How Much Does it Cost a Company to Hire a Driver?

Depends upon the company. Smaller places, definitely. But I can see how some of the meat grinders wouldn't answer any questions unless someone shows they are serious enough to apply.

Think about this. Company (US)"X" has 6,000 drivers, and a 150% annuitized turnover rate. This means Company "X" has to hire 9,000 drivers each year to maintain staffing. Processing 750 applicants each and every month means they have little to no time leftover to answer any questions from someone who couldn't be bothered to apply to work for "X".

 

That's the opposite. Company "X" above spends less per applicant due to the scale of the operation. My example is because we are more selective, therefore it costs us more per applicant to seat the right driver, rather than just finding "meat for the seat."

 

only goes so far before the law of diminishing returns kicks in.

Eventually each additional seat provides less and less additional return.

See Dad, I do use that BS in Economics sometimes....

 

What you’re missing in this, is the way a large number of companies have you apply. Most send you to an automated application system. Have seen this with companies as small a 30 trucks.

These application sites charge a flat monthly fee or can do per application fee, your choice. They have a basic template, take your website look and feel, wrap it as a shell around their form generator. You go to a dashboard, set your parameters of acceptable response to the questions. The site ranks the application and kicks out any that don’t meet the minimum requirements. That component is probably $20 per application for the company. Now when you call 3 days later, you’re going to get a recruiter/screener. When you tell them your name, they pull up the list of applications from the dashboard, look at its rank/score and go from there. How many people have posted about applying to a company, admittedly had a rough life/employment history, not so clean MVR or career and got the “ we are not currently hiring in your area” reply, or some other iteration of the No thanks variant.

 

Theoretical question— say a guy around 60 shows up at your office dressed in clean Levi’, a button down shirt and a good haircut and asks to fill out an application— guy’s CDL was grandfathered in — work experience is 30+ years mainly construction related, but has experience with a couple OTR outfits, but it’s 8 years old and never run an automatic or ELD. Would you give him a look or tell him to kick a can?

 

I’d treat him like gold and grant an immediate interview. If we had a great man to man mutual gut interview feeling then I’d put into motion the immediate hiring position. What you describe is what I call a professional. If you didn’t have the haz like I need I’d still hire and assist getting what you need while having you on runs that didn’t require haz or tanker.

Edit: And If you don’t have but a flip phone id probably give bonus points as I love old school. Fill out things by hand my brother.

 

The ELD thing is kind of spooky IMHO

 

It’s really nothing but I get it. I’ve done some tests with guys that are truly old school. One drove for my grandparents, as well as my parents, and now are 3rd Gen drivers. When ELD was mandated I used him as a test as well as a new truck with auto test and he truly loved both.

He’s a big fan of auto as well as ELD which has truly surprised me. Frankly, it makes the job easier. We all love the old school but having internal problems isn’t fun afterall.

 

Probably 10% of our overall hires are that way... or over 50% of our local driver hires. Even if the online application is too much technology, we can give you a paper application and then I scan it in as evidence and fill out an online "phone app" on your behalf. A good number of our 60+ crowd is hired that way, we won't discriminate against someone because they are "seasoned." And yes, we have had to have long sit-down sessions over a training ELD unit inside the office to teach how to use the newfangled stuff.