[KATMANN]

Originally Posted by greg3564

All the ads here in the Austin area state at least 1 or 2 years of OTR experience. You can get on with cement trucks with a class B, but I hear that gets old fast and doesn't pay well.

The local beverage companies will train you. If you like lumping cases of soda or beer day in and day out. I did that many years ago for Coke and it's hell on your knees and back.

Can be an easy job when we were younger....but not at 40

[Deus]

You don't need experience to drive local. If you have your class A even with none to little experience try the food service industry. The work is kind of hard and as such they frequently are short on drivers and are willing to fill in the gaps in terms of experience you have. Pay is pretty good. Depending on the area you're usually looking around $40-$50k to start and can get up near the $70,000 mark if you are lucky and get some good routes.

[ceehound619]

thanks to all for the GREAT feedback!!!

[Folsom Flash]

My observation is that the experience required for local is directly dependent on how many drivers are available. If a lot of drivers are available with experience then they will require it but if they can't get experienced drivers they'll open up to less experienced people. It depends on your area for pay in the same way, if nobody is applying at 15 bucks then the next step is 16 bucks and so on.

Around here in Sacramento it seems to start between 15 and 20 and hour for local.

[Ian Williams]

Originally Posted by Folsom Flash

My observation is that the experience required for local is directly dependent on how many drivers are available. If a lot of drivers are available with experience then they will require it but if they can't get experienced drivers they'll open up to less experienced people. It depends on your area for pay in the same way, if nobody is applying at 15 bucks then the next step is 16 bucks and so on.

Around here in Sacramento it seems to start between 15 and 20 and hour for local.

Reno is about the same. Some of the bottom tier dirt haulers are $14-16, food service & LTL $16-19 starting.

Try watching the want ads in your local paper, career builder, craigslist, etc.

Or just cold call the places you'd like to work. When you have 5-10% turnover you don't have to beat the bushes with advertising & recruiters like OTR does.

[silvan]

Originally Posted by Deus

You don't need experience to drive local. If you have your class A even with none to little experience try the food service industry. The work is kind of hard and as such they frequently are short on drivers and are willing to fill in the gaps in terms of experience you have. .

Might be better to go in green, actually. When I got laid off from my 10 year stint at my first job, my first choice was US Foodservice. 10 years, clean MVR, and I even had a letter of recommendation from my old boss explaining how it pained him to have to lay me off.

They seemed disappointed that I wasn't a recent trucking school graduate, and they never called.

Go figure!

Found out later they're probably getting a kickback from my old trucking school. They were really excited to hear where I went, but the lady's face turned all frowny when I reported graduating 10 years ago.

(Oh well. There's a US Foodservice guy sitting at the dock next to the place I park my truck when I leave out in the morning. It's an hour drive from here to their terminal. So that means I'd be getting up at 3:00 in the morning if I had his job. Blah.)

(No other food service outfits have a terminal close enough to commute to, incidentally.)

[Deus]

Originally Posted by silvan

Might be better to go in green, actually. When I got laid off from my 10 year stint at my first job, my first choice was US Foodservice. 10 years, clean MVR, and I even had a letter of recommendation from my old boss explaining how it pained him to have to lay me off.

They seemed disappointed that I wasn't a recent trucking school graduate, and they never called.

Go figure!

Found out later they're probably getting a kickback from my old trucking school. They were really excited to hear where I went, but the lady's face turned all frowny when I reported graduating 10 years ago.

(Oh well. There's a US Foodservice guy sitting at the dock next to the place I park my truck when I leave out in the morning. It's an hour drive from here to their terminal. So that means I'd be getting up at 3:00 in the morning if I had his job. Blah.)

(No other food service outfits have a terminal close enough to commute to, incidentally.)

We do run goofy hours... I'm pretty lucky here, I live near a bunch of major distribution centers for all the big name companies. I'm actually thinking about applying at SuperValu again. I applied with them right out of truck driving school but didn't get called back, which didn't surprise me too much. They rarely advertise any of their openings because they are a highly sought after company. Now that I have some experience, no tickets, no accidents, I figure I stand a shot of getting in with them.

I gotta find one of their drivers and ask him about what I can expect to make starting out, gotta make sure I could still pay the mortgage and everything.

I really like the company I'm at right now but they're making some changes that I don't really care for. I also have two crap routes that I just can't seem to ever get an upgrade on, even though my performance numbers show I'm one of the best drivers they have in terms of delivery speed. They tend to try to be real fair with all the drivers in terms of "spreading the wealth". I don't agree with that, I bust my ass for a reason. I want the good routes, give the crappy routes to the slow guys.