Anchor Transportation Saves Time & Hassle with A-Suite Recruit

Anchor Transportation is a family-owned, 100-unit motorcoach company serving Tennessee and Northern Alabama. The 35-year-old firm has been using A-Suite Recruit from AvatarFleet since April of 2021.

When Recruiting, HR & Safety Manager Mandy Davidson joined Anchor late last year, she was relieved to be working with a driver recruiting and applicant tracking system that actually addressed her challenges.

Anchor Transportation’s challenges

In Mandy’s experience, other applicant tracking systems do not collect critical information like Social Security numbers and medical data. But this information is essential for hiring qualified drivers due to Department of Transportation requirements.

In the past, Mandy had to overcome this challenge by having a candidate stay after an in-person interview to complete extra paperwork to gather the information needed to run a background check and continue on in the hiring process.

This method is not only tedious, it lengthens the recruiting process, which increases the chance of another firm hiring the candidate while you’re still going through the motions.

“Whereas (with A-Suite Recruit), they submit an application, I do a phone screen with them, and then I'm scheduling them to come in, and I already have everything to run their background (check) as soon as that interview's over, so it really cuts all my timeframe in half. And they're not having to sit here for an hour to fill out a paper application that I'm just going to have to shred and destroy anyways because I'm going to upload it in an electronic system. So, it just cuts out so many different areas that I've always struggled with.”

Transition to A-Suite Recruit

 After joining Anchor and learning the ropes of A-Suite Recruit, Mandy is thrilled with the platform’s customization capabilities and compliance with DOT requirements.

“The fact that we're able to customize the application and obtain all of the required information — birth date, Social Security number, 10-year work history — those are things that most applicant tracking systems just don't have and don't want to have because the HR side of things says you don't do that, you don't collect those, but the DOT side of things requires you to collect them.”

A-Suite Recruit’s impact

Overall, A-Suite Recruit has streamlined the hiring process at Anchor Transportation, saving Mandy and her team time and making their jobs easier.   

Efficiency and workflow

One way A-Suite Recruit reduces time is by improving workflow with automation.

For example, after you click a button to indicate the interview has been completed, A-Suite Recruit automatically moves to the next step in the hiring process, prompting you to begin the background check.

This user-friendly format ensures you don’t waste time and never miss a step. Many other systems lack a workflow entirely.

Integration and time-saving

Additional time savings come from A-Suite Recruit’s integration with HireRight, a provider of on-demand employment background checks.

The integration removes the extra steps of separately logging in to a background check platform, entering a candidate’s personal information, and waiting for the person to respond to the request.  

All these steps happen automatically within A-Suite Recruit, which Mandy calls “a massive time saver.”

Improved communication

Finally, A-Suite delivers several communication improvements, including SMS and email templates that save time and ensure professionalism.

“You’re not having to custom write messages to each person that you're responding to … You don't have to sit and think, ‘Okay, what am I going to say to this person?’ ‘Is this appropriate?’ ‘Is it professional?’ It's already built in there.”

Support and service

The customer service experience with A-Suite Recruit & Comply is unmatched thanks to the positive impact of monthly meetings and responsive support.

A-Suite users like Mandy can contact their Client Success Managers anytime with questions that come up along the way, but clients also benefit from routine, hands-on monthly support meetings.

Other application tracking systems may offer a short period of phone support during the onboarding process, but after that it’s difficult to get in touch with their customer service representatives.

“And they definitely do not have follow-up monthly meetings just to say, ‘Hey, how are things going?’”

Mandy appreciates how the AvatarFleet team comes prepared every month with an agenda, data points to discuss, and a proactive, continuous improvement mindset.