The Dance

Déjà Moo—The feeling you’ve heard this bull before.

A small percentage of driver applicants and some company recruiters have memory issues during the recruitment process.

There is a job for everybody, but not every job is for everybody.

The unscrupulous recruiter exaggerates miles, home time, bonuses and benefits and forgets about some of the worse aspects of the company. The unscrupulous driver applicant may forget about DUIs, felonies and employers.

The result is a dance of driver applicant and company recruiter in which both have been around the block so many times with their counterpart that there is almost universal mistrust on both sides. Both sides listen to the other with a sense of “Déjà Moo.”

The Dance rarely works for either side. The unscrupulous recruiter may believe that once hired, the driver will forget the promises made or even if he remembers, find other attributes of the company that make up for it. This is rarely the case and the driver quickly quits. So now, the company is faced with spending more money on recruiting and screening another applicant. This doesn’t make logical or financial sense and some of the more progressive companies are tracking driver retention by recruiter. They understand that hiring one driver that stays for two years is far better than hiring 24 drivers that stay for one month. The recruiter that recruits 24 drivers every month probably won’t be considered as doing a great job if all the drivers leave within the month. I say “probably” because there are obviously other factors affecting the new driver—such as the new driver’s dispatcher.

The unscrupulous driver applicant forgets information in the hopes that the company will not do any checking, will check but miss the negative information or will somehow make an exception just this once. The fact is that most any reputable company of any size will check the background and find the negative information. Most of these companies will also not make an exception to their criteria because of their insurance and safety policies. There are sometimes gray areas, where, for example, a felony on a particular date would not prohibit employment for one individual, but it would for another applicant because the applicant was borderline on tickets and accidents. However, if an applicant has forgotten to list his recent DUI, positive drug test, violent felony, moving violations, etc., the application will be circling the bowl rather than being considered. It’s just a flat waste of time.

The solution of course is for their to be a realization on both sides that a policy of honesty and integrity is the best policy not only because it’s the right thing to do, but also because it will save time, money and frustration on their own part. If the company promises home time policy that isn’t true, the driver will probably quickly quit—costing the company money. If the applicant states he doesn’t have a positive drug test in the past three years and does, he’s wasting his own time and money. There is a job for everybody, but not every job is for everybody. With that in mind, both sides should try to find the right fit and not force the issue.

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