Trucks are easy to add. Customers come in steadily. Drivers are the thing that sets how fast a portable sanitation company can grow, and most companies hire them the same way they did in 2005: a Facebook post, a phone number, and an interview in the yard. That works until the day two drivers quit in the same week. Here is a hiring setup that takes an afternoon to build and runs all year.
A careers page of your own
Every opening should have a page on your own site, with the application on it. Not because Indeed is bad, but because an application that arrives in your own system is one you can track, and one Google can find without you paying for it. The page lists the role, the pay (a range is fine; "competitive" is not), the city, the schedule, and a plain description of the day. Drivers know what a Monday looks like. Tell them yours.
The CDL-aware application
A driving job needs driving questions, and a generic form does not ask them:
- License class held, and endorsements (tanker matters for vacuum trucks).
- Years of commercial driving, and the kinds of vehicle.
- Whether the medical card is current.
- Moving violations and accidents in the last three years, as a yes/no with a short explanation.
- Any suspensions.
- Employment history for the last few years.
- A typed-name certification that the answers are true.
Know which trucks need a CDL before you post. A lot of service trucks sit under the weight threshold; the bigger vacuum trucks do not. Ask for the class you need for the truck the hire will drive.
Three things the form must never ask: Social Security number, date of birth, driver's license number. They do not belong on a web form, they are a liability to store, and you will collect them properly after the offer through payroll and a background-check provider.
A board, not an inbox
Applications in an email inbox are applications you forget. Put them on a board: Applied, Phone screen, Ride-along, Offer, Hired, Not selected. Move the card when the step happens. Two drivers quit? Open the board and you have four people in Phone screen you talked to last month. That is the whole value, and it is worth more than any job site.
Tell the candidate where they stand, in coarse terms. A status page with "We've received your application" and "We'd like to talk" is enough; never show them your internal stage names.
Posting the opening
Indeed and ZipRecruiter changed the rules in 2026: free organic distribution goes to integrated software partners, and a single feed from a small company does not get it. The practical setup is your own careers page for the application, plus posting by hand to the boards that matter in your area. Shape the post per board: on Indeed and ZipRecruiter the title is the role alone ("CDL Class B Driver"), because a stuffed title ranks worse; on Craigslist put the pay in the title; on Facebook write a two-sentence post with the link. A QR code on a flyer at the truck stop still works.
The first day happens before the first day
When you hire someone, two emails need to go out in the right order. First, a welcome from you: start date, who to ask for, what to wear, what to bring. Then, a few minutes later, the invitation to the driver app. If the app invitation arrives first, from an address they have never seen, it looks like spam and it gets ignored, and your new driver turns up Monday without the app. Send the welcome first; hold the invitation if the welcome fails.
When they accept the invitation, the license details from their application should land on their driver profile without anyone retyping them, and their first pre-trip should be waiting. That inspection is the next post. And if they will be sharing a truck, their PIN is set on day one.
What this is not
It is not a background check, an I-9 or a drug test. Those come after the offer, from the providers built for them. Hiring software's job is to make sure the candidate who applied in March is still findable in September, and that the one you hired got the right two emails in the right order.
