CDL Driver Recruiting KPIs: What You Need to Know

How does your driver recruiting team stack up against the competition? While the trucking industry recruiting landscape is tough, there are still opportunities for recruiting teams to be successful in this competitive space. Understanding where inefficiencies are occurring on your team, putting the right strategies in place to address these challenges, and then measuring your success rates is a great place to start.

Measuring Driver Recruiter KPIs that Matter

You can ensure your team performs at the highest level by tracking and reporting on the right driver recruiting KPIs. With data informing your recruiting and retention strategies, your team can be more competitive – and more successful – in the trucking space.

What is your current time to hire?

How long is it taking for new drivers to join the team? By tracking the time it takes from initial application submission to onboarding, your team can see exactly how efficient your recruiting process is.

Want to dig into the weeds? Break this hiring timeline down by stage (application review, interview setup, follow-up, etc.) to see how much time is spent during each stage and then work to streamline this part of the process if there is any outlier.

Tracking driver time to hire will help you determine places you can improve the process. It can also help you get a better sense for when your recruiting engine is on or off track--and what the overall pipeline of drivers looks like so that you can make better forecasts.

Application-to-hire rate

How many drivers applying to your open positions end up driving for your organization? This KPI can be important for three reasons:

    • First, suppose your recruiters are weeding out applicants and only hiring a few drivers based on their qualifications. In that case, it may signify that you need to spruce up your application and/or applicant screening process. 
    • Second, if the drivers are the ones who are changing their minds, it may be a sign to look inward at your organization as a whole to ensure it is a driver-centric company that drivers want to work for.
    • Lastly, it’s important that the leads you’re receiving have legitimate intent. Some vendors send a flood of leads that can give the appearance of interest, but are ultimately just lists of people who aren't legitimately interested in driver jobs.

Cost per hire

After the application process is over and a driver is on the road, what did it cost your organization to fill that seat? From the lead channel to the time spent in follow-up to the cost of any regulatory verifications, new driver hires can be quite expensive.

It's important to have a sense of just how expensive hires are from each of your different channels so that you're comparing apples to apples. Some channels will cost more per lead (but may result in a higher ratio of driver hires) while other channels may bring in lots of driver leads, but those individual drivers take more time qualifying and nurturing.

Basing your driver recruiting strategy on the entire driver lifecycle will help you optimize your processes and maximize your success from start to finish.

Driver retention

How long are your newly hired drivers sticking around? While driver retention may not be as top-of-mind as filling seats when facing driver shortages, focusing on (and optimizing) your KPIs around retention are key to weathering economic uncertainty and recession.

Tracking what happens with your drivers after they’re hired can help your team ensure you’re building a driver-centric workplace, that your new hires will be happy, and even help inform your marketing strategy by building a pool of drivers willing to give testimonials.

 

We Can Help You Track the Driver KPIs that Matter

What KPIs are your team currently tracking? Whether you’re just getting started with recruiting metrics or looking for a new way to track and measure success with your drivers, it’s critical to access as much application, recruiting, and retention data as possible. Many driver recruiting teams face a challenge: access to all this information in a single place. 


With DriverReach, your team will have visibility into crucial driver recruiting metrics, application status, and driver retention notes to ensure recruiters are on the same page. Set up your custom demo to learn more.

 

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