The Christmas spirit is setting in. You’re probably starting to relax at work. You may be dialing things down. You are also missing a golden opportunity to hire drivers at the lowest cost-per-hire you will have all year.
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Say what?!?
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Conventional wisdom states that at the end of the year drivers stop looking for jobs. The smart thing to do is spend a little less money and rest up for the next year of recruiting drivers.
Huge mistake!
Our team did an in-depth analysis of 7 fleets of varying size. We took a look at their hiring data to gain insight into the supposed December drought. Here is what we found.
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The Lead Velocity Factor
I imagine once January rolls around, you will want to start hiring drivers. Here is the problem. It’s called lead velocity. Lead velocity is the time it takes from a driver’s first contact until he arrives at orientation. The average lead velocity is 32 days. And that means those drivers you want to hire in January need to be leads right now. Many of the drivers you hire in a given month will be in the lead stage the month prior. Take a look at the findings from the 7 fleets we analyzed:
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Black Friday Sales on Drivers
Cost-per-hire needs no explanation. Everyone wants to hire quality drivers for less. If you’re taking December off, you’re missing out on what could be your lowest cost-per-hire. 6 out of the 7 fleets we analyzed had their lowest cost-per-hire in November, December, or January. Check out the details below.
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The Myth of the December Drought
As we said earlier, it’s always assumed that the number of drivers searching for jobs tapers off in December. But we like data at Randall-Reilly. So we had to look into it. We looked at the search volume for terms such as “truck driving jobs” and “jobs for truckers.” Searches for trucking jobs increase steadily from November through January. There is a decline in February, followed by a steady increase until April. This means more and more drivers are looking for jobs or at the very least researching jobs from now until February.
Don’t fall into the trap of relaxing at the end of the year or you’ll end up falling behind in 2019. Take advantage of the increasing searches and lower cost-per-hire to start 2019 with a bang.
