Recruiting young drivers and getting young people interested in driving takes more than just placing ads on job boards. It requires a full recruitment marketing strategy that reaches young people where they are and improves perceptions of this career.
Gen Z and Young Millennials are interested in careers that offer work-life balance, flexibility, a chance to make a difference in the world, an obvious career path, and being paid what they are worth. Trucking offers all this and more, but the message is not getting out there. To draw more young people into trucking, we must focus on their goals and how they can reach them with professional driving.
Today, we are looking at the steps you can take to engage young Millennials and Gen Z. We will look at the best platforms to reach this group and the content that captures their attention.
Social Media
Social media marketing is more than just placing ads on social. A strong, organic presence is vital. Social media is a key resource for those researching your company, and your engaging content can go a long way to building interest in your company and the trucking industry.
Young people want transparency; they want a clear idea of what each career option available to them is really like day to day. Social media offers you a chance to meet them where they are with interesting creatives and showcase all that trucking has to offer.
Where are young people on social media? To get a complete breakdown of the demographic reach of each social media platform, please see our article Which Social Media Platform is Right for My Company? This article breaks down the best audiences for each platform, which helps you learn where to best reach young people for recruitment marketing and can assist you with your company-wide social media marketing plans.
Focus your content on the realities of being a driver. Highlight your company culture, the value the career has on the world, your steps to improve your eco-friendliness, and the benefits of being a driver. Focus on the positive but don't be afraid to showcase both the good and the bad; your honesty and transparency will increase trust. Focus on ensuring your content is interesting; boring content will not engage Gen Z.
When developing your creatives for social media, your videos and your art must be visually representative of the group of people that you are targeting. For example, if you are trying to reach young people with “a day in the life of a driver” video, they will see themselves better in the position if the person in the video is near their age.
Video is king! Regardless of the platform, video sees more engagement than other forms of content. Keep your videos short and sweet. Attention spans are currently roughly 8 seconds; sadly, we humans are lagging behind goldfish, whose attention span is approximately 9 seconds.
Get to know your young audience's likes, dislikes, and interests. These will be key in allowing you to target your paid ads correctly. Do not rely on just age-related targeting features. The more you can address interests, the more you can focus your targeting in our current environment that is moving away from Cookies.
Mobile-Friendly Job applications
Mobile-friendly job applications are a must today, especially with applicants on the go, like truck drivers and young people who prefer on doing everything on their phones. Young people are not the only ones using their phones to apply for positions; according to research by HR Dive, 61% of all applications are completed on mobile, and, according to Avatar Fleet, 90% of professional drivers apply for jobs via mobile devices.
Ensuring that your applications are mobile-friendly is necessary in 2022. When we say mobile-friendly, we mean more than just applications that show clearly and correctly on mobile. True mobile-friendly applications are designed for ease of use within the limited capabilities of a phone. For example, asking to upload a resume can be difficult to impossible on mobile. Multiple required information pages are extremely time intensive and not designed with mobile users in mind. Focus on collecting only the information you truly need to move on to the next step with your candidate or eliminate them from consideration.
Job advertisements
Job advertisements are and will remain a key feature in your recruitment marketing playbook. The content of your job ads, however, likely needs some tweaks.
Young Millennials and Gen Z value working for a company whose mission and values match their own. According to LZ's research, most job ads for trucking focus almost entirely on the facts of the job, i.e., scheduling, route types, and basic benefits, and offer very little about the company itself, its mission, and values. Company culture is important to this generation; providing information about your culture or links to information on your career page aids potential candidates in their research before applying.
Listing your traditional benefits is important in your job ads, but you should not stop there. Be sure to share any benefits that make your company unique, from health and wellness programs to company vacation rental options and more. This generation expects more from their employers than just the basics.
Gen X and young Millennials, and, if we are being honest, almost all of us working today want to know that we are making a difference in the world. Taking the time to highlight this position's value to our communities negates the stigma of being a driver and increases pride in young people looking to join the profession. Include a line or two in your job ads about the difference your company makes.
Conclusion
To draw more young people into trucking, we must showcase how trucking fulfills their goals of making a difference in the world, work-life balance, flexibility, a clear career path, and a good-paying career. We must get our message to where they are and improve job ads and the application process to meet their needs and expectations.
Are you not meeting your recruitment goals? Join LzRecruit Network! Lower your Cost Per Lead and Time to Hire today. We offer 100% direct leads. For more information on the LzRecruit Network, contact us at 800-755-0623.
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Debra_lz
Debra Watkins covers recruitment and digital marketing for Lionzone. A Nashville native, after graduating from the University of Kentucky, Debra utilized her research and writing skills in the museum and heritage tourism fields, rising to director of two institutions before returning to Nashville in 2020 to join Lionzone.
Resources:
https://www.hrdive.com/news/mobile-job-applications-surpassed-desktop-in-2020-report-says/595891/
https://www.crossrivertherapy.com/average-human-attention-span
