1-800-How’s-My-Driving?

By Charlotte Mateo On February 26, 2026 · In Uncategorized

Updated: February 26, 2026

What does that have to do with recruiting?

You’ve probably seen those yellow stickers on the back of semi-trailers and commercial vehicles. They’ve been around for 30+ years. Not many people probably call that number — but it’s there. It’s a reminder that the driver represents their company, that they’re operating in public, and that anyone they cut off in traffic can pick up the phone and report it.

About 10 years ago, at a TechServe Alliance conference, we met Adam Conrad. He had a brand-new idea: allow candidates to provide instant feedback on their experience with recruiters.

It immediately reminded us of those bumper stickers.

My Recruiting Director and I have always had strong feelings about how recruiters should interact with candidates. Recruiting is personal. It touches someone’s livelihood, their confidence, sometimes their family plans. But beyond regular training sessions and reminders, we didn’t have a true accountability mechanism.   When we heard about the Great Recruiters concept, we signed up right away and became one of their first customers.

I’ll admit — we were a little nervous introducing it to the team. Nobody loves the idea of being reviewed in real time. But our recruiters embraced it, and we implemented the system.

Now, years and thousands of candidate and client reviews later, we’re very glad we did.

Recruiting is a profession not unlike driving: you’re interacting with people all day long, navigating conversations that are often sensitive and high-stakes. We genuinely work hard to create strong job matches. But we don’t always have good news to share. We all have full to-do lists. It’s not always easy to communicate as quickly or thoroughly as we’d like.

The best recruiters, though, make the effort.

They return calls.
They send the follow-up email if they can’t connect live.
They provide updates even when there isn’t a final answer yet.
They execute consistently — sometimes during very long days (as I write this at 5:30 AM).

And the recruiters who earn consistent 5-star reviews? Those are the ones you want representing you — whether you’re a candidate or a client.

I’m proud of my team at Benchmark IT and our overall 4.8-star average rating. I’m also grateful when we receive a review that isn’t 5 stars. That’s when we pause, reflect, and ask, “How can we do better next time?”

So hat’s off to Adam and the team at Great Recruiters for building a tool that has helped elevate accountability across our industry. In a profession where we impact people’s careers — and lives — that matters.

And as for me… I hope I’m driving my world okay.  If you’d like to let us know how we’re doing — good or bad — here’s the link.  Click Here To Review Me

— John Bemis
President, Benchmark IT