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2. They generally share the same interests in life. These characteristics determine how long the person will stay on the job.

Successful route drivers generally:

• Enjoy the technical aspects of the job. As you might expect, they are mechanical by nature. They like working with tools. They fix their machines when needed, so they operate smoothly and take pride in doing so.
• Don’t need to be creative. An operator was heard to say: “We hired a driver who we hoped could find new ways to improve efficiency. But we found this driver spent most of his time thinking up new ways to do things instead of focusing on the job at hand — filling the machines.”
• Don’t want to interact and serve people. The best ones stick to the “knitting” and don’t focus on the people around them. They focus on getting the job done quickly and moving on to the next location.
• Don’t like to prepare written reports. Top performers like to concentrate on completing the day’s work, not writing up summaries for management.

3. They must have the right mental capabilities. These characteristics determine if the person can do the job.

Successful route drivers must:

• Process information quickly and have the ability to learn new things.
• Understand fairly complex verbal information.
• Respond well to straightforward questions.
• Use numbers to help with decisions.
• Not become bored by the repetition of filling machines.
• Have the smarts to think, act and make decisions on their own.