What makes this trucker tick.....

Pay that is reflective of the required work.
equipment that is safe and reliable,
respect the fact that a driver is not a child and can make reasonable decisions alone,
most importantly but severely lacking in this industry is "don't ask the driver to do something you wouldn't willingly do yourself"!
You wanna know what a driver wants? Then how about you go and be a driver for a while and see for yourself how this job is , then you will have some idea of what a driver wants. More importantly you will know WHY a driver wants those things.

 

My list in order from most to least important:

1) Pay me on time and accurately and on W-2 no 1099 BS

2) Treat me with respect and don't lie to me

3) Run driver friendly lanes

4) Have no touch freight

5) Have decent well maintained equipment.

6) Have Ipass/Prepass

 

Hi Recruiter, G/man makes a lot of good points, except, the one about home time. I feel, if ones chooses to be a truck driver, especially an OTR driver, you have no business whining about how you aren't getting home enough. The 2 just don't mix, and there are plenty of local jobs that will get you home. I think the majority of folks that take OTR jobs out of desperation, find out all too quickly, the truck IS your home, and get pressure from home, and relay that to their dispatcher.
Quite frankly, to be perfectly honest, I don't think you will make it as a recruiter/dispatcher. You are too nice. Most dispatchers I've known, don't have a conscience, they can't, or they won't get their loads hauled. Drivers will cry and moan, that they MUST get home for whatever reason, and if you let them, you won't make a good dispatcher. The "nice" ones I've dealt with over the years, don't stay in that position very long. Most drivers bounce around trying to find that "ideal" job that makes them money AND gets them home, and in 35 years of driving a truck, I've found, it doesn't happen often. Good luck.

 

Mr. Recruiter, please do not take this offensively as that is not my intention but truck driving is a unique job and like most unique jobs it attracts certain personalities and there are a variety of reasons why people get into driving and go for a particular company, all of which have been mentioned here. Two points:

One, be the HONEST recruiter, regardless of what the company may or may not script for you. Frankly most drivers consider most of the megas to be about the same with the little variances between them (mentioned above) being the difference that made the driver choose that particular company. I'm a recruiter's dream. The perfect candidate on PAPER (I'm a bit of a jerk in person). Accident free million miler, all experience easily verified and all positive, zero PSP score, no violations period on my MVR and perfectly spotless criminal history and a variety of trailers in my experience. I can go anywhere I want. That's not a boast, a lot of that is admittedly luck and it's to make a point that I was not desperate.

What made me choose the company I'm with (which certainly has it's feet of clay - equipment issues) is he was very up front with me about the negatives and didn't soft sell them; bluntly told me what the negatives were and that yes they did have old equipment and were in process of replacing it but that takes time and likely I'd get a truck with a lot of miles and cuss landing gear a lot but if driver's would just write the equipment up they'd fix it; can't fix it if the shop don't know it's broke and yes that means down time but what can you do? That's just trucking. Want equipment in good repair but won't spend shop time and you'll have crappy equipment; and when I asked the question (regarding pay and benefits): "That sounds good. Will you put that in writing?" He said he'd be glad to and it is company policy to have a written agreement as to what I will do as a driver and what the company will do as s the employer - including pay and benefits. He was clear that it wasn't an employment contract it was simply an agreement between the company and I as to what each will do and we both sign it and I'll get one copy and the other goes into my file. That impressed me. "Yes we have some so called crappy equipment but it runs and it's legal and if you tell us it's broke we'll fix it and we get some new stuff each month and we pay you a little more to drive the high mileage trucks and we'll treat you with respect as long as you treat us with respect. Respect is a two way street. Give it and you'll get it. Cuss us and we'll cuss you right back and we'll put everything in writing so there's no misunderstandings."

Second point: If you have never driven a truck, ask to go out with a trainer for a week. Naturally, if you don't have a CDL you can't drive but there is no substitute under the sun for getting out on the road and seeing with your own eyes what a driver goes through and that was the second thing and deal sealer for me. I asked if the dispatchers were former drivers. He said some, about half but the one's that weren't had to spend their first week with the company riding with a driver trainer so they knew at least a little bit what it was like OTR.

So far, everything he has said has been straight on the nose. They do everything they said, don't do the things they said they don't and as a result I do everything I said I would do and don't mind a bit doing a little extra, be it grab a mop in the driver's lounge because some slob didn't clean up his spill or take that crappy load. Be honest and treat your drivers with the respect they deserve. Too much BS in this world and we deal more with each other than we do our own families so let's leave the BS for someone else.

Thanks Mr. Recruiter. The fact you took the time to ask us suggests you may be one of the good ones. Just for heaven's sake don't become the used car salesman driver's loathe.

 

RE: my last post. I guess I went off on a tangent about dispatchers, when the person never said they were going to actually BE a dispatcher. To rephrase slightly, my first question would be, what happened to the last recruiter? Recruiting is a tough job, like any other HR position. You literally have someone's future in your hands. And get ready to hear every story under the sun, as some truck drivers(next to real estate agents) can be the biggest BS'ers on the planet. I'd be cautious of a driver that's had many jobs in a short period of time, as they are bouncers, and aren't willing to take the good with the bad, a must in this business. Also, I'd lean towards women drivers, as the women drivers I've known over the years, are very dedicated people, and can handle a lot of problems easier than some men. Good Luck with your new position,(seriously) I hope you'll be able to sleep at night.

 

[QUOTE="semi" retired;4008082] Also, I'd lean towards women drivers, as the women drivers I've known over the years, are very dedicated people, and can handle a lot of problems easier than some men. Good Luck with your new position,(seriously) I hope you'll be able to sleep at night.[/QUOTE]

When I was a trainer (many moons ago) I preferred female trainees for the very same reasons. Plus they didn't usually have the male pride "I can do anything, I already got this" attitude that so many of the guys (especially the younger ones) did and actually worked real hard at my "crazy" skill drills (like putting a bunch of cheap gloves down in a big parking lot with no obstacles and saying; " I want you to run your left tandem tire then your right over each glove and alternating left and right. Miss the glove and we'll start over til you can hit each glove. Excellent!" Then putting some soda cans out and saying: "Now do it without running over any cans".) without the BS "why do I have to do this crap" attitude. Plus, I never really had to get on to one. They were harder on themselves than I would have been. Just a little word about something did the trick when some of the males it didn't matter how hard I was; a Marine Corps Drill Sgt. wouldn't have been able to get through.

The above mentioned traits seemed to make for better trainees and drivers in general. Plus in my five years I trained, not ONCE did I EVER have to get onto a female trainee about hygiene. Males? Quite a few times I had to "force" a shower. "Dude, you're gonna have to shower or I'm gonna trade you out at the next terminal. I can't hang with this." Only drawbacks were I couldn't just hit the shoulder for an emergency squirt and there were a couple of times a cycle thing necessitated an emergency stop but that was nothing compared to the quality of trainee and attitude. Always burned my chaps when they'd get the man pig comments on the CB about them at a truck stop. They were 10 times better drivers even as trainees than the male jackarse with the mouth about them.

 

I have a bit of a different perspective as I have worked both sides of this issue. Bottom line, don't lie or make the job seem like something it's not. You may not recruit as many drivers as you could by stretching the truth but at least the one's you did hire would be willing and ready to do the job you needed done and would be much less likely to quit. I could go on for several paragraphs about what is wrong with both driver attitudes and company behavior in todays trucking world but I won't. Just look at it this way, there is a reason WalMart (and many other private carriers) doesn't have a problem recruiting extremely high quality drivers and it's not because they have the sharpest rigs on the road or don't deliver to their stores in New York, Chicago, Philly, and other town/place drivers don't like to go. They PAY their drivers well, have great benefits, treat their drivers like an asset and expect their drivers to get the job done and be the best drivers at what they do. This industry suffers from a lack of both honesty and expectations on both sides of the hiring process.

 

ShortBusKid hit it right on the head. Of the many companies I drove for, only a few actually were grateful to their drivers, because they knew, without them, they wouldn't exist. One company I worked for, I didn't make a lot of money, and didn't like the equipment, but the owner was a sweetheart of a guy, and treated all his drivers like they were his sons."How'd it go today"? or "How's that truck running, anything we can do for ya"? and it made a huge difference. Another company had a rewards program. If you didn't have any infractions, you got a bonus, and a little lapel pin for safe driving and an awards ceremony. It really meant a lot to me. Truckers can be an insecure bunch. They rarely get a pat on the back, or a "Good job", and sometimes that's all it takes to keep a driver happy. Conversely, I've busted my hump for someone, or went "up and above the call", and didn't get so much as a thanks, and quit shortly after.

 

Here is an Old retired drivers take....I worked for 2 companies during my career not counting family ( where I learned the trade) , my first company an OTR outfit that ran coast to coast..did that for around three years...my second and last company I worked for for over 30 years til I retired in 2011. Neither one had recruiters...didn't need them. Whooly Rhino hit the nail right on the head when he posted....good companies ( those that pay their drivers well , give them the befits they deserve , make sure their equipment is well-maintained , and treat them as humans ) never need to advertize positions available.....word of mouth gets around and the stack of applications grows...when shopping around for those types of employment the best indicators are driver retention rates , and the very absence of recruiters and newspaper advertisement...An employer that retains drivers drivers for more than 10 + years is doing something right....and lots of their drivers won't list the pay as the most important factor....Not trashing your job there OP..just stating the facts as I've seen then for decades.....

 

simple think about how you would feel, if you spent time somewhere, where the government, by its rules says you are on duty working, is the company paying you for your time. Do they take responsibility for not having a reload for you when you have delivered your load and pay you for your time if they dont? Do they lie to you about for example getting you home, do they pay you for your time if you are at a shipper receiver for more than an hour loading/unloading. Do they pay you time each and every work day to do the required pre and post trips ? Or do they say it is part of the pittance they give you per mile.