As trucking fleets across the nation face a severe driver shortage, recruitment can be a full-time job in itself. But for many smaller fleets, overburdened owners don’t have an additional staff member to take on the time-consuming duties of finding and hiring drivers.
Fleet owners often wear multiple hats, from recruitment to safety to operations — while continuing to get behind the wheel themselves. Beyond being pressed for time, smaller fleets need to compete with their bigger rivals in a limited pool of driver applicants. At the same time, they have smaller budgets to invest in recruitment solutions, and they may be less experienced with technology that has the potential to help them.
For smaller fleets looking for an affordable and user-friendly recruitment tool, Tenstreet offers a powerful solution, Tenstreet On Demand, to streamline driver recruiting and onboarding with a flexible pay-as-you-go plan.
Kelsey Scott has tapped into the benefits of Tenstreet On Demand as both a small fleet operator and a consultant. Scott is co-owner of Scott Global Trucking, an Atlanta-based carrier with one company driver and two owner-operators. She also advises other carriers in her role as compliance manager for consulting company Legacy Trucking.
Scott says that the key issue for many trucking businesses right now is a shortage of qualified drivers. Tenstreet On Demand addresses this challenge with a more targeted approach to driver recruitment.
“With Tenstreet, you get access to more qualified drivers, so you have a better chance of finding a match than if you posted on Indeed,” Scott explains.
Here are 5 ways that Tenstreet On Demand can help smaller truck fleets recruit the right drivers while saving time and money in the process.
1. Manage Multiple Job Board Listings
One of the key time-saving features of Tenstreet On Demand is Job Store, an advertising marketplace that aggregates more than 20 popular job boards. With Job Store, truck fleets can send unified job listings to multiple job boards and update all of them simultaneously, from one place. This one-stop shop can place a fleet’s job postings in front of more than 180,000 drivers per month.
Tenstreet also offers the ability to target job ads to criteria defined by the fleet owner. Scott has had success with this approach.
“If I say I need a driver in Georgia with two years’ experience, no accidents, and no clearinghouse issues, Tenstreet can blast that out to drivers in their system,” Scott says.
2. Pay Only When You Need It
Tenstreet On Demand enables smaller fleets to save money by paying for the service only when they need it. With the pay-as-you-go plan, fleet owners can pay for 30 days of access at a time. If they don’t need help recruiting and onboarding drivers after those 30 days, they can take a break from using their dashboard and pay nothing.
Even when a fleet’s dashboard is dormant, drivers can still find them online and apply for openings. Meanwhile, Tenstreet can email the fleet owner about new job applications or expired driver documents before they pay, so they know when to log back in.
For Scott’s company, Tenstreet On Demand has been much more affordable than recruitment services that charge big fees to find drivers.
“Tenstreet is very cost-effective,” says Scott. “You don’t have to pay $2,500 to $3,000 to locate a driver, as many recruitment services charge.”
3. Bring in More Applicants, Faster
With IntelliApp, another feature of Tenstreet On Demand, smaller fleets can accelerate their recruiting process by making it easier for drivers to apply. IntelliApp offers an online, mobile-optimized application with a powerful pre-population tool.
For about 4 million active drivers who have ever completed an application via IntelliApp, the system can automatically fill in their data the next time they apply for a job. For fleets, this can translate to a big increase in completed applications since drivers can fill out an entire DOT long-form app in minutes. For experienced applicants, Tenstreet is able to prefill their information 92% of the time
Scott says IntelliApp also saves carriers time and money by avoiding paper applications, and it’s a great fit for truck drivers’ on-the-go lifestyles.
“The user interface makes it easy to complete an application on a mobile phone, so drivers can apply for jobs from their trucks,” Scott says. “That’s really important in our industry.”
IntelliApp also helps fleet owners stay compliant with federal and state regulations. For example, the app automatically updates with changes in DOT regulations that affect driver application questions. Also, at the end of the application in IntelliApp, drivers sign digitally for their application, drug and alcohol, and employment releases, complying with DOT signature regulations.
4. Communicate Efficiently and Effectively
Tenstreet’s Driver Pulse app boosts efficiency by enabling fleet owners to communicate with drivers on their mobile devices. Drivers can also check their application status and share documents with the recruiter, and vice versa.
Similarly, with the Xchange feature of Tenstreet On Demand, fleets can easily provide and request employee verification records via a web-based service, which saves time and labor, allows for quicker turnaround, and avoids the need for a fax machine. After hiring drivers, fleets can track the status of their required documents with the DQF (Driver Qualification File) feature.
“The Driver Qualification File is super helpful,” says Scott. “I also like how easy the Xchange feature makes it to reach out to previous employers for records, and I’ve done checks for other employers.”
5. Simplified Setup & Support
For smaller fleets that may be reluctant to embrace new technology, Tenstreet On Demand makes it easy to get up and running quickly. There’s no cumbersome software implementation — fleets can start tapping into the recruitment tools right off the bat. Moreover, features like Job Store and IntelliApp can integrate with a fleet’s existing processes.
Tenstreet’s user-friendliness and helpful support is among the reasons Scott recommends On Demand to other carriers.
“It’s super simple to use,” Scott says. “Our rep walked us through it step by step and is readily available for whatever we need. I send everybody to Tenstreet.”
In short, for smaller fleet owners who are stretched thin and need help recruiting and hiring qualified drivers, Tenstreet On Demand is the cost-effective way to get their time back.
For more information on the Tenstreet On Demand solution for smaller fleets, visit our On Demand page or request a demo below.
