some noobie questions
 

Hi all,

I'm new to this forum and have been reading it now for hours...

I have a couple of questions that maybe you all can help me with...

I do not have a CDL yet and I'm looking at all the companies that offer training right from the get go... Schneider, Swift, etc...

Do any of them really put you out on the road right away after getting the cdl?

How hard is it to get accepted by any of them? or is it pretty much as long as you meet the basic requirements you accepted?

Is it possible to be able to get started this way and not have a permanent home... divorce, selling house etc, and I would rather just be on the road kind of permanently for a while...

any advice appreciated...

thanks

You will need some kind of permament address. This can be a friend, a family member's house etc. The big reason is taxes, also the company you work for will be mailing you things like payroll statements and other info so they need someplace to send it.

With most companies you can stay out for as long as you want. If you do stay out for long periods of time I strongly suggest that you get a motel room from time to time to get out and away from that truck. If you don't you greatly increase the chance of having a major burnout.

As far as getting right on the road after training I am not sure what you eaxactly mean. What will happen is that you will attend school for a few weeks with no pay, then you will go out with a trainer, with pay, for approx 4-6 weeks and upon completion of OTJ training you will be assigned your own truck. It is possible that you may have to wait for a week or two in between the end of school and getting a trainer.

It isn't all that hard getting started with most of the major training carriers. As long as you don't have any recent felonies or drug convictions and a clean MVR, you should not have a problem. If there are companies you are interested, I suggest you start making phone calls. There are some who work for the carriers you mentioned who frequent this forum who may be able to give you first hand information. You may also want to do a search on specific companies to find what has been written about each one. Good luck.