You have a new driving job to advertise. Clearly, it is a great job any driver would be head over heels to get. All you need to do is tell them why. And the best way to do that is by listing the job’s many amazing benefits.

You’d think that means the more benefits you can list, the better. Maybe you can overwhelm them with the sheer scope of what you have to offer. Look how many there are! This job must be great!

That’s a good instinct, but there is a chance it could lead you mildly astray. Let’s discuss negative benefits.

Wait, Benefits Can Be Negative?

The answer is… maybe. Some of them anyway.

In the trucking world, carriers often include reimbursement for situations that are less than ideal. At the end of the day, that’s a very compelling benefit. The thing is, you might want to refrain from listing it in your job posting.

You know the ones we mean… Tarp Pay, Detention Pay, Layover Pay, things of this nature. While it is super good to offer these benefits, they introduce an air of negativity to your potential driver. Listing Detention Pay, for instance, has the added effect of admitting the job may feature a lot of detention time, which might hit harder than the promise of pay can overcome at this early and sensitive stage of the recruiting process.

But Shouldn’t We Let Drivers Know Our Benefits?

Absolutely! When it comes to benefits of this nature, however, revealing them can have a much more positive effect during a later stage of recruitment, primarily during the recruiter phone call step when drivers have already displayed a higher interest in your position. This is a much better time for drivers to learn more nuanced aspects of the job. And as they learn there may be, say, detention time, recruiters can immediately counter that negative news with your compensation benefit. 

Recruiters can go a long way toward alleviating concerns by making these benefits front and center as the driver asks more in-depth questions about the job. A simple listing of benefits doesn’t have this advantage and runs an unexpected risk of talking a potential driver out of taking the next step.

It’s not a hard and fast rule and won’t work for every situation. For instance, if detention, tarping, or frequent layovers are a major part of the job, drivers should probably already have that in their head when they advance to the short form or phone call stage of their interest. But for other jobs, saving negative benefits for a little later can be a great recipe for success.