Though potential quality technicians can be plucked from anywhere, trucking’s most fertile recruiting ground remains vocational and technical education programs.
Yet as demand for technicians rises, so too has competition for graduates from such programs. Many of the more than 10,000 students who will graduate from diesel and heavy truck post-secondary programs in the United States in 2019 already have job offers; some are even working as interns in the businesses they’ll soon call home.
For service operations, successfully leveraging a vo-tech program as a recruitment tool now requires more than just a booth at a career fair or call to a program instructor. To ensure they can bring young technicians into their business tomorrow, many proactive service providers are learning they need to engage with their local tech programs today.
“That’s been our best resource,” says Charlie Nichols, general manager, TAG Truck Center — Calvert City, Ky. “We’ve tried a lot of different ways [to recruit] over the years. Classified ads don’t work in today’s world. [Online sites] didn’t produce many good candidates. We’ve had a little success networking — where our guys have convinced friends to apply — but, overall, we are finding if we want to find a good tech, we have to grow our own.”
The first step for service channel professionals looking to develop a partnership with a technical school is outreach. Industry professionals must introduce themselves to local educators and express their desire to create a mutually beneficial partnership, says George Arrants, who spent years facilitating such meetings as past chairman, ATA’s Technology & Maintenance Council (TMC) SuperTech Competition.
