> This is the markdown version of https://www.classet.ai/use-cases/transportation > Learn more at https://www.classet.ai Hiring for Transportation # Get drivers to the next conversation with less chasing. Joy captures license details, route preferences, and availability, follows up with applicants, and prepares a useful summary for your team. Spend less time coordinating screens and more time making hiring decisions. [Book a demo](/demo?ref=use-case-transportation-hero)[Hear an interview](/interviews) Keep your ATS. Put Joy to work in your hiring process. ![Diverse candidates for Transportation hiring positions](/_next/image?url=%2Fimages%2Fuse-cases%2Ftransportation-candidates-hero.png&w=3840&q=75) For transportation TA and operations teams - Understand license details, route preferences, and availability - Spend less time on first screens and follow-up - Give hiring managers a clear next step Updated October 9, 2026 ## What is AI interviewing for transportation hiring? AI interviewing for truck driver hiring is a phone or web interview with a CDL applicant, started the moment the application lands. Joy, Classet's AI recruiter, calls the applicant and asks the questions a driver recruiter asks on a first call: CDL class and endorsements, months of verifiable experience, equipment pulled, home-time expectations, and consent for the Clearinghouse query and MVR. Your recruiter then receives a structured summary with the transcript and recording attached, and a person on your team decides who moves to orientation. Carriers, private fleets, transload and drayage operators, and driver staffing agencies use Joy for company driver, owner-operator, dispatcher, and dock roles. Speed is the reason the approach works. According to Tenstreet's 2025 analysis of 1.5 million driver applicants, carriers who respond within five minutes hire 6.2% of applicants, against a platform average of 3.7%, and 55% of applicants across Classet accounts apply outside business hours. ## Results transportation employers can expect 88% of candidates who start the phone screen finish within 20 minutes of applying Classet: Classet platform data, completed interviews across customer accounts 55% of applicants apply outside business hours Classet: Classet platform data, completed interviews across customer accounts 88% of candidates rate the interview positively (10,167 ratings) Classet: Classet candidate feedback, 10,167 post-interview ratings on a 4-point scale 6.2% hire rate when a carrier responds within five minutes, vs 3.7% average [Tenstreet via GlobeNewswire: Tenstreet analysis reveals how carriers can cut ad spend and increase speed-to-hire, June 10, 2025](https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2025/06/10/3096880/0/en/tenstreet-analysis-reveals-how-carriers-can-cut-ad-spend-and-increase-speed-to-hire.html) The first three figures are Classet platform data; the fourth is the gap a 24/7 interview is built to close. ![Phoenix Transload logo](/_next/image?url=%2Fcustomer-logos%2Fphoenix-transload.webp&w=256&q=75)transportation > Joy works 24/7 — it's perfect for candidates who can't talk during normal hours. We're seeing more applicants come through our staffing agency because of it. Joy is efficient, professional, and sounds like a real person — not robotic at all. Our team and applicants love her. ![Rebecca Wallace](/_next/image?url=%2Fcustomer-logos%2Favatars%2Frebecca-wallace.png&w=96&q=75) Rebecca Wallace COO at Phoenix Transload ## Trusted by transportation and logistics teams [![Phoenix Transload](/_next/image?url=%2Fcustomer-logos%2Fphoenix-transload.webp&w=256&q=100)](/case-studies)[![Ewing Outdoor Supply](/_next/image?url=%2Fcustomer-logos%2Fewing-outdoor-supply.png&w=256&q=100)](/case-studies)[![MAU](/_next/image?url=%2Fcustomer-logos%2Fmau-blue.webp&w=256&q=100)](/case-studies) ## Why truck driver hiring is hard right now Truck driver hiring is hard because experienced Class A drivers field offers from several fleets at once. The United States employed 2,062,040 heavy and tractor-trailer truck drivers in May 2025 at a median wage of $58,640 a year, or $28.19 an hour, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. BLS projects about 214,500 openings a year through 2035, most replacing drivers who retire or leave the occupation. The American Trucking Associations put the driver shortage at 80,000 in October 2021 and projected a figure past 160,000 by 2030. ATA has since stopped publishing a headline number and now describes a shortage of qualified drivers rather than of CDL holders. For a recruiter the two mean the same thing. The driver with a clean MVR and two years in a tractor-trailer has three applications open and takes the first fleet to call back with real numbers on pay and home time. ## Why turnover and Clearinghouse status matter on the first call Driver turnover is the larger cost. Large truckload carriers averaged 92.7% annualized driver turnover from the third quarter of 1996 through the first quarter of 2023, according to the ATA series reported by FreightWaves, and the OOIDA Foundation's April 2025 paper found more than 30% of newly hired drivers leave within three months while fewer than 40% remain after a year. Compliance thins the pool further. As of January 2, 2026, FMCSA's Drug and Alcohol Clearinghouse listed 202,345 CDL and CLP holders in prohibited status, and 159,226 had not started the return-to-duty process. Some prohibited drivers still apply, so a Clearinghouse question on the first call saves a wasted orientation seat. Tenstreet measured the average carrier hiring process at 10 to 15 days and found hiring rates fall by as much as 50% once the process runs longer. Drivers apply from a truck stop at 10pm or on Saturday, and a recruiter who works 8 to 5 reaches the driver after two other fleets have. ## What Joy asks a CDL driver applicant Joy is the AI recruiter Classet runs on a CDL driver application, and the interview starts the moment the application lands. 1. The driver applies through your job posting, a job board, or a shareable interview link, and Joy calls. A driver who misses the call gets a text and an email link and can start when parked. 2. Joy asks the role's questions and knockouts the way you wrote them. For a Class A company driver the list covers CDL class and state of issue, endorsements (hazmat, tanker, doubles and triples), months of verifiable experience, equipment and freight types pulled, OTR versus regional versus local preference, home-time expectations, DOT medical card status, ELDT completion for new CDL holders, and consent for the Clearinghouse query, MVR, and PSP. 3. Joy answers the driver's questions about pay structure, home time, and lanes from the FAQ you set up, in any of 25+ languages. ## What your recruiter receives after the interview The interview summary is a one-page record of the driver's answers, delivered with the full transcript and the call recording as soon as the interview ends, in Hiring Hub or in your ATS through ATS Sync. Knockout results sit at the top and show which must-have criteria the driver meets, for example a Class A CDL with a tanker endorsement and 24 months of verifiable experience. Fast-track, if you turn it on, flags the strongest fits for a first call with the driver's own words beside each criterion; nobody is moved or turned away by software, and a recruiter can disagree with any result. [Candidate insights](/candidate-insights) turns the structured answers from your interviews into data your team can act on, such as the pay candidates expect and which requirements they miss most. A recruiter at a carrier reads the summary in about a minute, plays the recording if an answer needs a second look, and decides who goes to orientation. Across Classet accounts, 88% of candidates who start the phone screen finish within 20 minutes of applying, and 88% of 10,167 candidates rated the interview positively on a 4-point scale. A driver who prefers a person can opt out and is routed to your team. Candidates who clear your must-haves can get a text with your open times and book on their phone through [Scheduling](/scheduling), available by request. [Call to Apply](/call-to-apply) adds a hiring number on the truck or sign that Joy answers 24/7. ## How Phoenix Transload hires with Joy Phoenix Transload is a transload and distribution operator whose applicants are on a dock or in a cab during office hours. COO Rebecca Wallace told us the 24/7 interview made the difference for candidates who cannot talk during normal hours, and more applicants started coming through the company's staffing agency once Joy was answering the phone. The pattern matches platform data: 55% of applicants across Classet accounts apply outside business hours, and 88% of candidates who start the phone screen finish within 20 minutes of applying. For a transload yard running two shifts, the summary and recording are waiting in Hiring Hub before the morning shift starts, and the operations team books orientation from a screened list instead of a stack of voicemails. ## Roles Joy screens in transportation Joy screens six driver and support roles for transportation employers, and across Classet accounts 88% of candidates who start the phone screen finish within 20 minutes of applying. OTR company drivers are asked for a Class A CDL, endorsements, months of verifiable experience, equipment pulled, and home-time expectations. Regional and dedicated drivers get questions on home-daily or home-weekly fit, territory familiarity, and touch freight. Local and P&D drivers are asked for a Class A or Class B license, route experience, liftgate work, and start times, with Clearinghouse consent and MVR authorization as knockouts. Owner-operators answer questions on truck year and specs, operating authority or lease-on status, insurance, and the lanes the driver wants to run. Dispatchers and driver managers cover TMS experience (McLeod, TMW, Samsara), hours-of-service knowledge, and shift coverage. Dock and yard staff are asked for forklift certification, yard tractor experience, and shift availability. A recruiter sets the knockouts per role in Hiring Hub. See Joy interview a transportation applicant Your first 20 completed interviews are free. Card required at signup, nothing charged until the trial ends. [Book a demo](/demo?ref=use-case-transportation-mid)[Get Started Free](https://app.classet.ai/signup/) ## Joy vs. manual phone screens vs. a general ATS How the first step of transportation hiring compares across the three ways teams usually run it. Joy (Classet) Manual phone screens General ATS When the first interview happens The moment they apply, 24/7 When a recruiter gets to the list, during business hours Not at all: the application waits in a queue until someone reviews it Applicants who apply after hours (55% across Classet accounts) Interviewed the same night Called back the next business day, often later Seen whenever someone next logs in What your team receives Structured summary, transcript, recording and knockout results The recruiter's notes, if they took any A resume and the application answers Recruiter time per applicant Reading a summary; playing the recording when needed Dialing, voicemail, phone tag and the call itself Reading resumes, then a phone screen anyway Who decides who gets hired Your team Your team Your team Cost Standalone from $249/month (annual), ATS-integrated from $1,995/month Recruiter hours ATS subscription, plus recruiter hours to screen ## Frequently asked questions ### What is the best AI recruiting platform for trucking companies? The best AI recruiting platform for a trucking company is a platform reaching drivers by phone, running the interview at any hour, asking your DQ-file questions in plain conversation, and leaving the decision to your recruiter. Classet's Joy does all four for carriers, private fleets, and driver staffing agencies. Joy calls the applicant the moment the application lands, captures CDL class, endorsements, verifiable experience, and Clearinghouse consent, and writes the summary, transcript, and recording to Hiring Hub or to your ATS through ATS Sync. Across Classet accounts, 88% of candidates who start the phone screen finish within 20 minutes of applying. Standalone plans start at $249 a month billed annually with 50 completed interviews included. Before comparing vendors, [try an interview](/interviews) yourself and listen to the recording a recruiter would receive. ### Do driver recruiting agencies use AI to screen CDL applicants? Yes, driver staffing agencies use AI recruiters such as Joy to call CDL applicants the moment the application arrives, run the first-pass qualification interview, and hand the recruiter a summary with knockout results. The result is a recruiter who spends the day on qualified drivers instead of voicemail. An agency placing for several carriers sets up a separate interview per client in Hiring Hub, with each client's endorsement requirements, experience minimums, and lanes, and shares a different interview link for each account. Summaries, transcripts, and recordings write to Bullhorn, Avionte, or another of the 95+ applicant tracking systems ATS Sync connects to. [MAU](/blog/case-study-how-mau-took-high-volume-hiring-from-8-5-to-247), a staffing firm, took high-volume hiring from 8 to 5 to around the clock with Joy, and 55% of applicants across Classet accounts apply outside business hours, which is when agency phones go unanswered. ### How does Joy capture CDL class, endorsements, and experience? A CDL is a state-issued commercial driver's license in Class A, B, or C, and Joy captures the details by asking the driver directly for the class, issuing state, expiration date, and endorsements held (hazmat, tanker, doubles and triples, passenger), then for months of verifiable experience by equipment type: dry van, reefer, flatbed, tanker, or intermodal. For drivers licensed after the February 2022 ELDT rule, Joy asks for the training provider. Joy also asks for the most recent carrier and the dates worked, a starting point for the DOT employment verification. The answers appear in the structured summary next to the recording, so a recruiter can check the stated class and endorsements against the MVR and PSP before orientation. Joy records what the driver says and does not pull the license record or the Clearinghouse file. Any answer can be a knockout in Hiring Hub, for example 12 months of verifiable tractor-trailer experience, and drivers below the minimum route to a review stage. ### Can Joy ask about Clearinghouse status, drug testing, and the DOT medical card? Yes, Joy asks about Clearinghouse status, pre-employment drug testing, and the DOT medical card when you add the questions to the interview. Typical questions cover current DOT medical card status and expiration, willingness to take a pre-employment drug test, consent for the full Clearinghouse query, and whether the driver is in a return-to-duty process. Joy records the answers and marks each one against your must-have criteria in the summary. The numbers explain why the question belongs on the first call: as of January 2, 2026, FMCSA listed 202,345 CDL and CLP holders in prohibited status in the Drug and Alcohol Clearinghouse, and 159,226 had not started return-to-duty, according to FreightWaves. Your compliance team still runs the query in the FMCSA Clearinghouse and makes the final call. Joy does not decide eligibility. ### Does Joy interview drivers who apply at night or from the road? Yes, Joy calls the moment the application comes in, whether at 10pm on a Tuesday or 6am on a Saturday, and 55% of applicants across Classet accounts apply outside business hours. A driver who is rolling can decline the call and start later from the text or email link, with no app to download and no time limit, so the interview happens at the next fuel stop or during the 30-minute break. Across Classet accounts, 88% of candidates who start the phone screen finish within 20 minutes of applying. The interview runs in 25+ languages, and you can require English for the call where the role needs the FMCSA English proficiency standard. Carriers with terminals in several time zones run one interview per posting, and Joy calls at whatever hour the application lands. Drivers who prefer a person can opt out and are routed to your recruiter. ### Does Joy work with our driver ATS? ATS Sync connects Joy to 95+ applicant tracking systems, including Greenhouse, Workday, Lever, Bullhorn, iCIMS, and UKG, and writes the summary, transcript, recording, and knockout results to the candidate record. If your driver-specific ATS is not on the list, a carrier runs Joy from a shareable interview link placed in the posting or the application confirmation email, or imports applicants into Hiring Hub. Hiring Hub is Classet's built-in candidate management, with a direct Indeed connection, applicant import, and a Kanban pipeline, and needs nothing integrated. ATS Sync deployments start at $1,995 a month and go live in one to two weeks, longer for Workday and Dayforce, inside the lead time of most orientation classes. The current list of the 95+ systems is at [/integrations](/integrations), and a discovery call confirms the trigger stage and the fields written back. ### Can Joy screen owner-operators differently from company drivers? Yes, an owner-operator interview in Joy is a separate interview with its own questions and knockouts, and each posting or interview link points at the interview you choose. An owner-operator interview usually asks for truck year, make and specs, operating authority or lease-on status, insurance carrier and coverage, the lanes the driver wants to run, and whether the driver owns a trailer. A company driver interview keeps the CDL class, endorsement, verifiable experience, and home-time questions. Both land in the same Hiring Hub pipeline or ATS, tagged by interview, so a fleet recruiter sees owner-operator leads in one column and company driver leads in another. Fleets running both programs set up the two interviews in an afternoon on Starter or Scale. Joy records the answers for both groups and does not decide for you; a recruiter decides who moves to the lease-on paperwork or orientation. Across Classet accounts, 55% of applicants apply outside business hours, including owner-operators between loads. ### What does truck driver recruiting software cost? Classet's truck driver recruiting software starts at $249 a month billed annually ($349 month-to-month) on Starter, with 50 completed interviews included and $5 per completed interview above the allowance. Scale is $999 a month billed annually ($1,399 month-to-month) with 250 completed interviews and $4 overage. Only completed interviews count, so a recruiting campaign with many unanswered calls is not billed for the attempts. You bring the applicants from your own postings, job boards, or Indeed account, and Hiring Hub, the built-in candidate management, is included. ATS-integrated deployments through ATS Sync start at $1,995 a month and are scoped in a discovery call based on volume and the number of terminals. For comparison, Tenstreet measured the average carrier hiring process at 10 to 15 days, and a 2025 OOIDA Foundation paper found more than 30% of new drivers leave within three months, so the cost of each avoidable orientation seat is the number to compare against. [Book a demo](/demo) for a quote. ## Sources 1. U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics: [Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025: heavy and tractor-trailer truck drivers (53-3032)](https://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes533032.htm) (accessed 2026-10-06) 2. U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics: [Occupational Outlook Handbook: heavy and tractor-trailer truck drivers, 2025 to 2035 projections](https://www.bls.gov/ooh/transportation-and-material-moving/heavy-and-tractor-trailer-truck-drivers.htm) (accessed 2026-10-06) 3. American Trucking Associations: [ATA chief economist pegs driver shortage at historic high, October 25, 2021](https://www.trucking.org/news-insights/ata-chief-economist-pegs-driver-shortage-historic-high) (accessed 2026-10-06) 4. FreightWaves: [NASEM study disputes driver shortage claims (ATA turnover series, Q3 1996 to Q1 2023), October 31, 2024](https://www.freightwaves.com/news/nasem-study-disputes-driver-shortage-claims) (accessed 2026-10-06) 5. OOIDA Foundation: [The Churn: A Brief Look at the Roots of High Driver Turnover in U.S. Trucking, April 2025](https://www.ooida.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/The-Churn-A-Brief-Look-at-the-Roots-of-High-Driver-Turnover-in-U.S.-Trucking.pdf) (accessed 2026-10-06) 6. Tenstreet via GlobeNewswire: [Tenstreet analysis reveals how carriers can cut ad spend and increase speed-to-hire, June 10, 2025](https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2025/06/10/3096880/0/en/tenstreet-analysis-reveals-how-carriers-can-cut-ad-spend-and-increase-speed-to-hire.html) (accessed 2026-10-06) 7. FreightWaves: [FMCSA Drug and Alcohol Clearinghouse prohibited-driver counts as of January 2, 2026 (FMCSA monthly summary, reported March 17, 2026)](https://www.freightwaves.com/news/the-industry-is-focused-on-200000-non-domiciled-cdls-but-there-is-another-200000-driver-story-nobody-is-covering) (accessed 2026-10-06) 8. Classet: Classet platform data, completed interviews across customer accounts (accessed 2026-10-06) 9. Classet: Classet candidate feedback, 10,167 post-interview ratings on a 4-point scale (accessed 2026-10-06) Your best transportation candidates are applying right now. Joy can interview them the moment they do. [Book a demo](/demo?ref=use-case-transportation-bottom)[Get Started Free](https://app.classet.ai/signup/)