Hiring Trends in Logistics with Jake Brown of Brown & Pierce Consulting

Hiring is one of the hardest parts of running a logistics company, and Jake Brown has built his career solving that problem. 

As Managing Partner at Brown & Pierce Consulting, Jake brings his experience from the Marine Corps and manufacturing recruitment to the world of freight, helping logistics companies find and retain the people who drive their business forward. 

Recorded live at the Florida Supply Chain Summit, this conversation covers what is really going on in the freight job market, what makes a great hire, and how recruiters are navigating the balance between authenticity and AI.

Key takeaways:

• Why authentic human connection still wins in a world full of AI-generated job posts.
• The roles in logistics that are hardest to fill and where the pay is rising fastest.
• How federal rate cuts could signal the next hiring boom in transportation.
• What makes a “safe hire” versus a transformational one.
• Why soft skills matter as much as technical ability in leadership roles.

LINKS:

• Jake's LinkedIn
• Florida Supply Chain Summit Website

WATCH THE FULL EPISODE HERE

-----------------------------------------

THANK YOU TO OUR SPONSORS!

Are you experienced in freight sales or already an independent freight agent? Listen to our Freight Agent Trenches interviews powered by SPI Logistics to hear from the company's agents on how they took the entrepreneurial leap.

CargoRex is the logistics industry’s go-to search platform—connecting you with the right tools, services, events, and creators to explore, discover, and evolve.

Digital Dispatch manages and maximizes your #1 sales tool with a website that establishes trust and builds rock-solid relationships with your leads and customers.

Chapters

• 0:43 Why live events still matter for recruiters
• 2:37 From Marine Corps to managing manpower
• 5:00 Why logistics recruiting is a blue ocean
• 7:42 The truth about retention and hiring pauses
• 12:14 The most in-demand logistics roles
• 22:46 Why 2026 could bring a hiring boom

Transcript

Blythe Milligan: 0:37

How are you liking the summit so far?

Jake Brown: 0:44

Really enjoying it, actually? Yeah. I think these kind of events are super valuable for especially for recruiters like me, and honestly, just learning from people about what they have going on, it gives you an insight that you just can't get from, like researching a company through their website and what's available online. So talking to people, I think, is just so important. And I'm, I am in the people business, after all. So So I love events like this.

Unknown: 1:08

Well I think that that is I'm actually going to keep that in the show, because I haven't. I'm going to do a quick intro, but that was a great way to sort of kick off the conversation, right? So welcome in, everybody to another episode of everything is logistics, a podcast for the thinkers and freight we are proudly presented by SPI logistics, and I'm your host, Blythe Milligan, we are live on site at the Florida supply chain summit in my hometown of Jacksonville, Florida, and also your hometown of Jacksonville, Florida. We were speaking to Jake Brown, managing partner at Brown and Pierce, a recruiting agency for the logistics industry. And you have, we were talking last night at the welcome reception, and you have quite an interesting background, because you're a veteran, a former Marine, you also have manufacturing experience, and then that led you to opening up your own company. Do I have that historical, career history timeline down that's pretty accurate? Yeah, really, I was, I was raised out in the southwest, in New Mexico, and then decided that the military was going to be the path for me, and I joined the Marines. I was lucky enough to go to the Naval Academy, and then did my five years there as a manpower officer. So actually, even from my time in the military, my whole career has been focused on people, manpower problems, staffing solutions and things like that, and that's just what I'm passionate about, too. So when I got out of the Marines, I fell right into a veteran owned recruiting agency in the manufacturing sector, actually, and I did everything from recruiting technicians up to the executive executive level, and I learned a lot about kind of why companies are focused on hiring and why It's so important to get hiring done right, because it's such a sort of a concept that a lot of people don't really, they don't really understand sometimes, on what all goes into it and why it's so critical. So got some good exposure there. And then after about three years of doing that, my business partner and I, who was also a Marine veteran, decided we were going to spin off on our own and and one year ago, actually, we started Brown and pierce consulting, and we just had our one year anniversary. And since then, we've grown so much. We've gone to we're at over, over two dozen clients now across 13 states, and that's starting from from absolutely nothing. We just have created a very large footprint already, and if anything else, it just shows that there is a need for for good hiring services. So just quickly, 4000 clients. No, no. Sorry. Two dozen clients. Okay, two dozen. I was like, whoa. We're not that big yet, but over two dozen clients in one year, and we spread to 13 different states up and down the East Coast, a little bit out towards the Midwest as well. So, so let's, I want

Blythe Milligan: 3:32

to stick with manufacturing for a minute, because there, obviously, there's a big push here, nationally, especially within the government, to push more US based manufacturing. I'm curious, with your time spent in that segment of you know, the sort of supply chain process, what were some of the biggest gaps that you saw missing from the employee base? I guess that, or the employee needs of some of these big manufacturers?

Unknown: 3:54

Yeah, pretty much everyone is going to need. The skilled trades, the technicians, those guys who know how to fix specific kinds of equipment. If you're in the plastics industry, for example, there's very specific kind of extrusion equipment that is going to need a technician that knows how to fix it. Or, just as another example, like CNC equipment, when they're cutting metal, those are like very specialized machines, and they can be really large too. So the technicians, those kind of careers are always going to be very high demand in terms of employment. We also did back this was at my previous company, but we focus pretty heavily on kind of middle management as well. And I think for hiring, specifically, when you're looking at those, those technical skill sets, if someone can do the job, they're generally a safe hire. For management, it's a lot more about soft skills. It's a lot more about that the impact of that person is going to have can be so amazing or also detrimental. So it's really, really important to get management positions right. And that was another area that was that was pretty common when we were doing manufacturing so

Blythe Milligan: 4:50

and so, as you moved into starting your own company, why do you still focus or maybe have a sector of manufacturing, or what does it what does the kind of playbook look like?

Unknown: 5:00

Yeah, right, right now. We're, we're pretty exclusively focused on transportation and logistics right now. So we saw the supply chain sector as one that was really that had a ton of great potential. We really liked the future of the supply chain sector in America and Florida specifically, but we saw that was underserved from a recruitment perspective. So manufacturing, there's a ton of recruiters in this space, not so much with supply chain. And so we sort of saw that as, from a from a business perspective, a bit of a blue ocean. We talked about the concept of not having too much competition. And so we saw that we knew some of the big names we talked about, then yesterday as well, but we just felt that this was absolutely the right sector. We. A little bit of exposure to it coming from manufacturing, because they're so integrated with the largest supply chain picture. But, but ultimately, we just, kind of, we just dove right into transportation logistics, and that's where we got all of our focus right now. So, so

Blythe Milligan: 5:48

when we're talking about transportation logistics, I think, you know, as a as a country as a whole, there's a lot of sort of reporting around the challenges of of hiring, the challenges of retention. I'm imagining that a lot of those same issues are existing in transportation

Unknown: 6:04

logistics. Yeah, certainly. I think in transportation logistics in particular, there's added volatility, mostly due to the tariffs. And so, you know, you can take a look at the overall hiring market, you can look at the numbers from the BLS, for example, and see that a lot of companies are sort of in this wait and see approach. They're not. We sort of over hired in 2022 we hired a lot, and it hasn't been nearly that same level for the last three years. And so now we finally got a federal rate cut that should allow for a little bit more optimism, I think, in the market, and for employers to take a little bit more of an aggressive look what they're hiring. But when you have volatility, when you have change and a lot of other factors in addition to weak consumer demand in the transportation logistics sector, those companies are going to be a little bit more reluctant to to increase their hiring, especially at a time like this. So that said, I do, I know we're going to maybe come back around to this, but I am optimistic on the future, in particular, because what we have seen is that as soon as any of these things stabilize, as we reach these trade deals with with partner nations, or even just sector by sector, as these things eventually stabilize and and hiring managers see a little bit more of that predictability in their costs. They realize that there's so much good talent out there right now, and they hire them. Now, and they hire them really quick. So we've already seen, I think, a bit of a turnaround just with time, and I think it's going to get

Blythe Milligan: 7:25

better from here on out. So what are the is the big issues right now? Is it just people pausing on hiring? But what about the folks who maybe want or maybe the companies that want to keep their top performers during an uncertain economy? Where are you seeing more shifts happening? Is it the new hiring, or is it retention?

Unknown: 7:42

That's a good question. I think when it comes to specific roles in this kind of market, we've seen an increase in hiring for sales specifically because a lot of companies are focused on anyone that can improve their top line. When they're seeing weak consumer demand, for example, they're still interested in hiring those guys, especially if they can, for example, with logistics brokerage, bring some immediate business. Those really, really popular those guys are getting interviews left and right, and companies are taking extra steps to keep them around. And we've seen counter offers go out that are significantly higher than what that person was getting paid before, before we talked to them. So that's one thing, I think, in a lot of ways as well. When it comes to other positions, companies are kind of struggling to find the right way to keep talent, but I think that they also know that there's not a whole lot of other opportunities right now, and so sometimes they're sort of just gambling on, you know, on folks not seeing a lot out there. And they sort of, as an average job seeker, you're gonna hear a lot of horror stories, especially if you spend any time on LinkedIn about what the job market is like. And so I think sometimes they are sort of sort of banking on that fact that there's not a whole lot of opportunities out there for most positions that we're seeing. So I do want to touch on that for a minute, because there's a lot I you know, I follow LinkedIn subreddits, and they're talking about, oh, all these fake applications, or, you know, fake job postings. It's a lot of AI generated slop that exists on LinkedIn. What is sort of, how does a recruiter manage LinkedIn? Yeah, for us, I think when you look at LinkedIn as a platform, it's, it's pretty much, I think of LinkedIn as a sales platform. And so when I'm when I'm managing all of that stuff that's on there, one of the things that's most frustrating too, is seeing those kind of scams and the stuff that's not really genuine out there. For example, a lot of people are getting these indeed text messages now that people claiming to be from indeed, or people messaging them on LinkedIn about a job, and it's not real. The only way that we found to get through that noise is to be authentic, is to connect with someone on a personal level and have an actual like discovery conversation with them, rather than just going straight for the pitch and saying, out of nowhere, I don't know, you will have a job for you. You great for it. No one believes that, like you don't even know you know what I mean. So connecting with them as a human and saying, Hey, how are you are you happy with where you're at in your career. What is your future? What are you interested in the future? And is there a way that our services as a recruiting agency can meet your career desires and goals? And if there's alignment there, then great, let's talk. And if not a no harm, no foul. So I think that's the only way. Is really, really just leaning in on the authenticity, especially when it comes to a platform that is is highly sort of modified. People present themselves in a certain way on social media, and LinkedIn is in a corporate setting, it can get a lot worse. So, yeah, you just have to be you have to be yourself. And that's, that's the only, I think there's also the spray and pray that LinkedIn almost encourages and tries to make it easy, especially for sales folks who. Trying to reach out to as many people as possible. I've even seen the other day that this hack went viral, where this guy took this almost instructions for like an LLM, put it in his bio, and so he can easily now tell which of the, I guess the AI slop or the AI slop for sales is reaching out to him, because they'll send him recipes. And that was the prompt in his bio, which I thought was fantastic. I do want to go back to what you're currently looking at now. As far as the market is concerned, are there certain roles that are in need right now that you're you're trying to find roles for or fits for? Yeah, a lot of our clients are in heavy need of drivers. In particular, there is just such a need for those guys. And they really are just the backbone of these trucking companies. It's the guys who are over the road, drivers, CDL guys, other kinds of vehicles, that they need drivers for. So that's going to be a consistent and ongoing demand, and it's in more need now than ever as well. I mentioned the sales roles too are pretty high demand right now, those two positions, and then also, any company that has a fleet of trucks is going to need mechanics to fix those trucks when they go down. So we've seen actually a pretty incredible increase, even in compensation levels, actually, for truck mechanics, guys who can fix diesel engines and then refrigerated units, in particular, on those on those trucks when they're moving refrigerated freight, those guys make they do pretty well. They have very competitive pay. So those, I'd say, drivers, mechanics and sales roles are in high demand right

Blythe Milligan: 12:59

now. Interesting is it, what about from a company perspective? Because I've heard you talk a lot about the individual level, but do companies hire you to, say, fill certain

Unknown: 13:07

roles? Yeah, for us as Headhunters, we're a little bit more specialized on kind of the key hire, rather than the volume. So when a company is working with us, it's usually a good match. If they're looking for, you know, two to three strategic hires or a couple more, sometimes, depending on the level, right, they need a few mechanics. We get them a few mechanics. That's usually where we are a best match when it comes to more high volume stuff, if they need someone to staff an entire warehouse, for example. For example, that's more aligned with like a staffing company, and a little bit outside of our scope, but, but by and large, we're sort of traditional head hunters, just focused on on supply chain specifically.

Blythe Milligan: 13:43

So. So you mentioned earlier about how you know certain roles are, I don't want to say easier to fill. But then there's more challenging, sort of managerial aspect, where you got to be more of a people person, and you got to have, you know, people managing skills. What, what kind of skill set are you looking for, for that demographic? Yeah,

Unknown: 14:00

it's, it's a great question, because it's so interesting to think about where I've come from in my career in recruitment, and the kinds of questions I asked back then to qualify someone for a role, versus the questions that I asked. Yeah, well, first off, I always tell if I asked, if you say, tell, if I ask, if you say, Tell me your story, what brought you to where you are today. I want to know about you, what's important to you, and that gives me kind of some insight on who they are, how they communicate, their professional background. Generally, they're pretty good with it. Some people overshare which is, which is fine. I don't pass all the bad information on. But for management roles in particular, I hate to go kind of back to the cliche questions, but asking about things that how they've overcome challenges in the past, how they deal with workplace conflict, because those things will happen. I mean, it's life. These are the people that you're working with, and so getting a sense of how those people solve problems, how they communicate with other people. And can I, I always ask myself, would I hire this person if I was in the hiring manager shoes? And I think that's enabled us to be there at the right level of selective with candidates and and make sure that we're only sending forward the best to to our clients. So questions like that, stuff that you know at the same time getting beyond kind of just the district. Does this resume match the job description, but is this person going to be value added and be able to deliver business value to that client company? So

Blythe Milligan: 15:18

yeah, it's interesting, because I just thought about another conversation that I had with another gentleman that was focused on hiring, but when he was focused on hiring different brokers, he would actually go to restaurants and fast food, and he would find the people that were really good at that job, because you're really good with dealing with a variety of different people, and that's what he would look for as far as like a good dispatcher or good broker. So it's interesting that you kind of have a similar approach of what I hire this person, and if you wouldn't hire them, then that's probably not going to be a good fit for placement, for sure. And so when you're thinking about these different hiring opportunities, or these different, I guess, collaborative opportunities with these different companies, what does sort of the onboarding process look like, if I was just a regular employee and I wanted to get a new better job, would I be able to reach out to you, very similar to on the company angle, if they have a need for a certain position, they can reach out to you. And what do those onboarding processes look

Unknown: 16:16

like? Yeah, certainly, it's pretty easy. So my alternate job title, in addition to managing partner, is head of candidate success, and that's really what we're focused on. So for professionals in the supply chain, if they're looking at new roles, we have a website with a ton of job postings on it. You. And what's cool about working with a recruiter is that the client companies are working with us. They're paying a fee, so you know that they're serious about that role. There's a lot of noise out there, a lot of job postings that are kind of just always posted, but never really getting all the attention. And so for us, it's as easy as just sending us a message on LinkedIn, or emailing us, or calling us, or whatever, and getting in touch with with myself, specifically talking through, you know, what your career goals are, and if we have anything that's actively aligned, or if we need to, just need to take a look at, you know, what companies are within our network that we could connect that person with. And then, fundamentally, I think that, you know, recruiters are advocates for the candidates throughout the process, or at least they should be. And so we do things like interview preparation, we do resume coaching, we fix we clean up resumes before we submit them. So we're not just, you know, we want to make sure that our candidates are as prepared for success as possible. So we have additional services that we offer in addition to

Blythe Milligan: 17:21

that as well. What does a good resume look like nowadays?

Unknown: 17:24

Yeah, great question. Pretty, pretty simply. I could say that a good resume is is professional and metric driven, so the format itself doesn't need to be too fancy. I think a lot of people are are sort of overthinking that, or adding a lot of fancy colors and icons and stuff that doesn't be on there. They're putting pictures and stuff on there that doesn't need to be there. So keep it simple and kind of a professional format, and then metrics make the most difference. So qualifying any successes with percentage increases or dollar values on it, head count, numbers, anything like that will help your resume stand out from kind of the general fluff out there right now, which is mostly just a lot of, like, good language that doesn't have any sort of measurable achievement tied to it. So that if people are looking for resources, the Harvard, Harvard Business School has, like, a resume guide that they can look up. It's free. And honestly, when I was job searching, like five years ago, that was the resume guide that I use, and it worked pretty well. And that is the format that when we are cleaning up our candidates resumes as well, we follow that. So a very cover letter, still a thing. Mostly, not, thankfully. Yeah, most of the time we don't see a need for it. I think there's, there's one off situations where it might be, it might be required, but generally, I think most people are not interested in that. Saw somebody

Blythe Milligan: 18:32

make a comment the other make a comment the other day, if you can't, you know, take two minutes to make a cover letter, then I don't want to hire you for this role. And I was like, wow, that's a

Unknown: 18:40

weird take. Yeah, there's, there's a lot of interesting takes where people will have very specific I saw one that said, if someone shows up to an interview one minute late, I'm not hiring that person. It's like, Hey, man, life happens. I don't know if you've ever been late to an interview. I have, but yeah, you know, there's certain particularities that companies will have where it's like, okay, if, if a cover letter is required, then yeah, you know, you can type one up. But again, I think people will have this tendency to, like, use AI to do it. And that's a mistake. That's something that that is that cover letter is a perfect place to communicate your authenticity, your genuine story, and tell those people why you are actually a good fit. And so that's, that's kind of like, yeah, one of the things that I would say, for cover letter specific,

Blythe Milligan: 19:20

what about the software that automatically analyzes your resume that you're sending in? How much of, how much is that being used to just sort of whittle through, you know, several different applications.

Unknown: 19:31

It certainly is a concern, I would say, for the companies that we work with, because they sort of outsource their recruitment process to us. We put their resumes directly on the hiring manager's desk, well, virtually, but so there's no crazy AI or ATS that's screening people out or anything like that. We have a candidate snapshot that we submit as well. So in addition to just the resume, we really align the exact job description and what their key needs are with that person and why we're sending them forward. So it's extremely clear to the hiring manager and HR why this person is a good match for kind of some of the just the job seekers out there, or the applicants that are not using a recruiter. I always, always advocate trying to make a some kind of personal connection with the company, either calling in, which is something you can do, and it's, it's not against the rules to call into a company, talk to HR, say, Hey, I submit an application. You know, just curious if you guys ever had a chance to review it, or something like that. Because anything you can do to stand out in this market is going to be critical. So

Blythe Milligan: 20:31

that's interesting, because there was a one job I had where we weren't hiring, but the guy came in every single day for like, two months, and ultimately we hired him. Yeah, he was just persistent, and it got the job done. So if you are dedicated enough and you don't send over a 15 page resume with a bunch of typos and maybe chat GPT words like Delve, then maybe you'll cut through the clutter Exactly, exactly. Yeah, so let's talk a little bit about what are companies? Is there a particular skill set that companies are hiring for right now? Is it adaptability? Is it willingness to learn? Is it leadership?

Unknown: 21:10

That's a really good question. When I think about the opportunities that have fallen through for the candidates that we've placed, it's almost always been because of a lack of digital fluency, so they're not great with some of the basic like emailing and Outlook. Tools are not very communicative. You can't reach them over text or anything like that. I think people are sort of over estimating the importance of AI knowledge right now. I think it's a lot less important to really know how to use that stuff. AI is great. We use it for various things, but really just kind of the brilliance and the basics with your software platforms, if it's a tech heavy role in particular, but that technical competency has been the thing that has sunk a couple of opportunities for candidates in the past, where they will say, Hey, I'm great with Excel. They'll say, Hey, I'm great with presenting business concepts on PowerPoint, but when the rubber meets the road, they don't actually really have that nailed down, you know. And for certain roles, it's pretty key. So that's, that's what I would say, is really hammering down on those technical skills. Now, where do you,

Blythe Milligan: 22:24

I mean, I know it's tough to predict what this market is going to look like, but where are you? This is, you know, we're recording this. It's September 30. October is typically budgeting season for a majority of companies. Where do you see, sort of the hiring trends going in the new year?

Unknown: 22:40

Yeah, we're really optimistic for 2026 for a couple of reasons. I talked about the stability that is coming back to the supply chain as we reach these trade deals, also the federal rate cuts, I think are going to enable the folks controlling the hiring process and the people management executives to be a little bit more comfortable with hiring in 2026 2025 has been really the year of tariffs, the year of instability for the supply chain, and so I think it's just a matter of time until things really start to take off again, and we see another hiring boom. Like I said, I think even as early as the last couple of weeks, when we heard about the first rate cut, we actually saw an immediate response in companies that were more interested in working with recruiters, looking at hiring people. And one of the best sort of hidden indicators of a hiring boom is when you see job postings for recruiters coming up. And I've seen a lot of recruiters postings come up recently. I'm like, Okay, that is a great sign, because as I sort of bring those people on, and you know, a week, few weeks, months after that, they're going to start hiring like crazy. So So I think that's a great sign, and we're really optimistic for that starting to happen in the next few months. So and that to kind of peek behind the curtain a little bit that we started recording early because you said that you were getting so many calls today, and so it maybe ties in with that recent rate cut. And so hopefully, hopefully, you know, we're starting to see a light at the end of the tunnel of all of this instability. And hopefully, you know, we're getting into a world where it's a little bit more stable and people can make those investments into candidates that make the most sense. Yeah, and change is hard. No matter what, situation in the market is never going to be perfect, the job market in particular, so having a partner recruiting agency like us at Brown and pierce has worked out really well for a lot of our clients. I think they're happy. And so we're going to continue to try to provide as much value as we can to anyone who's who's interested in figuring out how to navigate this market today, in this this particular sector, so that's what we're here for, and that's what we love doing. That's a

Blythe Milligan: 24:36

perfect place, I think, to end this conversation. So Jake, where can folks follow you? Get in touch with you if they're interested in making the switch, or even companies that are looking to start making those hiring decisions, where can they reach out? You can find

Unknown: 24:46

us at Brown and pierce.com or look me up on LinkedIn, Jake brown on there, and we'll connect with you. Awesome. Thank you so much. All right, hey, thanks. Great interview. Appreciate it.

Blythe Brumleve: 24:57

Thanks for tuning in to another episode of everything is logistics, where we talk all things supply chain, for the thinkers in freight, if you like this episode, there's plenty more where that came from. Be sure to follow or subscribe on your favorite podcast app so you never miss a conversation. The show is also available in video format over on YouTube, just by searching everything as logistics. And if you're working in freight logistics or supply chain marketing, check out my company, digital dispatch. We help you build smarter websites and marketing systems that actually drive results, not just vanity metrics. Additionally, if you're trying to find the right freight tech tools or partners without getting buried in buzz words, head on over to cargorex.io where we're building the largest database of logistics services and solutions. All the links you need are in the show notes. I'll catch you in the Next episode and go jags. You.

Unknown: 26:10

You.