Hi folk's my names Twizz for short,a soon to be grad of TDDS Institute out of Lake Milton Ohio. I as i stated will be graduating around May 22, 2009 & the institute has a placing program to find you a career as you leave school but i am having some difficulties as im sure alot of us have had to endure thru the years. I have been what they call APPROVED throughout every company i apply too, you would think well thats awesome rite? NO! I follow up & come to find out not alot of companys wish to deal w/ a person having a FELONY due to back child support,no violent crime or anything,i didnt murder noone, just had a bad run in w/ the mother of my babygirl. Now the back child support was later dropped against me and wiped free & clear of my credit but the FELONY remains........Feel my pain yet?

So i call to follow up w/ Roehl,wether or not theyre a good or bad company i dunno,the issue at hand here is they were astatic to have me,LOVED my overall score in school, honor roll soon to be inductee, ha-ha,pardon the pun,neway, they were anxious to get the ball rolling w/ my application & background etc etc. Until i told them of my felony, they then said w/out hesitation,im sorry we cant work w/ you as we travel across the border of the US & Canada and Canada wont allow you thru.

So this has been my issue w/ almost every company ive applied to thus far excluding TMC as they asked me to follow up april 24th, kinda weird with them is that 2 others going to the same school as i have been accepted and orientations setup w/ them,but my recruiter says i have to wait and do a follow up call on the 24th of April a little closer to my graduation date,make sense? Didnt to me either.

So now that ive rambled on WAY to long here do you folks have any good suggestions concerning companys willing to work with a person having a low level felony due to back child support? Or any other info is welcomed.

Thank you in advance,yall have a great forum going here,alot of useful infoi i have pulled from here time & time again. Glad to be a new member!

 

I dont know if something like that could be taken off your record, You would have to speak with a judge to see. A felony is a big no no for alot of companies. It doesnt take much for Canada to not let you in. Good luck and welcome to CAD.

 

I don’t want to sound discouraging, but if you’re a newly licensed CDL A holder and a convicted felon, you would do well to take any truck driving job you can get. About a quarter of all companies will not hire you if you have EVER had ANY kind of felony conviction. Another 50% will hire you if your felony was not something extremely serious and it was 7 – 10 years ago. The remaining companies have a wide range of hiring policies, but most want you to have a couple of years of trouble free CDL experience (a plus) to offset the fact that you are a felon (a minus). Also, you have to factor in that the industry is in a slump at the moment. There are a lot of lease-operators with a lot more experience than you who thought they could run a business who have now learned the hard way that they cannot and have had their trucks repossessed. These drivers are now competing with you for a job. If you were looking at applications, whom would you hire? The guy fresh out of CDL school with no experience and a felony, or the guy who is conviction, accident and ticket free with five or ten years experience? For that matter, would you hire a newbie with a felony if you could hire an equally unqualified newbie without a felony?

I suggest that you get to a truck stop and pick up all the advertising rags they have (most TAs and Petros will have about six different ones), and look through them page by page and look at all the advertisers who say they hire newbies. Then go on line to the various truck driving job websites (there are about 10 of these) and search for all companies who hire newbies. Make a list (I would suggest using a word processor for this) and start calling them one by one. Ask for recruiting if the number you have is not a direct line to it. When you get a recruiter on the phone, quickly cover the basics about who you are, but don’t waste too much time getting to the part about the felony. Why spend thirty minutes on the phone with a recruiter, only to find out that you are not hirable by that company? While you are on the phone with them, keep notes on what it would take for them to hire you and never throw that list away, even if you do get a job, because if you ever leave that company you will be back to doing this same thing all over again.

What you are going to have to do is play the numbers game. It’s like doing cold call sales. You have to be willing to go through a hundred “nos” to get that one “yes”.

Oh, by the way, most of the recruiters will tell you they’d love to hire you, but they just can’t because their insurance won’t approve it. In 99 cases out of a hundred, that is complete BS. It may be company policy, but it is almost NEVER insurance issues.

Good luck!

 

Some companies don't care what the felony is for only that you have a felony. Not all companies consider a felony as an automatic turn down. Smaller companies are more likely to give you consideration with the criminal background than the large carriers. The problem with the smaller carriers is insurance. Most insurance companies require at least 2 years experience to cover a driver. The larger carriers get around that requirement because many of them self insure up to a certain level.

Your best bet would be to see if the felony could be taken off your record. I am not sure that is possible since there is already a conviction. You may contact the prosecutor or judge in the case and see if they would be willing to work with you to get it changed. It is in everyones interest for you to work. It will be difficult for you to find work in this industry with a recent felony conviction. The other alternative is to keep knocking on doors until one opens.

 

Yep defintely write a letter to the Jodge. It's work for others on this board. Just search under "Jodge" to get the idea of what to write.

think I'm kidding?

http://www.classadrivers.com/forum/n...ld-i-send.html

http://www.classadrivers.com/forum/n...ter-judge.html

 

The point I was making about recruiters blaming insurance restrictions for not being able to hire him was not because of lack of experience… that is a given with many carriers. I was addressing the issue of the felony. Many people he is going to talk to will tell him that their insurance company will not let them hire felons. GMAN, you know as well as I do (and anybody else with their own authority) that is usually a lie. My primary liability and cargo insurance providers have never asked anything about felonies, and I bet yours haven’t either. There may be an insurance issue if the carrier hauls a lot of high dollar loads and carries millions in cargo insurance, but that would be rare. The other issue would be if the carrier pulls certain government loads, but that would not be an insurance issue either. My overall point was he should be prepared to hear a lot of fabricated excuses as to why he is unhirable.

The problem with him looking at smaller companies is that traditionally fewer of them hire trainees than do the larger companies. I bet even fewer of them are hiring trainees in the current economic climate.

 

I was going for the callback but I spelled Jodge wrong. Well done Mike.

 

You are correct, Musicman. I have never had an insurance company to ask about criminal history on any of those whom I have hired. All they are usually only interested in knowing about is experience and their mvr. Any restrictions would likely come from the shipper due to the nature of certain shipments, as you have noted.

 

Twizz, if you haven't already checked out that thread Mike3 is refering to, you oughta read it.

Mike3, good job bring up that "Letter to the Jodge". The way everyone strung that thread along had me laughing right up to the point when Blake posted that return letter, and I thought I'll be darned.

Just goes to show that "you never know until you try."

If a letter to the Jodge" doesn't work, you can always try the "US Marshalls."

 

If a letter to the Jodge" doesn't work, you can always try the "US Marshalls."


Their not too hard to find either. There is usually one at every TS. :lol: