What do you have that will make you a prime candidate to join our team at our company?

Answer 1

This is something YOU are going to have to come up with the answer to, because (1) we don't know who you are or what you have and (2) we don't know what the company is. I can tell you some of the things I, were I doing the hiring, would not want to hear:

* I am very honest. No kidding. Who's going to go into a job interview and say they're a liar and a thief?

* I am hard working. Obviously--you're going to tell me you sleep on the job?

* I am drug free. If I care whether you're drug free I'm going to hand you a cup. If I don't...certainly no one's going to come in and say "yeah, I smoke weed WHILE I'm running industrial machinery!" Occasionally they'll actually do it--I canned a guy I caught smoking a joint while he was unloading a truck with a forklift--but they won't tell you they will.

Now, let's say I was hiring a truck driver. I've got three candidates, and this is what they tell me:

Candidate 1 says he has held a truck driving license (or CDL) for 16 years and has driven a million miles.

Candidate 2 says he's driven in New York City for three years with no accidents.

Candidate 3 says he has pulled gasoline from Detroit into Canada for the last seven years--meaning he has a Hazardous Tanker endorsement and a passport.

Candidate 1 we can forget about immediately--if you've been on the road for 16 years you should have two million miles. (A decent trucker can run 125,000 miles per year.) I can only think one of two things: his dispatcher won't use him for some reason or he gets fired a lot.

Candidate 2 is pretty impressive--New York City is so hard to run in, most trucking companies won't do it. There are trucking companies in NYC that do nothing but pick up loads at drop yards in New Jersey and pull them into NYC. If I have a guy who can pull freight in NYC without getting into an accident, that's a quality driver. The problem with candidate 2 is he's always pulled local freight. A lot of local guys can't transition to long-haul operation.

Candidate 3's work record tells me he's a squared-away guy because the Canadians won't let you in if you're not, and the states won't give you a hazmat endorsement if you're not. OTOH, Detroit into Canada isn't much of a run, but it's a little longer than Elizabeth to Coney Island.

Decision time: do I take the guy who can drive in tight places, or the guy who can pull hazardous loads into Canada right now?