk to him, then it’s fairly obvious that someone in the company thinks that you might shoot him. How angry does a company have to make it’s drivers, before this becomes a serious concern – and wouldn’t it be wiser simply not to make them this angry? What kind of an idiot pisses of an employee like that, and then hands them the keys to an 80,000 pound vehicle?
Mr. Yowler. had me laughing hard! I tried to went to work(that’s right..tried to went to work) at
a new local driver temp agency. First dispatch was UPS Air Freight with a team driver to Seattle,dispatch never called and set all weekend ready and waiting, at 25.00 virtual dollars per hour. Second dispatch was company that had previously left me in a blizzard with broke down and out of fuel truck, at the pump….,refused., third,24.90 hourly for 9.5 hours on U.S. Mail and that worked…. fourth.. to company begging for driver to take peddle route to SLC…got to their yard early to load and inspect/fuel…had bullet proof window…ignored me standing there in sight and dock foreman ignored me too…came in clean and shaved, so finally get tractor number and sent to shop to pick up tractor..told by dispatcher that tractor was ready to go! I was was told that 10 hours before. Got keys from young mechanic who kinda looked at me strange…hmmmn…walked out into dark…checked keys in tractor with close number..they fit but not right tractor…walked down line to end to tractor setting next to
pile- o- junk tractor in dark…assigned tractor covered in mud and road grime, including headlights and windshield…unlock door..electronic dome light and map lights don’t light..climb in cad..try map light…looks light old military flashlight with dead batteries. Doesn’t light, nor does dash lights when key inserted and turned. Battery cover(aluminum diamond plate) is laying across jump seat. Hmmmn. Now know why mechanic looked at me funny. Gave keys back to mechanic who now has look of consternation… tell him I am temp driver and don’t have time for junk equipment when I have to drive 8.5 hours to SLC in heavy Wyoming wind storm with snow….get in pickup and leave… no wonder they have bullet proof glass in dispatch. Run denied.
Still ready and waitin’ to go!
That is soooooo far from being true. The candidates I had asked more detailed questions than the customer wanted to provide. Some candidates would not apply until the got their answers first. As a recruiter, we can ask for the information, but the customer does not have to provide the answers. Some customers only provide a job basics – pay, benefits, condition of truck and home time info – because they want to sell the job themselves. Just know this, a seasoned driver knows well how the industry works and he/she will ask lots of questions of the company’s recruiter.
I am a recruiter for a medium sized specialized freight company. I am as honest as I can be with the information I am given, and what I have seen/heard from the guys on the road (I like to follow up with drivers I’ve brought in at the 30/60/90 day marks, so I hear a lot). My recruiting/retention rate is more than 3x anyone else in the office because of this. When I started, we had a recruiter that treated the drivers on the phone like garbage from day one, and wondered why she couldn’t close on or keep any drivers. I did hiring in other industries before this, and I’m just amazed at the amount of BS that is slung from both sides, drivers and recruiters. Prior to this job, I was paid serious bonuses on retention, so it’s always been a big thing for me, and I just don’t understand why so many trucking companies are just concerned with getting guys in the door, not keeping them. I prefer to tell a guy right up front what to expect so if they don’t like it on the phone, I’m not wasting time and money to bring a guy in for orientation and training then have them bail during or just after orientation because it wasn’t what they expected. I want a driver to come here knowing what they’re getting into, and if I scare off a few that are afraid of some hard work (nothing here is drop and hook, everything is 100% touch), it’s better for both me and the driver in the long run. I don’t get a guy that doesn’t want to be here, and the driver doesn’t come into a job that they aren’t prepared for.
Now on the flip side of this, if you’re a driver, stop lying to the recruiters, not all of us are full of shit. If you’ve got a bad accident, DUI, criminal record, or just an employer that it didn’t go well with, tell me up front. I get daily applications where I was told over the phone, “Oh, my record is spotless, never had an accident, never failed a random, and have 0 points on my CSA!” Then when I run DAC/MVR/PSP, the dude has hit 2 bridges, has a DUI from last week and 10 jobs he left off the application because he was fired from them all. If I find major stuff like this while processing an application that wasn’t given to me on the phone or listed on the application, you know what happens to it? Circular file. I don’t even waste time taking it to safety for a review. Tell me about it right off, and if I think you had a good attitude on the phone and would be a good fit with the company, I’ll go to bat for you when safety wants to know why I want to put a guy in a truck that has a questionable background. I have a lot more respect for the driver that is straight up from the beginning with me than one that just thinks I’m going to suffer the BS with a smile and hire them anyway. Don’t use the excuse of, “Well, all recruiters lie to me, so I’m going to lie to them!” Not all recruiters lie to you, and not all drivers lie to me. I don’t assume that just because the last guy I spoke with was full of it that the next guy is going to be the same.
“No drivers beyond this point” Translation: We don’t associate with or run the risk of being seen or cavorting with the serfs of our kingdom. Okay if it’s no drivers beyond this point, then how about no loads will leave from this point.
Agreed. Serf’s up! Blue tide rising. Or something to that effect. We may not collectively be the most fit bunch but we don’t have to surge on foot. Let’s grab gears:)
Unbelievable. Although the practice is probably mainly limited to the large “driver mill” carriers and/or those that pay their recruiters based on the number of warm bodies they bring through the doors.
OTOH, a little honesty coming from the drivers would be refreshing too; “My MVR is clean.” (then a 10 page report comes across…) “No accidents.” (as long as you don’t count that one where 10 people were killed because I was talking on my cell phone…) “I’ll run hard!” (three days a week…) “I’ll go anywhere!” (as long as it’s not north east, or any big city, or anywhere there is snow on the ground, and as long as I don’t have to be on time with my delivery…)
Just sayin’…
I fully agree with ricky on PTL they are a big pos company and that old guy in orientation is just a liar. plan and simple. I would advise all drivers to avoid that dump. and if you leave before the class is over they say you failed the drug test. I always tell the recruiter in out first meet that if you lie to me one time. as soon as im sure its a lie. that is where you will find your truck. just be honest cause I can handle anything but a lying sob. others to avoid are CHALER IN RICHMOND.INDIANA.RUSH TRUCKING. I had to sue rush to get off my dac and I did win and also got a small $ settlement. good luck but nothing will ever change unless it gets worse.
I learned by experience never believe what a recruiter says. Ask them to put it in writing and see what response you get. lol
INTEGRITY is EVERYTHING
I’m a Recruiter and I don’t lie…of course, you’ll have to take my word for it., which means crap to many truckers out there unfortunately. There are ZERO benefits to lying to job seekers I speak with.
Benefits of BEING HONEST (how a Recruiter benefits):
1. The recruiter builds a good reputation with the industry he/she needs to target. After the recruiter builds a good reputation, job seekers will seek this person out for opportunities, which builds the Recruiter’s professonal network in that industry.
2. By presenting motivated and qualified candidates to hiring managers, the recruiter builds a good reputation with the company he/she works for. This is essential for the Recruiters professional growth within the company.
3. The job seeker experience is POSITIVE. This person will feel good about coming to work for the company. Even if the person is not selected, they shouldn’t feel they were toyed with, lied to, etc.
KEEP in MIND:
There are factors outside of the Recruiters control:
*Position elimination,
*Hiring managers not knowing what they want,
*Internal candidate is given the job,
*A referral candidate is given the job.
You sound like an agency recruiter. Another factor (sort of) outside of your control would be positions which never existed. I used to work through agencies in the computer industry, and many agents would pester hiring managers for positions until the managers would finally give in and ask for the impossible, on the premise that it would keep the recruiter busy, and out of the manager’s hair for a while. The problem is that occasionally, the recruiter would actually find the impossible, and then the manager would still have to decline – because no position was ever really budgeted for the impossible person.
Another example would be the company that is bidding on a contract that they haven’t won, yet. They list positions with recruiters in the hope of getting resumes to fill out their proposed project team, in order to demonstrate their competence to complete the project. Problem is, they won’t actually win the contract until long after these people have gone to work somewhere else – if they win it at all – so the entire process is just a huge waste of the job applicants’ time.
The deception frequently starts well above the recruiter, and we that are the victims are often accused of failing to do our “due diligence” (whatever that actually means), or failing to ask the right questions. Most times, we don’t know enough about what’s going on behind the scenes to know what the “right questions” are – we’re not in a good position to sniff out the deception, and (if we are good, honest, hard-working employees) we don’t have enough experience with the job market to know what to look for. Good employees simply don’t spend that much time *on* the job market; they get hired and work, instead. Part of the job of a recruiter is to sniff out these deceptions, confusions, office politics, and what-have-you. Unfortunately, recruiters don’t have to answer to candidates, so there is no one to hold recruiters to account, when they fail in this area. It takes a very, very long time for a bad recruiter’s reputation to catch up with him, and there is always another bad recruiter graduating from another liberal arts college, right behind him/her.
I have applied to several company’s for local, home every night, dedicated runs and get the email back from the recruiter thank me for applying for an OTR position.
When I correct them I dont hear anymore from them. I hate bait and switch. Should be illegal.
And two years experience to move containers between ports… get real.
After 35 years in this industry and the industry leadership is still so ignorant about lying to their employees. If a company president supports a recruiter to lie to his new hires then this same person is lying to everybody else within the company. He or she can not be trusted. Recruiters, dispatchers, managers, and driver managers are expected to lie to driver to get the job done.
If you want to get a bunch of drivers to laugh so hard that they will pee their pants is to tell them that their company has a new policy that they will not lie to them. LOL
I have applied to several company’s for local, home every night, dedicated runs and get an email back from the recruiter offering me a OTR position which I did not apply for.
When I correct them I don’t hear anymore from them. I hate bait and switch. Should be illegal.
And two years experience to move containers between local ports… get real.
That’s pretty sad on the part of the recruiter/company if they’re advertising for local work. My company hires for Regional and OTR positions, that’s it. I do all the write-ups for our advertising, and none of it says local anywhere, I make sure of that. No one is home every night, nothing is dedicated, and I don’t hide that at all. I get multiple calls a day asking about local jobs, and most drivers I talk to appreciate me telling them up front that I can’t get them home every night. Some actually get really mad that we don’t offer local, which I usually get a chuckle out of though. My first question to any driver is, “Where do you live so I can tell you what I have available there?”
Competition is extremely high for any local position, unless the pool of drivers in the area is bone dry. If you can do it and you are not driving anything else, take the OTR for now until you can get local. The longer you are not driving, the less likely you will drive local.
A recruiters job is to bring drivers through the door. This is how they get paid!
As a recruiter once told me, “I don’t make up a lie to tell you, I combine the lies the driver’s tell me.”
Everyone who has posted on this blog about how good their company is has contributed to the recruiter’s lie. There is NOT A COMPANY IN THE USA that is as honest as the day is long in the summer.
The notices that are hung around some of the dispatchers and other areas of a workplace are there for a reason. Everything the drivers are complaining about started way before now. 30 years ago when I first started driving there was nothing called “home time” it was what it was and you got home when your load allowed you to get home. We didn’t have the nice air ride suspension, 5th wheel pulls, walking floors, the comfort of a microwave, television, satellite, laptop, cell phone etc….. we hauled broker loads and spent most of our time at the payphone waiting and when you were tired of waiting you waited some more because if you moved from that phone you were going to wait even more until the next person was through waiting. Our pay was crappy then and it is still crappy now. All of the issues that drivers are complaining about are legitimate complaints however, as with any rules they change as time passes due to people in the industry before you. Everything people do today will affect our tomorrow.
Be Careful, Be Safe and Truck it up! That’s the only way to succeed!
I am a wife of a trucker. JB Hunt just raised their pay to 33 cents per mile. Drop and hook and live load by $2.00 each. He is suppose to be home every night. Right – leaves the house at 8:30 a.m. and gets home between 12:00 – 1:00 a.m. Now that we are taking their insurance$125 a week he makes about $500.00 a week. A deductible of $2,600 a year for insurance.
The kids only see him when they go off to school.
Anyone ever see Boss undercover? I like to see John Roberts the CEO of JB Hunt go under cover especially during a snow storm. Maybe, he and others will start having more respect for their drivers, especially the Intermodal ones.
Drive safe.
I am the wife of a trucker as well. Every company owner should have to be a driver live with their pay and away from their families the way they expect our husbands to. Most of the companies my husband has tried and the one he works for now is alot of bs. Hard work for low wages in the end. Dispatchers especially should be required to go otr for 1yrs so they can get a good feel of what they are doing to our men when they keep them out for weeks /months at a time. If they would all do this there would be a whole lot of changes in how the trucking industry is runned!!!!!!!
I’m with Blain Henry on this one. I drove for a Wisconsin Co. for 2 yrs. & met a driver from my home state that told me about his talk with the Co. Pres. The Pres. said we’re working on it (the problem of hiring drivers telling them they will be OTR long haul, then running them local/regional)
The driver said for as long as you’ve been in business, if you haven’t fixed it by now, you never will.
The other mention of the cost of new hires being high is true. I can’t help thinking the company bean counters have a (stupid) formula for off-setting. Low pay per mile, no detention ’til after x hours, low or no layover pay, etc..
I want to take this time to express my appreciation to the lying dispatchers that I have had in the past. They drove me to the point of buying my own truck 17 years ago. After that, I had no one to blame but myself if things weren’t going right.
You’ve heard it already, 40 yrs , blah,blah, mostly linehaul(teamster) now I work out of a dc This is probably going to sound harsh, a driver should get a minimum of 1,000 a week, I made 97,000 last year , working 4 an a half days a week. Survey says average otr driver makes 39,000 a yr. that’s horrible heard someone comment on that so called truckers channel that 38,000 is not bad money.
I run strictly northeast,if the so called drivers I see up here are like this across the country, then it’s over, between , the illegals/ foreigners it’s over,these rip off companies like western express, ect could care less about the turnover. More profit for them
see Western express by Don……
Mr. Yowler. had me laughing hard! I tried to went to work(that’s right..tried to went to work) at
a new local driver temp agency. First dispatch was UPS Air Freight with a team driver to Seattle,dispatch never called and set all weekend ready and waiting, at 25.00 virtual dollars per hour. Second dispatch was company that had previously left me in a blizzard with broke down and out of fuel truck, at the pump….,refused., third,24.90 hourly for 9.5 hours on U.S. Mail and that worked…. fourth.. to company begging for driver to take peddle route to SLC…got to their yard early to load and inspect/fuel…had bullet proof window…ignored me standing there in sight and dock foreman ignored me too…came in clean and shaved, so finally get tractor number and sent to shop to pick up tractor..told by dispatcher that tractor was ready to go! I was was told that 10 hours before. Got keys from young mechanic who kinda looked at me strange…hmmmn…walked out into dark…checked keys in tractor with close number..they fit but not right tractor…walked down line to end to tractor setting next to
pile- o- junk tractor in dark…assigned tractor covered in mud and road grime, including headlights and windshield…unlock door..electronic dome light and map lights don’t light..climb in cad..try map light…looks light old military flashlight with dead batteries. Doesn’t light, nor does dash lights when key inserted and turned. Battery cover(aluminum diamond plate) is laying across jump seat. Hmmmn. Now know why mechanic looked at me funny. Gave keys back to mechanic who now has look of consternation… tell him I am temp driver and don’t have time for junk equipment when I have to drive 8.5 hours to SLC in heavy Wyoming wind storm with snow….get in pickup and leave… no wonder they have bullet proof glass in dispatch. Run denied.
Still ready and waitin’ to go!
As drivers we can always expect to be told one thing by dispatchers and driver managers and experience something totally different. There will be no change until Management, VP’s and Presidents of the trucking companies get involved and hold their dispatchers and driver managers accountable. Like most drivers I will do an incredible job for my employer but have been dropped in the grease by dispatchers and driver managers that I no longer seek employment with the big well known companies. If they say “we treat our drivers like family” I stay away from them. I will drive my little concrete truck and be happy.
Recruiters,dispatchers and driver managers all need to be on the same page in regards to what they tell drivers. And that information needs to be honest and the companies upper managment needs to be aware of what information is being told to the drivers.
Schneider National is the BEST company to drive for…period!!! They are very straight-forward and honest with their drivers…treat us with much respect!!!
That’s a crock, I joined them in the tanker division, went to tanker training in New Orleans and listened to a male trainer scream at the only 2 female drivers, myself included, spoke with the office manager about it, left the tanker division and went to dry van, truck was constantly in the shop, on one occasion I dropped the truck off at the Little Rock shop and told them the turbo was out, and the clutch also had issues and to please check it. I checked on the progress of my truck sporadically, they had it for 5 days, when I picked it up they said they had replaced the turbo but the clutch was fine. That day I left to pick up a load very close by, yet never made it! My truck broke down, THE CLUTCH WENT OUT, and between the Qualcomm, my personal cellphone, and their cellphone, it still took 2 hours for them to show up, I was half a mile away, while I sat in the left turn lane at an intersection, I was pissed! And the first thing the mechanic did when he got to me was ask “Are you sure the clutch won’t move!” Insulting! So this idiot tried to with the same results! Two more days sitting! When I ultimately picked my truck up I told them I needed to get to Dallas to take care of a traffic ticket, I didn’t have one just wanted to get home, so they routed me through there, I went to the terminal in Lancaster and dropped off the truck! Good riddance! Of course they kept calling me, emails too, stating “We have a contract that says you have to take the load,” I didn’t go to their training program I had already been a driver for some time when I joined them, once they were told they had an obligation to pay me for all of the downtime and previous pay they had also messed up on, they continued to call, so I sent them a not so pleasant email and never heard from them again! Good riddance once again!
Someone needs to address how the drivers are talked to and treated at orientations like they are pieces of S&*T ! Those trainers and administrators seem to forget that if it was not for those new drivers, THEY WOULD NOT, I REPEAT…NOT HAVE A JOB !
It’s sounds like to many of you are NEW SCHOOL DRIVERS, and don’t even realize that at one time not to long ago we, you… Did get payed you most of what you are now asking for, but now because you won’t stand as one, but as Every Man For Him self!! They’ve slowly takin it from us, you. Not untile you, we are WILLING TO STAND AS ONE we , you will never get them back!
Uonion workers stand up as one and strike for better…all we do is fight and divide, WE WILL NEVER GET ANYTHING if we don’t stand as one and up for one another!!!
As far as companies making promises, when I have an offer come to me I just tell them to put it in writing. You would be surprised to know how many hang up the phone.
“Driver recruiter”? Another name for a sales crook trying to sell unsuspecting drivers a crappy underpaid, overworked job.
It’s no use guys, there were no “good old days”. The trucking industry has always been a rip-off for drivers and it’s getting worse. Run, don’t walk to get retrained at a better job. Heavy equipment license, Crane operator’s license, electrician, plumber, carpenter – go anywhere BUT truck driving. Trucking is a sleazy business that lies and cheats its drivers. Only the union trucking jobs are worth having and they are more and more scarce.
Lying about home time, more than pay, is why a lot of companies have problems with turnover. Take, for instance, the carriers that advertise HOME WEEKENDS or HOME MOST WEEKENDS (my current company recruits with the latter).
The problem is, about a month in, you start to realize that the dispatchers have a very different definition of “home for the weekend” than you do. They seem to think if they get you home by 9 PM on Saturday night, under a load that delivers at 6 AM Monday morning, 400 miles away from home, that’s “getting you home for the weekend”.
At my carrier, I’m not naming names until I leave, they do everything they can to cut your home time short. They will beg you to accept a load that doesn’t get you home until Saturday night, with the promise that the delivery time is Tuesday morning, and you can be assured that on Sunday morning, they will call you and say they changed the delivery time to Monday morning. By the way, it’s 300 miles from your house, and never mind that you barely got home in time to watch SNL, let alone have any kind of a weekend…
The rest of the country gets paid hourly with overtime and usually only works 8-10 hours a day, we should to! That would put the brakes on the sitting around at docks and put in other predicaments real fast.
In about a month, I’ll be going into the driving school I graduated 18 months ago from to recruit for my current employer. Is the employer perfect? Nope. Is the job perfect? No. Will I try to candy coat it? No. I will tell the candidates about the benefits offered, the pay scale and the fact that there is more freight than there are drivers, and that the drivers hired are likely to be run. A lot and HARD. I’ll tell them about the schedules, and how 95% of the time or more, they’ll be home part of Saturday and most of Sunday (34 hour rest). I’ll tell them about SMS. I’ll tell them about the flexibility that a small company offers, and how a decent work ethic will gain some recognition for the driver. Will I answer their questions honestly and to the best of my ability? Yes. I’m not a recruiter – I’m a driver. I still remember the line of BS I got from from the US Army recruiter that convinced me to enlist as an MP… 🙂 I’ve got no skin in the game other than trying to help folks find a fit that works.
Interesting to read the comments on here though.
Creedmore,
Thank you for serving our country!
All the best.
Jean
lmao I have set here and read all these posts and i must say I now remember why I cut my licence in half . the trucking industry didnt appreciate me so I got out. basically I held a onre man strike . let the very people who cheated me to send their children through college haul americas freight Im done
I am a wife of a trucker. After 25 years of working as a driller for preconstruction the bottom fell out. Now he is driving a truck “locally” and we never get to see him. He leaves home at 8:3o a.m. and gets home between 12:00-1:00 a.m. By the time we pay for insurance we are left with $500.00 a week. Truckers need a living wage! When the economy gets better I don’t think these trucking companies will be able to hire anyone for 31-33 cents a mile. Personally, I think it stinks. You have to put up with all sorts of storms and down time, etc.
I still believe if the driver recruiting and retention conference really wanted to know what is going on they should go undercover from dealing with the recruiters and seeing their first paycheck. I think they would learn a lot on “Undercover Boss.”
Drive safe.
The Wife who does like to see her husband more often.
Regarding driver pay: All drivers should be paid an hourly wage, period. The wage should reflect the skill and experience. Skills and experience should be assessed by some kind of formula, which takes into account the terrain, the climate, the traffic density and the equipment operated. The wage should reflect area of operations and time away from normal life. And thus a city driver’s wage (which I am now part time) should not be as high as an over the road driver’s who operates in mountains and away from immediate help in remote areas, more than half his time (which I used to do for a long time). After I left highway driving and went to local driving I met many drivers with 10,12,20 years of driving experience, but who never left the metropolitan area, never drove in the Arctic, or the mountains. Therefore a driver with even a couple of years mph train driving should be more valuable to the company operating in, or through the mountains. Drivers should be paid a decent, hourly wage. Companies could then monitor the driving ( they do now anyway) and reprimand those who take to long to get to the destination. The reasonable and flexible limits could be set. In France hwy drivers are paid hourly. They are happy. Maybe it’s time to do it here?
My former company put cypher locks on all inside doors and told the drivers it wasn’t personal and was meant to increase security (from what threat or for what other reason, they didn’t say) and that if we wanted access to the office staff, all we had to do was use the intercom! Just like the non-employed public. Guess how many time most drivers used the intercom?
Pretty bad when lumbers make more then drivers.
Stop paying by the mile, and pay by the hour. End of problems. I will hit the road as soon as they start to pay for my time, as everybody else. Paying by the mile is not good for anyone, because of the results.
Let’s unionize the industry in its entirety. We have recruite/driver that has spiken . There’s a lot of problems in the trucking industry altogether. Recruiters lie to drivers just to get them to sign on. By all means necessary. Unionize the whole trucking industry. We can talk about fair pay until we are blue in the face. Actions speak louder than words. After all, why not get paid to fuel up your truck. Why not get paid for pre/post trip inspection. The problem lies is drivers are not willing to vote for the industry to be unionized. We would rather sit here bickering and arguing about this and that, as to oppose to doing something about it. We would rather complain about the long waits at a shipper or receiver, as to oppose to unionize the industry. UPS is unionized and those people get paid really well. A Duie Pyle is unionized and they get paid really well. You know why companies don’t like the union. Because they have to pay the employees more, because of the union. In fact, the union is for the employees and not the employers. The employers will say we would rather deal with the employees than the union. Basically, they’re saying, they fear the union, and they don’t want to pay you for other things that you normally do for free, because we (The employer) cannot afford to pay that, and that’s why the driver does it for free.
Well my i have worked for JB Hunt final mile service now for two years. I started as a temp alongside JB hunt and was offered a job as a driver 6 months later. I work mostly in Seattle and doing multi families. This job has been brutal on me and my partners body. For the past year we have been stuck at multi families where there are no elevators and the building are usually 7 floors high. Every single product in each on of those buildings my partner and I have hand trucked up stairwells, our supervisors take advantage of the fact that we work hard and get our job done. We have finished a 7 floor building of appliances from refer, range, micro, dw, washer and dryers in less than two months. We have been outdoing every single team on our fleet for about a year now. This has taken a toll on my body and I have noticed pain in back and arms and shoulders, legs and feet. Some mornings I feel like I can’t make it out of bed. We do this on a daily basis and consistently do an awesome job. Yet I still see paychecks every week for 700-800 dollars. I was told that before JB hunt had this contract with Whirpool that Penske had it and they were paying their drivers 70000 to 80000 a year. And I’m killing myself for 35000 a year and even less than that. We get no bonuses for the stuff we do and we finish these multi families way before schedule, not one incentive has been given to us for torturing our bodies and the only reason why I stay is because I have a family to support and I love my job, I just feel bonuses or something should be done for teams that do an exceptional job. You could ask all my bosses and supervisors, if you want something done or if you think it’s nearly impossible to do, my partner and I can accomplish. We do our jobs right, efficient and very productive, we earn JB hunt and Whirpool so much money but they won’t even give us a raise or anything