« Back to articles

How to Hire the Best Delivery Drivers in 2024

A comprehensive guide on hiring the right delivery drivers for your delivery business.

Your all-in-one local delivery app for Shopify

It’s not easy to find good delivery drivers. Unless you’ve been recruiting for a long time, you won’t be able to tell the difference between an ordinary delivery driver and a top performer. Even then, you might still make a mistake. Hiring is hard!

So, to make your job easier, we’ll show you how to find a delivery driver who matches your company’s needs and culture. We also look at how the EasyRoutes delivery management app by Roundtrip can help.

Table of Contents

  • How to Hire Delivery Drivers: Where to Look for Them
  • How to Hire Delivery Drivers: Screening Applicants
  • How to Hire Delivery Drivers: Onboard your new delivery drivers
  • How EasyRoutes Can Help Your Newly Hired Drivers Be More Productive
  • How to Hire Delivery Drivers: Conclusion

How to Hire Delivery Drivers: Where to Look for Them

You can find the right delivery drivers for your business in a number of different ways. Let’s look at some below:

Craft an attractive job description

A strong job description will help potential applicants figure out what they will need to succeed in the role at your company and what they’ll get out of it. The more explicit and detailed your job description is, the more likely you are to locate a candidate who is a good fit for the position.

Make sure to include things like:

  • Working Hours: Will the driver be available on specified days or throughout the week? Is it necessary for them to work first, second, or third shift? Is it a full-time, part-time, or contract position?
  • Compensation: What kind of salary is available to the driver? Is there any kind of incentive?
  • Benefits: Give specifics on the benefits you’ll provide to the drivers. It could be things like flexible working hours, paid time off, health insurance, competitive salary, or prospects for advancement.
  • Delivery details: What exactly are you looking for the driver to deliver? Do you require a food delivery driver or a heavy goods delivery driver?

Simply simply, the more specific your job post is, the more likely you are to attract the best candidates.

You may also receive the boilerplate information you need, such as credentials and responsibilities, by downloading a delivery driver job description template, which will make your task a little easier.

However, you must remember to personalize the template in order to sell your position by addressing the most critical aspects for delivery drivers.

Post the job description on multiple job boards

Advertise your job on prominent job sites like Craigslist and Indeed. These websites receive a lot of traffic and are completely free.

Make sure your company’s job data are up to date. You will also need to keep an eye on comments and respond as necessary. Focus on job boards that specialize particularly to delivery drivers and similar industries for better results. These are the finest places to hire delivery drivers.

Gary’s Job Board, GigSmart, Layover, and Bacon are among them. These platforms are where a lot of professional delivery drivers look for work.

Post the job description to social media

Using social media to recruit delivery drivers can bring in many more applicants than other methods. According to Statista, 58 percent of North American businesses rely on social media to find qualified employees. According to Glassdoor, 79 percent of job seekers use social media to locate work.

A strong social media presence is also essential for developing your brand, which is crucial for attracting and hiring qualified delivery drivers.

Here are some ideas for how to use social media to find the best delivery drivers:

  • Create a social network page solely for the purpose of hiring delivery drivers.
  • Post handpicked and unique content on a regular basis.
  • Engage with your audience by enjoying their posts, responding to their queries, sharing their posts, and helping them solve problems.
  • Make use of Facebook advertisements.
  • Request that your current staff share your content.
  • To highlight your company’s culture, use photographs and videos.

Encourage your employee referrals

According to a Statista poll, 62 percent of respondents believe that referrals from successful placements are the best source of prospects. As a result, you should not overlook the value of employee referrals.

Request referrals from your present employees if they come across someone who would be a good fit for your open delivery driver position.

To promote staff involvement, offer a reward for any successful hiring. Creating an appealing employee referral programwill take some time to set up but will be a powerful recruiting tool.

Use a route planner

Using the best route planner like EasyRoutes by Roundtrip can help you attract the best drivers to apply for your job.

Job seekers want to work for organizations that understand technology and care about their employees’ requirements. A route planner that can provide driving directions ensures that your drivers are well-cared for.

How to Hire Delivery Drivers: Screening Applicants

You’ll have a lot of candidates for each new job if your job postings, social media recruiting initiatives, and employee referral programs were successful. So, what’s the best way to separate the wheat from the chaff? Below are some helpful hints.

Ask qualifying questions in emails

Respond to each applicant with an email that includes interview questions to assist you weed out only the most serious applicants.

You can ask the following questions:

  • Have you been a delivery driver for a long time?
  • What do you believe the childbirth procedure entails?
  • How do you ensure that deliveries are made on time?
  • Do you have any driving offenses on your record?

Make an appointment for a phone/video-call interview

While the screening email will help you weed out the bad candidates, a phone or video-call interview will help you narrow down the candidates who are the greatest fit for the job.

You can ask the following questions:

  • How much do you expect to be paid?
  • Why did you decide to leave your prior employer?
  • Why are you interested in this position?
  • What characteristics do you believe a good delivery driver should possess?
  • Have you have a spotless driving record?

Examine whether the candidates’ responses to the questions in the screening email correspond to their responses to the questions in the email. Pay close attention to each response and make a note of anything that does not meet your requirements.

Applicants with a negative attitude or a history of leaving many workplaces in a short period of time should be avoided.

Schedule a road test

Make an appointment for the candidate to take a road test. The CV and interviews will provide you with the majority of the information you need about the applicants, but getting them behind the wheel will give you a sense of how they drive on the road.

You may also pay them a one-time charge and watch them deliver a few packages one day. This will offer you an indication of the candidate’s speed and hustle when it comes to the job.

Conduct in-person interviews

After passing the test, you can move on to in-person interviews, which should be the final step in the recruiting process for delivery drivers.

This type of in-person interview is essential for ensuring that the applicant is the perfect fit for the job, and it’s also a wonderful method to persuade the application that they’ll love being a member of your team.

The following are some of the main characteristics to look for in a delivery driver interview:

  • Communication abilities that are exceptional
  • Ability to work in a timely and consistent manner
  • Maintain a customer-friendly attitude
  • They pay attention to details

Solicit answers to questions that will assist you in determining whether the candidate possesses these characteristics. Also, ask open-ended questions, which require applicants to respond with more than a simple yes or no.

Ideally, the candidate should speak more throughout the interview, allowing you to discover more about them.

For example, you could ask, “How have you successfully managed a problem with customers?”

How to Hire Delivery Drivers: Onboard your new delivery drivers

When you’ve found the right match for your needs, give the applicant a call and make an offer. After that, you can send an offer letter outlining everything you’re offering. But that isn’t the end of it.

Onboarding and training new hires are critical aspects of the hiring process that should not be overlooked.

If you don’t properly train your applicants to your processes and expectations, even the most experienced candidates may not give the intended outcomes.

As a result, divide delivery driver training into four sections:

  • Customer-focused service education
  • Software training
  • Safety training
  • Process training

How EasyRoutes Can Help Your Newly Hired Drivers Be More Productive

EasyRoutes’ delivery management app can be used by single-driver companies as well as multi-driver teams. Here are a few instances of how our multi-stop route planner can assist you.

Make Routes That Are Well-Optimized

You may plan well-optimized routes with driving directions for delivery drivers with EasyRoutes. This implies that your drivers will receive the finest possible route directions to work, increasing their efficiency and production and assisting them in completing deliveries on time.

Automated Customer Delivery Notifications

The EasyRoutes delivery management app includes a customer notifications function that notifies your customers when their shipment is ready for delivery, about to be delivered, or has been delivered.

This ensures that your customers are available to receive their items and lowers the likelihood of missed deliveries.

All of this means that your drivers will not have to wait or return to the same place due to the customer’s previous unavailability. This will increase their production and allow them to complete deliveries on time.

EasyRoutes also has a customer interface where they may track their own delivery.

The delivery route planner tool from EasyRoutes provides a slew of other features and functions to help your drivers be more productive and effective.

How to Hire Delivery Drivers: Conclusion

Customers are increasingly demanding speedier deliveries, with same-day and even same-hour deliveries on the rise.

By combining the proper delivery drivers with the correct delivery tools, you, too, can provide an effective delivery service.

This article discussed where to find skilled delivery drivers, how to correctly evaluate applicants, and how to conduct effective interviews. We also discussed how EasyRoutes’ delivery management software may improve the efficiency of your new workers.

EasyRoutes’ route planner for same-day deliveries has a simple UI and ensures that your drivers get at their destinations on time.

This allows your drivers to concentrate on navigating the routes, making more stops in less time, and providing excellent customer service. Learn how EasyRoutes can assist you in providing a fantastic last-mile experience.

Get EasyRoutes on the Shopify App Store

About Roundtrip

Roundtrip's mission is to equip every business with the software tools they need to deliver products to their customers in a delightful way. Thousands of worldwide choose EasyRoutes to power their local deliveries across dozens of product categories, from meal kits and groceries to coffee, cupcakes, kibble, and so much more. Our easy-to-use route planning and delivery optimization app is certified Built for Shopify, a two-time Shopify staff pick, and the top rated local delivery app on the Shopify App Store.

"This app is fantastic for anyone starting out and wanting to select an app that will scale with you as you grow...They actually care about how things work for you and your business."
Hunters' Dale
Microgreen delivery in Canada 🇨🇦
Designed to make deliveries easy