Cross-Cutting Strategies to Improve Transit Operator Hiring

Cross-Cutting Strategies to Improve Transit Operator Hiring

There are many strategies transit agencies can employ to streamline hiring processes and reduce the time required to recruit, screen, and onboard qualified candidates. This fact sheet presents several cross-cutting strategies that agencies can consider when seeking to improve bus operator hiring processes and outcomes.

Simplifying and shortening job applications

Transit agencies have found that job applications are effective primarily as a baseline screening tool.

  • Minimizing unnecessary or overly granular questions will encourage more people to apply and reduce the time required for review. 
  • Determining whether a candidate is likely to meet non-negotiable screening requirements and has the requisite driving experience and availability should be the primary goal of the application.
  • Behavioral and skills-based questions used to evaluate candidate abilities in areas like customer service can be reserved for a phone screening or interview.  

Prompt outreach to candidates after application submission and timely scheduling of interviews

Contacting candidates as quickly as possible after receiving their applications can keep them engaged and increase the likelihood of converting applications into hires.

  • Many agency recruiters prefer to call rather than using email or other communication methods.
  • Some agencies have experimented with hiring events where people can apply, interview, and receive a contingent offer on the same day. Increasing the number of staff who can lead interviews will enable quicker follow-up with candidates.
  • While some agencies have found that using large events or scheduling multiple interviews in a day is the best way to allocate limited staff capacity, others try to maximize available time slots for interviews throughout the week. Either strategy may be effective depending on local context.  
  • Staff capacity is one of the main factors that prevent agencies from contacting candidates and scheduling interviews more quickly. Training more staff on interview best practices can expand capacity – for example, in agencies where operations staff lead interviews, consider cross-training human resources staff.  

Aligning hiring and training schedules to reduce candidate attrition

Some agencies struggle to keep candidates in the pipeline during the period between making offers and the start of new hire training.

  • In some cases, typically at smaller agencies, it has been possible to reduce this wait time by hiring and training on a continuous basis, with as few as 1-2 new hires going through training at a time. 
  • Some larger agencies start training cohorts weekly and hire continuously, while other agencies instead hire in cohorts or cycles – for example, one location posts a bus operator job listing 8-10 times per year and leaves it up for 2-3 weeks. The postings are timed in conjunction with the training start date, so that pre-employment processes should be finishing up around the time of the start of training and no candidates are waiting for weeks to start.  
  • One agency will sometimes “boost” the listing on Indeed, which more than doubles the number of applications they receive, in order to “right size” the cohort based on agency hiring needs. 
  • Agency staff interviewed by TWC recommended communicating to applicants clearly when their training would begin and trying to reduce wait times regardless of whether continuous or cyclical hiring practices are used.  

Differentiating training for CDL holders and those without CDLs 

Some agencies screen out applicants who do not have a CDL; others require that candidates have at least a learner’s permit. 

  • Accepting candidates without commercial driving experience can help agencies that struggle with recruitment, and some provide in-house CDL training and/or testing or partner with a community college for this purpose. 
  • For those that do accept applications from individuals without commercial driving experience, it is typically helpful to create training options for both CDL holders and those with learner’s permits.
  • Some smaller agencies customize training for each individual, allowing for more time if instructors feel it is needed (either for trainees with prior commercial driving experience or without). 
  • One agency has an extra week of training for non-CDL holders that begins every other week, with regular training for all new hires beginning in the alternating week.
  • Other strategies are to have new hires without CDLs start off driving smaller passenger vehicles, or to hire people as temporary employees before beginning CDL training, then have them apply for a full-time role after completing testing. 

This page is part of TWC’s Streamlining Operator Hiring Practices research initiative aimed at documenting current transit agency hiring processes for operators and producing new resources to support agencies’ operator hiring efforts. Through an industry survey and interviews with 15 transit locations, the TWC research team has produced a series of fact sheets, briefs, and other resources focused on various aspects of the hiring process. Check out the initiative landing page to learn more about the project and to see the other resources.