BUILD THE DRIVER ACQUISITION ENGINE FOR A GROWING TRUCKING COMPANY
Always There Express is looking for an exceptional Driver Acquisition & Performance Marketing Manager to take ownership of one of the most important growth functions in our company:
Creating a predictable, scalable flow of qualified professional drivers.
This is not a traditional HR position.
It is also not a traditional recruiting-manager position.
We already have recruiters who can work qualified candidates through our hiring process.
We need the person who fills the top of that funnel.
We are looking for someone who combines the instincts of a performance marketer with a strong understanding of recruiting—ideally CDL driver recruiting, transportation, skilled trades, or another difficult-to-reach workforce.
Your job is straightforward to describe and challenging to execute:
Figure out where the right drivers are, how to reach them, what message gets their attention, what channels convert, and where we should spend the next recruiting dollar.
Then build the system that does it consistently.
THE OPPORTUNITY
Always There Express has grown rapidly into a substantial transportation operation.
We have trucks.
We have customers.
We have an established recruiting team.
And we have the capacity to grow.
One of the biggest constraints on that growth is maintaining a consistent pipeline of qualified professional drivers.
That's where you come in.
This is an opportunity to build and own the driver-acquisition engine, work directly with senior leadership, manage meaningful recruiting spend, experiment aggressively, and have a measurable impact on company growth.
We aren't hiring someone to maintain the system we already have.
We're hiring someone to build a better one.
WHAT YOU WILL OWN
You will have end-to-end responsibility for driver lead generation and acquisition-channel performanceacross channels including:
Meta / Facebook / Instagram
Indeed and traditional job platforms
Trucking-specific job boards and driver communities
Driver recruiting firms and outside partners
Driver referral programs
Google Search and Google Ads
TikTok and emerging social channels
Organic social and recruiting content
New platforms, partnerships and acquisition channels you identify
You will determine what is working, what isn't, what deserves more investment, and what we should stop paying for.
We expect you to treat recruiting spend like an investment portfolio.
Every dollar should have a reason for being spent.
WHAT YOU WILL DO
Build the strategy
Develop and continuously improve a comprehensive driver-acquisition strategy based on our hiring requirements, markets, routes, driver profiles and competitive environment.
Generate qualified driver traffic
Build campaigns that produce qualified candidates—not simply clicks, impressions, followers or low-quality applications.
Own paid acquisition
Create, manage and optimize recruiting campaigns across Meta, Google, job boards, trucking platforms and other paid channels.
Find new channels
We specifically want someone willing to challenge:
“This is how we've always recruited drivers.”
You should constantly ask:
Where else are the drivers?
If TikTok might work, test it.
If Google Search might work, test it.
If a trucking community or specialized job board looks promising, test it.
If a new recruiting partner claims they can outperform the incumbent, prove or disprove it with data.
Manage outside recruiting partners
Evaluate recruiting firms based on actual performance.
Understand what we're paying them, the quality of candidates they deliver, what ultimately converts into active drivers, and whether those drivers stay.
Expand relationships that perform.
Reduce or eliminate spending that doesn't.
Optimize the budget
Know:
What we spent.
Where we spent it.
What it produced.
What an activated driver actually cost us.
Then move money toward the highest-performing opportunities.
You will have real responsibility for recommending—and within agreed parameters, reallocating—recruiting spend.
Build the measurement system
We expect this function to become highly measurable.
You should be comfortable building and managing metrics including:
Leads by source
Qualified leads by source
Cost per lead
Cost per qualified candidate
Lead-to-hire conversion
Cost per activated driver
Time from lead to activation
Channel ROI
Recruiting-partner performance
Driver retention by acquisition source
Work with Recruiting and Operations
Your responsibility doesn't end when a lead appears.
You'll work closely with our existing recruiting team to understand:
Are we generating enough candidates?
Are they the right candidates?
Which sources produce the best drivers?
Where are candidates dropping out?
What can we change to improve conversion?
Which acquisition sources produce drivers who actually stay?
The objective isn't more leads.
The objective is more qualified, activated, productive drivers.
WHO WE'RE LOOKING FOR
There are two backgrounds that could make you an excellent fit.
PROFILE A — DRIVER ACQUISITION EXPERT
You have direct experience generating CDL driver leads or recruiting professional drivers and understand the trucking recruiting ecosystem.
You also understand performance marketing: paid acquisition, attribution, campaign optimization, testing, conversion and budget allocation.
This is our ideal background.
PROFILE B — PERFORMANCE MARKETER WHO UNDERSTANDS HARD-TO-REACH LABOR
You may not come directly from trucking, but you have successfully generated candidates or customers in markets such as:
Skilled trades
Warehousing/logistics
Construction
Field services
Nursing/healthcare staffing
Manufacturing
Gig work
Other difficult-to-reach labor markets
You know how to find an audience, acquire it economically, measure performance and continuously improve the funnel.
If you're exceptional at this, we'll teach you the trucking business.
WHAT MATTERS TO US
We care much more about what you have actually produced than what your previous title was.
Strong candidates will likely have experience with several of the following:
Performance or growth marketing
CDL or transportation recruiting
Meta Ads Manager
Google Ads / paid search
Indeed and recruiting platforms
Trucking job boards and driver communities
Recruiting agencies and lead vendors
Campaign analytics and attribution
A/B testing and creative experimentation
Budget management and optimization
Recruiting funnels and conversion
Cost-per-acquisition economics
Employer/recruiting marketing
You should be comfortable with numbers and equally comfortable trying something that has never been done here before.
THIS ROLE IS PROBABLY NOT FOR YOU IF...
Your recruiting experience primarily consists of reviewing resumes, interviewing applicants and moving candidates through an ATS.
Those are valuable skills.
They are simply not the primary job here.
We're looking for someone who thinks more like this:
“Give me the hiring target and the economics. I'll figure out where the candidates are, how to reach them, which channels work, what we should spend, and how to build a repeatable acquisition system.”
If that sounds like you, we want to talk.
HOW YOU WILL BE MEASURED
This is a results-driven position.
Success will not be measured by how many ads you run, how many posts you create or how busy the recruiting department appears.
It will be measured by outcomes:
More qualified driver candidates.
More activated drivers.
A healthier and more predictable recruiting funnel.
Better-performing acquisition channels.
Clear visibility into what every recruiting dollar produces.
Improving acquisition economics.
Drivers who stay.
You will have a competitive base salary plus meaningful performance compensation tied to measurable results.
If you build something exceptional, we want your compensation to reflect it.
COMPENSATION
$90,000–$110,000 base salary
+ Performance-based incentive
Expected total compensation: $110,000–$140,000+
Compensation will depend on experience and demonstrated ability.
For an exceptional candidate with a proven record of building high-performing driver-acquisition or labor-acquisition programs, we are willing to be flexible.
HOW TO APPLY
Send your resume and a brief introduction to:
[email protected]
But please don't send us only a resume.
Tell us about one campaign you personally owned.
In a few sentences, tell us:
Who were you trying to reach?
Which channels did you use?
Approximately how much budget did you manage?
How did you measure success?
What did you change when the original approach wasn't working?
What was the result?
If you have directly generated CDL driver leads, we'd especially like to hear what channels you used and what you learned.
Always There Express
Romeoville, Illinois
Don't come here just to manage recruiting.
Come here to build the driver acquisition engine.
Pay: $110,000.00 - $140,000.00 per year
Work Location: In person
