What to ask on the application before they go silent

A reason-for-leaving field will not tell you when the last phone call died. If you ask why they left, you get a mood. If you ask when they last answered, who was calling, and where the truck was left, you get a scene — or a hole that is already the screen.

Among the reviews carriers left on CDLScan, 8.0% mention going unreachable. That figure describes those reviews, not drivers in general: carriers write after a bad run, so the share tells you what shows up once someone bothers to report it.

That share is not a reason to reject every short stint. It is a reason to stop letting a home-time story do the work of a last call. The write-ups keep repeating phone language: stopped answering, stopped responding, never answered, then left the truck. Your application should pull that language out of the candidate before you put them on a live load.

This is a screening playbook, not a legal memo. What you may ask, store, or decide is your counsel’s problem. If you need a rule, talk to yours. What I can tell you is which questions actually match the words previous carriers already type.

Why a reason-for-leaving field fails

A reason-for-leaving field invites a story. Stopped answering is an event. Those can diverge. A candidate can talk about home time, family, or a dispatcher and never name the last call. A previous carrier can later write that the phone died mid-run and someone had to go get the truck.

Verdict language in the reviews — stay away, waste your time, don’t hire — is not the event either. I do not put a stay-away box on an application. I ask for a last answered call, a last dispatch, a recovery, a location. The incident language is a phone. How we separate incident from verdict is on the methodology page.

Official reports will not do this work for you. PSP holds crashes and inspections. An MVR holds license events. The Clearinghouse holds program events. A dead phone on a live load is not a roadside inspection. Previous-employer forms often hold dates and a rehire box. Hear the last call on the application, before you decide the packet is enough.

The share of reviews mentioning going unreachable rose from 4.7% in 2018 to 9.6% in 2025. I stop that line at 2025. The application did not get easier as the write-ups got more common.

Five questions, on the form, in this order

1. When did you start, and when did you last dispatch?

Dates first, because a short stint is the skeleton of both a silent run and a no-show. If they never dispatched, you are in onboarding — a different screen. If they dispatched and the last day is a Tuesday in the middle of a run, you are in operations. Do not skip this to be polite. A hole between two carriers is not a finding by itself. An unexplained hole plus a last day that is not a yard day is.

2. When did you last answer the phone on that job, and who was trying to reach you?

This is the question a reason-for-leaving field cannot absorb. Stopped answering, answering calls, never answered, stopped responding belong here. People who missed one call they already disclosed can usually name a day and a reason. People who went quiet often skip the last answered call and jump to home time. You are not trying to trap them. You are trying to hear whether a last call exists.

3. Where was the last truck left, and who recovered it?

An unreachable write-up often sits next to a recovery, not next to a tidy resignation after one missed call. An abandoned truck sits in 35.2% of those reviews. Stopped answering and left the truck are often one ending. If the candidate can name a yard, you have one kind of file. If they skip the location, you have another.

4. Did you arrive for orientation at that carrier, and did anyone buy you a ticket?

Different population, same neighborhood. A no-show sits in 8.7% of unreachable reviews. Paid travel with no arrival sits in 11.6%. They cluster with each other more than with a walk-off. If you only ask about the phone on a live load, you will miss the empty chair. Ask the ticket question on every file that requested travel, not only on silent-phone suspicions. The pairing is in going unreachable and a no-show.

5. What will the last carrier write about how that job ended?

Asking only whether they answered the phone catches what the candidate already plans to disclose. Asking what the last carrier will write catches the sentence that never became a report. People who resigned at the yard can usually say the yard will confirm dates. People who went quiet mid-run often cannot say what the last desk will type.

I would not ask whether they are hard to reach. I would not ask for red flags. Both invite a mood. Mood is verdict language. You already know how that sounds, and it is not a fact about the driver.

Companions in the same reviews tell you which extra words to leave room for. In 35.2% of unreachable reviews the carrier also mentions an abandoned truck. In 17.8% they also mention drugs or alcohol. In 10.8% they also mention late or missed deliveries. In 10.3% they also mention a crash or damage. In 9.6% they also mention aggression. Do not collapse all of those into one silent-phone insult on the form. They are different files that happen to share a dead phone. The words themselves are in how carriers write about going unreachable. The climb in the share is in going unreachable in the reviews.

What was already visible on the packet

On an application the warning is rarely the word unresponsive. It is a short stint, a hole, and a previous carrier who will not say when they last got an answer. Ask the candidate to walk the last two days before you dial the last desk.

Typical sequence, built from how these reviews cluster, not from one person’s file: two carriers in a year. They start. A load runs late. Answers get shorter. Then the language in the next review is stopped answering, left the truck, truck stop. That sentence will not appear on the MVR you already pulled.

If they never dispatched, switch to the empty-chair screen: ticket, orientation, never showed. Do not run a silent-phone form and assume you covered both.

What to do with the answers

Look the name up before you treat a clean paragraph as a pass. The application is cheaper when you already know whether previous carriers used stopped-answering or left-the-truck. Asking a candidate to contradict a write-up you have not read is how you waste the only live conversation you will get.

If the last two days are crisp — yard, day, last answered call, who took the keys — keep moving, and still read the name. If the last two days skip the phone and jump to home time, stop. If they never dispatched, switch screens.

If the last carrier will only confirm dates, that is not a pass. It is a reason to read the rest of the name. Check it on CDLScan before you put them on a live load. It takes less than a minute. The words you want on the application are already sitting there more often than the reason-for-leaving field will admit.

The longer call playbook is five reference questions that beat rehireable. The physical language that often arrives after the phone dies is in what to ask before a walk-off. This page is the form, not the phone.

This is not legal advice. It is a way to stop letting a reason-for-leaving field do a call’s job.

Frequently asked questions

Is a reason-for-leaving field useless here?

It is useful as a story and weak as an event. A reason can disagree with a write-up about a phone that died and a truck that sat. Ask when they last answered. Keep the reason field as extra, not as the screen.

Can I store these answers as a contact history?

That is a question for your counsel and your process, not for this page. I am talking about what to ask so you hear the event. What you store is a different job.

What if they refuse to say when they last answered?

That is information. Then read what other carriers already wrote about the name. A missing last call is not a confession. It is a reason to stop treating the application as complete.

If PSP is clean, do I still need these questions?

Yes. A dead phone is not a roadside inspection. A clean packet means the filed items are clean. It does not mean nobody typed stopped answering.

Why ask where the truck was left on a silent-phone form?

Because an abandoned truck sits in 35.2% of unreachable reviews. Stopped answering and left the truck are often one ending. The location question is cheap and it belongs on this form.

Do official reports replace these questions?

No. PSP, an MVR, and the Clearinghouse hold filings. A silent phone that never became a report is usually not a filing. Keep the reports. Add the questions.

Where do I look the name up?

On CDLScan, before you put them on a live load. The phone language — stopped answering, never answered, left the truck — is already written down. Use the application to see if the candidate will say it out loud.