Tenstreet works with a wide variety of trucking companies, big and small, from all over the country. One of the characteristics we’ve noticed that the best-run carriers always seem to share is their awareness of their metrics when it comes to recruiting. Effectively tracking recruiting metrics is a common thread connecting successful carriers regardless of their fleet size or location, and while all carriers will have some metrics that are unique to their particular situation, these 5 are the most important recruiting metrics across the industry.
1- Application Volumes by Publisher/Source
Different Carriers have different strategies when it comes to recruitment, but all of them invest a significant amount of money in finding and hiring drivers. With so much time and money dedicated to seeking out new drivers, it’s vital for your business to be able to measure what’s working and what’s not, and use that to fine tune your approach and ensure you’re getting a significant return on investment in your recruiting efforts. Because of that, one of the biggest priorities for successful carriers is tracking where all of their applications are coming from. Many carriers make use of multiple job boards and sites, and by looking at the unique volume of applicants coming from each publisher or source, companies can see which sites are providing them with the most unique, quality leads. Tracking this metric enables you to stop wasting money placing ads on sites that either aren’t yielding results or are only sending you leads that you’re already getting from other sources.
2- Success Rates by Publisher/Source
Unfortunately, simply tracking volume from each publisher is not enough. To really optimize your recruitment spending, you have to measure both the volume of leads that each source sends you and the success rate for recruiting each lead sent from that source. Each publisher or source that you place job advertisements with will have their own strategy for attracting drivers and gathering applicants, and the driver traffic from different sources might not yield quality leads for every type of carrier. It’s possible for the highest volume sources to bring you drivers that either aren’t qualified for your jobs, or drivers who are qualified but aren’t interested. Determining recruitment success of candidates from each source can be complicated by a long sales cycle, and high frequencies job searches by drivers, but it can be measured by diligently keeping track of where successful candidates originated from, and which sources are sending you leads that don’t pan out.
3- Elapsed Time
One of the unfortunate results of the driver shortage is that qualified drivers are never on the job market for long. A driver is likely to quickly receive a job offer at another carrier, and isn’t going to wait around for a job offer from your company. That is why it’s crucial to make sure that candidates are being assessed and moved through your recruitment process as quickly as possible. Measuring how long it takes for candidates to complete all the steps in the recruitment process and accept a job offer is a key component to improving your recruiting results. It’s important to measure both the elapsed time from first contact to offer, but also the elapsed time for intermediate steps as well. Keeping track of how much time passes between each step in the recruitment process helps you to determine if too much time is being spent on specific steps – such as getting approvals, or arranging travel – and come up with solutions to speed up the process.
4- Percentage of Offers Being Accepted
When you’re making an offer to a driver, you know that you’ve already determined that they’re qualified and interested enough in the position to make it all the way through the recruitment process. Tracking the percentage of drivers over time that have been turning you down will give valuable insight into what’s keeping more of the drivers that you’ve invested the most in from coming on board. As you make changes in the company, your job offers, and your recruitment process, keep track of how each change affects the acceptance rate for your candidates. All else being equal, if the percentage is going up, you’re getting better at winning the drivers you want the most.
5- Show Rate at Orientation
After your driver has completed the recruitment process, and accepted your job offer, ensuring they show up for orientation is the last step in the process. Until the driver shows up at orientation, the process of recruiting is not complete (and for some carriers, it really shouldn’t be considered done until you hand the driver the keys). At this point, a significant amount of time and money has been on recruiting these candidates- so every driver that doesn’t show up at orientation is an expensive piece of bad news. However, the most successful carriers don’t yield to the temptation of sweeping these disappointments under the rug – but regularly track the number of drivers who accept an offer but never make it to orientation. They then analyze and use that information to improve their performance. It’s even more effective to track these numbers by orientation location, type of driver, and other relevant factors so you can better identify root causes for no-shows.
BONUS – Common Reasons for Declining Offer
This last item isn’t really a metric, but keeping track of the top reasons that drivers you’ve made job offers to have declined is extremely important. When you know the reasons the drivers are giving for not choosing your company, you have a valuable list of all the areas that your business can improve to become more competitive as an employer – whether that means establishing better communication practices with your candidates, or offering more attractive pay or benefits.
Is your business tracking these recruiting metrics?
If so, how do you track them?
