Graduated truck school but can't get a break!
 

I recently graduated from :AR15:Western Pacific Truck school :badass: with my Class A & all three of my endorsments, but can't seem to get a break from any of the companies. All these compaines for the most part want at least 1-3 years of OTR! Im sure hoping something pans out for me soon since I spent $4690.00 :bigangry: on truck school and to date have gotten nothing but apps to fill out & turn downs! What does a guy like myself do? Any help or information would be appreciated!:bigthumbsup:

Hate to sound like an A-hole, but if you had looked at the economy and read postings, along with trucking news sites, you would have seen that companies arn't hiring right now. My company has a waiting list of at least 100 drivers. With all the companies that closed down and O/O that lost their trucks....the market is flooded with qualified drivers. Don't give up though.....keep plugging away with the apps....something will break open eventually.

I would check with some of the training carriers to see if they might have something. Swift, CRST, Roehl, Millis, Covenant and US Xpress are a few. As Phantom433a mentioned, some of them may have hiring freezes with the slow economy. Finding a good job as an inexperienced driver may be a challenge. Where you reside could also be an issue. If there are any truck stops near you there are free magazines that are available which list driving jobs. I would just keep on making phone calls and filling out applications. There are a couple of websites which offer a general application that will match you with those most likely to hire you. You can check the "Company Listings" on this forum for qualifications for many driving jobs. I believe there is also an application such as I mentioned that you can fill out. When the economy is this slow it is a matter of doing more leg work. It is much easier for carriers to deal with experienced drivers when things are slow. I am sure that you will find something if you keep at it.

Damn dude...

$5K is A LOT TO SPEND on a school that doesn't offer PLACEMENT. While most schools can NOT GUARANTEE PLACEMENT - the more expensive ones DO have "ins" with companies that hire newbs. For THAT KIND OF $$, I would have expected to get more than a handshake and a piece of plastic with 3 endorsements.

I'm graduating a local county vocational school program (McFatter Technical Center, Davie, Florida). While WAY LESS EXPENSIVE than your school (or Roadmasters or some of the other CDL Mills) at $1,850 - I was told UP FRONT that there was no "placement service".

Other things to consider would be; your driving record, criminal convictions, DUI's, etc. Even with a CLEAN RECORD - location is also a major consideration.

In my case - NO ONE HIRES OUT OF FLORIDA - especially RECENT SCHOOL GRADUATES. A glance at Roadmasters "recruiter days" for their Orlando and Tampa locations clued me to this fact right off the bat.

So, I'll "adopt" a Georgia address and go from there.

With all the out of work executives that would flip burgers if they could, with fleets sitting idle (as GMan alluded to), now is probably the WORST TIME for a new to seek employment in the trucking industry - and not applying from the correct geographical location is likely the WORST STRIKE you can have against you...

Rick

Okay, this might upset a few people, and i dont care, someone has to say it......

The economy has been on the decline since since Dec. 2007-ish....and really been in the tank since mid 2008. I was LUCKY and started/finished CDL school in Mid 2008. But seeing how since then, everything related to truck driving has been on the decline (i.e. freight, miles, companies actually hiring), why would ANYBODY even consider blowing $3,000 - 5,000 on getting your CDL, in the desperate hopes that YOU stand out and could actually get a job in short time??

The average driving school takes 3-4 weeks to complete. And they start on a weekly basis. You just KNOW how many people are so desperate looking for work, they graduate college with a degree in something, now they cannot find work, so instead of resorting to being a cook at Hooters (i really wouldnt mind..) they think they can make big bucks being a truck driver.

Like an IndyCar driver jumping in a car knowing the car is setup for a super speedway(little drag/little downforce), when they're racing at a 7/8 mile track (high drag/high downforce), and trying to keep pace.....they are going to find it almost impossible. Same holds true for anybody, ANYBODY going thru driver school, thinking they are going to automaticly have a job waiting for them at the end of the tunnel. Anybody who attends school in some desperate hope they'll have a job at the end of their hard work, is just plain STOOOOPID.

Kinda like if you were to jump off a cliff, with a sign that says "warning: cliff" and you dont bother to read the sign.....you are stoooopid. The sign has been out there in this industry saying "few to very little jobs out there", yet hundreds maybe thousands still continue to apply and attend driving schools, then cry about not getting work for this reason or that reason, when its all over with. How about, saving your $4,000, and sending it to me, or better yet, send it to Obama.....lord knows the country needs it.

it has a lot to do with where your home is located right now. Keep at it and be that squeaky wheel! :thumbsup:

Thank you everyone for the information. (Bad & hopeful) I just wanted to say that the school told me that helping me get a job was going to be no problem! They have job placement at least so I was told. But it seems that just handing your grads apps to fill out isnt a whole lot of help. Now looking back its 20/20 seeing that they are just salesman trying to make a sale for the school and will say anything to make that "sale." Yet I will keep pounding the payment and hope for the best!

Don't pay Kevin no mind.. It's hard finding a job for a Truck Driver period!! Experience or Inexperienced.. One thing is where your located!! it looks like your on the West Coast, i thought most Trucking companies out there had that Western Eleven thing going on like Werner/Swift and others.. Keep looking and something will pop up...

I know exactly how you feel. I'm in the same position. I paid $4000 out of my own pocket to go to school. They told me there are jobs but things are slow but they told me it wouldn't be THIS hard to land a job as a newbie.

A friend of mine is looking for a driving job. He lives on the left coast. He is finding that some won't hire in California but will in Nevada and vice versa. It depends on their travel lanes. That can be true about anywhere you live. There are some regions where it can be more difficult to find a driving job than others. Florida, parts of the Western U.S. and New England can be difficult for some carriers.

Don't forget West Virginia. Pretty much impossible to find a driving job when you live in this state.

I often asked about voluntarily relocating to get on with a decent fleet, no dice.
Just thought with having nothing in the way of relationships or children holding me down, that would be the best thing to do.
Hang in there and find a minor job to hold you over until things start picking up again.
Right now, we're all losing sleep, but some time from now we'll all look at this as some bad nightmare that we'll try to make sure never happens again.

First off...Your choice of a school for your training was wrong. Bates Votech in Tacoma would have been better AND cheaper.

Second....where do you live? That makes a difference on suggestions. There are companies that might hire you right now.

YEAH, dont pay any attention to my post, even though i'm right. Though i did leave out the problem of WHERE one might be located. When it comes down to it, how bad you want a job also might depend on relocating (at your cost naturally).

But the OP is correct. recruiters are sales people. Schools are a business. Like em or not, they are out to make money just like anybody else. I scratch my head why any company would keep their schools open, especially when the freight is not there for added trucks. (and yes, i know there is turnaround, and drivers who quit/fired for one reason or another). But schools are businesses. I went to college, graduated, and before i ever started, was promiced that they'd help in job placement.

Bottom line is, dont rely on others to do your work for you. If you want something bad enough, you've gotta do it yourself.

Sometimes it is "who you know".... networking helps! CAD!!!!! :thumbsup:

College educated wheel holder.

So THAT'S WHY you're so bitter, negative and IGNORANT most of the time. College educated MORON, calling OTHER PEOPLE STOOPID...

You ARE good for a LAUGH once in awhile, since NO ONE HERE TAKES YOU SERIOUSLY...

Rick

I can give you 3 tips that might get you in the door.

1. Be proactive and place a free ad on a site like kijiji.com (your town, job wanted); another good one is Truck Driving Jobs, Trucker jobs, Owner Operators, truckdrivingjobs, cdl jobs These are all free.

2. Talk to some trucking companies in ... Canada. 95% of our runs are into U.S. I'm Canadian and I can work for U.S. company; so can you work for a Canadian company. Challenger Motor Freight out of Cambridge, Ontario hired me with 0 experience in 2005, right out of the trucking school. Situation is different now but it may be worth a try.

3. Talk to employment agencies in your town. Sometimes they might hire a Class "A" driver for local work. This will give you experience for getting a better job later on.

May I ask where you went to college and what your degree is? I am just curious because I thought that grammar, spelling, sentence construction, and punctuation where covered in freshman writing.

Well, seeing how most truck drivers wouldnt know what a pronoun or an adjective is, i think i am one up on every toothless truck driver who can't speak clearly enough on the CB to understand just what the !#$% they are saying.

and in this day and age of texting while driving/crapping/eating/sleeping/ brushing your hair/having sex, good luck being a member of the spelling police.

again, ask me if i care what you or anybody thinks about me. i dont give two shakes of my johnson after a 10-100 what you think about me.

as for an answer as to what i went to college for (as if i have to explain anything to anybody), my major was architecture and construction drafting. and before you start laughing, I had a couple paid jobs even before i had graduated. I much preferred being 'hands on' and drawing up the plans with my hands, and pens/pencils. Toward the end of the program, they started teaching us on AutoCad 13, and come to find out that most firms were using AutoCad. I can understand why, because it is 20x faster than doing things by hand, however I still enjoyed being 'hands on'. And i didnt continue down that road because i was no good or didnt have any permanent job offers, I wasn't going to jump thru the hoops they wanted me to jump thru. I can tell you that i've forgot more math that i learned for architecture than you'd ever learn in your whole life.

Reminds me of a conversation 2 drivers were having on the CB.

The one told the other his heating bill for his house went up 50% last winter. Said he paid $250 a month the year before and this year it was $500.

I asked him he had trouble adding his hours up in his logbook. He said No, why would I?

Interesting Subject
 

I find this converstion interesting since i just received my CDL permit with 3 Endorsements and i'm about ready to hand over my money to a truck driving school ( DOOTSON ) in Southern California.
I was actually pretty happy after i passed all the tests at the DMV but now im wondering if I SHOULD HAND OVER MY MONEY to learn how to drive a truck.
Ive been reading the posts at trucking sites and its been mixed reviews, even the job i have now is up and down with work and 40 hrs a week... i figured i'd get a back up plan just in case i get layed off or my hours get cut ( its happened a few times already less than 40hrs ).
So my great back up plan isn't so great after all,.. so whats a man to do?...... At 49 years old its not like it was when i was 20 and you could get a job anywhere....i figured i could drive a truck and be a happy camper but it appears storm clouds are on the horizon and its gonna rain on my little parade.
Wonder if i should just finish the trucking school and see what happens.

Depends on HOW MUCH you "hand over" to the trucking school. Nothing wrong with learning a new trade. Like the original poster - IF you're "handing over" $5K, with NO HINT OF PLACEMENT - then you're likely better off looking at PLAN C. If you're doing a COUNTY VO-TECH (like I did) - then even though I put $1,800 into it - and even though it's difficult to find work right not (ESPECIALLY WITH A FLORIDA ZIP CODE) - to me it was still $$ well spent, and I feel MUCH BETTER about spending $1,800, than I would have by spending FIVE GRAND...

Rick

typical dumb truck driver. I bet he is the same kind of guy who spouts Obama crap every half mile.

As far as IndianG, ask whatever school you go to if they require a permit or not. Depends on the school if they'll recognize your permit (they would if it was in state, naturally), but dont get upset if you've spent $$$ on getting your permit, and go to a school where it would be useless.

I got my CDL through a school, and then I went to Schneider, and they dropped me right back into their training program at no cost to me. Also, since I was within 90 days of graduating from a qualified program, they actually reimbursed me the cost of my training.

Anyhow, what I learned was that, I may have had the technical CDL, but I was -not- ready to drive a truck. I probably could have gotten into SNI without my CDL, but I'm not sure if I would have passed their program with no prior experience.

I've been driving for 3 years now, and so far I say it's working out pretty well for me.

So, the moral is you would probably be best served by a company that has training. It sounds a little backwards, but my school actually advised the same thing. They were pushing for Swift, but for some reason I went to Schneider instead. I don't regret the decision at all.

The point is that, if you are willing to work at it, you can make it work for you. But if you are expecting a great job out of the chute, you are probably going to be bitterly disappointed.

Thanks for the input
 

Thanks to all the people who replied to my post, ...I've been on the fence the last week after reading comments on trucker sites about jobs and newbies but i've come this far so i might as well go for it.
The school cost is around $1,200 + CDL permit $64.00 + Drug test $35.00 + DOT physical $35.00 and since i passed the Hazmat endorsement + Tanker & Air Brakes i believe this is a good investment besides i like to travel and work hard ....... There are a lot of opportunities with a CLASS A besides 18 wheelers ...... Cement trucks, Water Trucks, and a lot more in construction field so i believe there are many open doors with a class A .... so if i get layed off from my current 2 axial delivery job i'm sure the class A will help me find something.
Thanks again for your input and be safe out there.

It doesn't look like the OP wants to discuss his problem.

That is just the thing, one thing that really irks me, are drivers who blow 4g's on schooling, then get all butt-hurt because the school didnt follow thru, or they cannot find a job. When experienced drivers are jumping ship from one company to another, and the marketplace is FLOODED with experienced drivers (i.e. more than a year experience) then fresh fish just out of school are mad because they cannot find a job.

Don't get all upset cause thats the way things SHOULD be. If i were applying for a job (with my 9 mo. experience) and there are 12 other drivers with a range of experience from 1 year to 5 years, and there are only 5 spots open, i would not be upset if i didnt get the position. it would be expected.

One should have done their homework on the school before jumping into the street without looking both ways. AND, should have gone to a school thru a company, AND should have done it no later than September of last year.

The poor economy and this depression wasnt something that happened overnight.....we've been going in the tank since the latter half of 2007.

I know how you feel
 

Same here dude, I graduated 2 months ago, have all my endorsements and I still can get a job, at this point I'm willing to just forget about the whole trucking deal and just get a job doing whatever, I know man, it's really hard.

It really began to excellerate in '06 and '07, but the simple fact is that it has been going this way for the last thirty years. You just didn't get to see it as well before '07. The housing foreclosures started increasing in '05 and '06.

And, to make matters even worse, every time I go out, I see more and more business's being boarded up. It means even more and more people out of work. It means the economy is going to go down even more. Truck driving is not going to pick up until the economy does. You might try moving to NE. On national news, last week, they have the lowest unemployment rate in the entire country. Unfortunately, that does not mean that trucking companies based in NE will be more likely to hire new drivers.

There are a number of sites where you can get a line on companies that... MIGHT... be interested. I did a WEB search and came up with a dozen pages of sites.

Bubbajunk
careersingear
rigmeup
drivers4hire

Last I heard, Roehl was still doing new drivers. Don't know if they've changed the way they treat drivers now or not.

I know a community college CDL graduate from Michigan that Prime hired... so there are companies... not much room for "picking and choosing" though

Thank you everyone for the information. (Bad & hopeful) I just wanted to say that the school told me that helping me get a job was going to be no problem! They have job placement at least so I was told. But it seems that just handing your grads apps to fill out isnt a whole lot of help. Now looking back its 20/20 seeing that they are just salesman trying to make a sale for the school and will say anything to make that "sale." Yet I will keep pounding the payment and hope for the best!

The one the that really "IRKS" me are the people that cant understand what they just read! :moon:

I can't read where it is you live.

That is what irks me. How does anyone, whom may or maynot have a reasonable company to suggest, do so, without knowing where you live?? Are you only interested in the "Mega Carriers" whom seem to be turning you down??

Orange i think he was responding to Kevin's arrogant post about spending money on schooling...

but yeah dude, if you want help you at least has to give us the nearest major city or something..

If you are in the West look at this Company...

Truck Driving Training, Careers, Best Pay, Most Terminals

i don't hear alot of bad about them nor good either so that might be the good thing lol but nice trucks and they hiring graduates...

Hate to start sounding like Kevin here - but MIGHTY DAMN GLAD to have irked you. You MADE MY DAY. It's really great to be able to "reach out and irk someone", from the comforts of ones home - and without even INTENDING TO. I hope to be able to irk you again in the future.

Meanwhile, best of luck with your $5K CDL. It seems to be about as worthless as my $1,800 one in the current employment market. OTOH - I knew GOING IN that my school didn't do job placement and made a BUSINESS DECISION not to go to the more expensive (less classroom/road hours school) or a Company School (again, usually in the $5K range) - opting to DO MY OWN LEGWORK when I graduate...


Bzzzzzz, bzzzzzzzzzz.....

Is there a FLY IN HERE? Oh, it's just KEVIN. Buzzz off little boy. You and your slide-rule and college education just head on down the road. Taunting me with your (supposed) "math skills" - in light of some of the incredible yarns I've seen you spew out here, further re-enforces that ANYONE can get a college degree. Couldn't handle autocad, so you're driving a truck. SO GLAD you don't care what other people think about you - it'd be REALLY DEPRESSING when you know the entire board finds you PATHETIC...

Rick

Ohhh...I understood what was "irking" him, Hawk.

I just wanted him to understand that nobody can suggest a company that "might" hire him, without knowing where the heck it is that "he" lives. Everybody knows where to find a "McMega" Carrier. But how can anyone recommend or suggest a small company...when those smaller companies are so widely scattered?

Everyone needs help from time to time...but you have to first be willing to help yourself. Knowing your location is one of those "self-help" deals.

There are a number of small companies that will hire along their normal routes. A few in WI tend to use the left turn signal when they get to Chicago, so if you live in Northern Indiana, or northern ohio... PA, along I-80, they'll take you on. Even upstate NY. But, it's pretty hard to recomend any of them if you don't live along the routes they normally run.

Sorry if I ruffled any feathers
 

I live in Sacramento, CA. I guess I need to pay better attention myself to what I read. Dam I guess I really "IRK " myself now! :banghead:

Get in touch with Floored. She's in Sacto and has a lot of contacts.

Ok...Sac-town. Have you tried Bettendorf?? They may well offer you that "chance" you need to gain experience. http://www.bettendorftrucking.com/2164.html

How about Sitton Motor Lines? They have a terminal in Yreka...but they do a lot around Sac-town. Welcome to Sitton Motor Lines They may also offer you a "chance".

I am assuming you already tried Gordon Trucking...but if you haven't (Western Truck School was helped to get started by them), Gordon Trucking Inc. - Pacific, Washington

Did you try Royal Express? They offer one thing important to you...driving experience. RoyalExp.com

How about Market Transport? Again...driving experience.

West Coast Transportation & Trucking Company - Market Transport

How about Ruan? They may...or not..give you a chance. Ruan Transportation - Jobs

Your not going to get any where knocking on "Internet" doors. Go to each of these operation's facility that is close to you. KNOCK ON THEIR DOORS!!!