ode to sheepdancer
 

despite my aprehension at starting a not so holy war i must thank the man who dances with sheeps (i just hope it stops with dancing)

i was looking at my last three months continuity and realized my average is well over 1200 dollars a week with weekly home time this week was 1400 and i am home 4 nites and three days

like the honorable mr sheep stated average drivers will make average miles but above average drivers will make above average

i find this especially true in the dedicated world as everything you do (good or bad) will be noticed ....we have three managers/dispatchers for 40 drivers
so they figure out real quick who can handle what and they usually work me to my limit

it is nice to not be a number i know the sheepman didnt bring that up when i asked him about my particular dedicated account but it is a fringe benifit.

anyways just wanted to publicaly thank he who dances with sheep as all his answers and advice when i seeked it were dead on ......now i know nothing about the rest of the company or the otr side of jb but i can speak on my experience

Congradulations bigdad7 on being successful at your choosen career path! Just goes to show the neighsayers (spelling ?) out there, that when you apply yourself, success and enjoyment can be had in this industry.

Horseman

Wow really? Who would of thought I would actually tell the truth about a job? :shock:
All kidding aside, OUTSTANDING! Im glad you are doing so well. As for when drivers say they are just a number over here. That is kind of an urban legend. When you are an outstanding driver, I guarantee you that most of the big wigs over here know exactly who you are and probably talk with you quite often. I see Craig Harper bring in drivers all the time though corporate and introduce them to all of us. In fact quite often everything in corporate stops completely, we all meet downstairs just to honor and meet some of our top drivers.
Keep up the great work and eventually Im sure you will be brought down here to lowell and I will get to meet you personally and show you how much we appreciate your hard work.

Re: ode to sheepdancer
 

What are base-pay and accessories on that particular account?

base
 

38cpm
20 stop
20 hr after two hrs on delivery
practical miles
25 dollars a stop for backhaul pu and del
my average is about 3000 mpw and i have been averaging 100 to 200 a week in accessory

this week i did two runs first was 1500 miles 8 stops 1250 dh back
2nd was 150 out 1 stop 150 back home
left sat nite back thurs evening
short one was fri morning back friday afternoon

go back out mon morning .........now i have no way out of cutting the grass

Sheepdancer, you need to start keeping stats. How many people from the CAD board have you put to work for JB and how many were happy?

You did me right when I went to JB, so 2 that I know for sure.

Re: ode to sheepdancer
 

Now many people here would think I would be the first to call "BULL$HIT", however, I'm not.

If your bringing that kinda cash home to your household, I'll say "great job" instead. I love to see a driver make good, no matter where they work.

Now if JB Hunt could get the rest of their drivers paid as much as you are, I would be out of business bashing them.

Hey Sheepdancer, you got one doing well. Now go get the rest, and put me out of business. :wink:

Am I missing something here? I thought you were Mr. Harper.

sheep didnt recruit me just answered some questions i had.....amazingly he gained not a thing off of me

does any body know what JB's turn over rate is?

Hey Sheepdancer, can you answer a question?

What is your weekly or monthly new hire (exp and non exp) quota?

__________ X's how many recruiters at JB __________ ='s _________ total required by quota per month.

Don't even begin to tell me you are not under quota system.

Do you get written up if you miss quote?

Are you on a draw or straight commission paid upon hire.

Do they debit commissions back if the recruit leaves within 90 days?

Re: base
 

Is this all drop\hook? Or are there live loads\unloads involved?

you pick up a preld trl but all del are tailgaited by driver
the backhauls are all lv lds
not free money i earned it
but still very consistant good money
personally i would rather tailgate a ld i know i could get rid of within an hour than wait at a dock for two or three hours for free....plus i don't hv to wait long for a bh maybe a couple hours at the most the efficiancy and lack of wasted time adds greatly to my earning potential

Yeah...that part sucks for me...lol

Over the time ive been here I would say Ive hired 15-20 or so from this board. Many of them do well. A few of them didnt do so well. Honestly, Ive been really suprized someone hasnt come back on this board and posted something negative about me. I try to be honest and fair when recruiting, but eventually I feel like I would be blamed for something that went wrong with a driver. About a year ago I hired a driver from here who just had a bad attitude all around. I have to say, I knew he would fail, but I hired him anyway. He was running illegal logs, cussing out fleet managers and got called into the terminal a couple of times for disapline his first few weeks. He quit and was really angry at me. I thought for sure he would be back out here blaming me for all his problems and becoming bestest buddies with cluggy :wink: But he never showed.

How many recruiters do we have? Hell, Ive never counted. well over 100. If you are trying to get a feel for how many drivers we hire a week, I wouldnt know. You have to remember that anyone here at JB can recruit and hire drivers. Not only do we have a lof of recruiters, but schedulers sometimes recruit, fleet manangers or anyone else in corporate can recruit and drivers can recruit. The funny thing is that almost anyone at JB can recruit drivers and they are all paid a higher commission than me....go figure. Ive really never seen the total numbers we hire per week.


Quotas? Sorta yes and no. Well you have to be hiring drivers...or you are going to be let go.
As far as quotas....depends....Occasionally if a lot of people are doing bad, they will put minimum numbers on us to keep our jobs. But it changes often. Reality, we are a very successful recruiting dept, the best in the industry. We are expected to do well and not too often will we being doing so bad they have to complain about it. Not only do we keep our trucks filled and the company growing, we have now been outsourced to other trucking companies to help fill their trucks. If we were doing so bad and not being able to fill our trucks I know the powers above wouldnt be allowing us to fill the trucks of other companies with our time.
Different times a year are better for hiring. Sometimes I go through weeks where Im hiring 6 or 7 people....sometiimes I have weeks where no matter what I do I cant hire a soul. Also it would depend on what recruiting dept you are in. Different departments hire different amounts of drivers. Really, I dont pay attention to total numbers of drivers hired throughout the recruiting division. Im only worried about myself and my hires. If Im working OTR, my average would be a little over 2 a week. If im trying to fill dedicated postitions...my average would be higher.
Yes, you can be written up if you arent performing
Im paid when the driver gets in the truck and drives. Im not paid anything for getting the driver to orientation.
No, I dont lose the commission if the driver leaves or is fired before 90 days.

When I hired on for this job of slamming JB Hunt, they told me I would be alone. I don't like company or competition. :P :lol:

Seriously, I really want all of the drivers to do very well at JB Hunt. Put me out of business. But it's never going to happen. However, I do have a question for ya, Sheepster. Out of all of the drivers you have hired, who does better at being happier at JB, the dedicated accounts, or OTR? I'm just looking for a personal point of view.

I know....I was just playing with ya

Man that dances with sheep.

I have a question. So your job is pretty much sales. You sell your company to the driver. Are recruiters paid a salary? If you get 20 drivers in one week do you make a big check? Sounds like the drivers have to stay for 90 days for you collect on them? What does the average recruiter make? What does the top recruiter make last year? Recruiters do make more than driver managers right?

We are paid a little salary, but most of our pay comes from commission. No there is no 90 day thing. We get paid when the driver drives. We dont get paid for just getting drivers to orientation.
Yes its a sales job.
As far as average pay. With any commissioned sales job, your pay isnt limited. Recruiters can make very good money....recruiters can make very little money too.
I really shouldnt post what we make on a board or what the top recruiter made. hell, Recruiters are already hated enough. I will say the top recruiter made an insane amount of money.....more than 3 times as much as the next recruiter on the list. And no the top recruiter wasnt me. I was in the top 15, but I dont make near what the top guy made.

let me add something before I get the "recruiters are paid to much" messages.
Our top driver made more than me last year...and I would bet our bottom recruiter made less than our bottom driver last year.
Also want to say again, that drivers are also paid a higher commission than me to recruit.

So sheep, whats your policy on training, and running west? Do you take total newbs, all the family is in the west. Do you do Regional stuff? I want to be an O/O someday, but not with a lease purchase, with all of the research I have done I have found that only 8% of leased O/O's with their carrier actually make it. Some blame dispatchers, some blame the industry. All be it that is actually walking around the Truck stops talking to people. In the area of full disclosure I did not find one O/O lease purchase from JB. Been researching this for the last two years and my wife and I have had open dialog about this subject. So I have family support on this transition.

Ok, my hijacking the thread is over, sorry if this offended anyone

I would agree with you, if you have the ability to buy your own truck and you have good credit, its much better to lease on your truck than lease purchase. Our % pay plan for Owner Ops is working out very well for drivers.

Yes a lot of people dont make it in lease purchase. It isnt for everyone. But keep in mind. About just as many dont make it owning their own truck. Again, it isnt for everyone. One advantage of our lease purchase that I think makes it better than most, Is that you have an option of walking away every 3 months. If you fianance a truck through a dealer and then find out that owning is not for you, unless you can find someone to take over those payments, you are stuck. I have been here long enough to have seen quite a few drivers who made it through lease purchase. In fact one of my very first hires is now about half way though his second lease truck. He has a buddy driving his one that is paid for. The secret to making lease purhcase work and I have got this from drivers who have succeeded on it. Stay out on the road, run very very hard, even though its no force dispatch, never turn down a load. Even though its flexible hometime and you can stay or go home anytime you want...dont. And the most important tip for making lease purchase work. After you have been on it for a few months and your fleet manager sees that you are a good driver. He will ask you if you want to be put on the performance board. SAY YES! You will get a lot more per mile, A lot more miles. You will no longer be no forced dispatch (you shouldnt turn down loads anyway) and isntead of being out 2 weeks at a time, you will most likely be out 3 to 4 weeks at a time. Not every driver gets asked to be on that board. You have to prove yourself to the fleet manager. You have to show him that you care more about making money than going home. And you have to show the FM that you can handle maximum miles without having service failures. Those are the guys who do very well at lease purchase. I usually ask the drivers that call me and are interested in LP this question. " Say you have been out on the road 16 days, you are 50 miles from home. Your FM sends you a choice. Take your hometime or take this hot load to the other side of the country...Which do you do?" If the driver says, "Take the load"...I know he has a good chance of making LP work.

West coast is pretty tough. We do run 48 states, but most of our freight is east of 1-35. We do have loads going to the west coast but honestly...I have drivers in LA that run 48 states and those loads will always go to them first to get them home. Im not saying that you would never get to run the west, but its not like you would be able to go there anytime you want. Also, you might get over there and be there for a while running I-5 until they can find something else going back east. In other words volenteering to run the west coast is great for getting the miles. Its bad if you are a driver that likes to get home. Volenteer to run west and you might get stuck over there for a couple of weeks.
No we dont hire people fresh out of school, 3 months minimum. Or 6 weeks with a major carrier and I can put you with a trainer.

Thank you for the information

JB Dedicated
 

Hey Sheepdancer, Does JB have dedicated runs for someone living in northern lower Mi.

Yes, but they dont open up for hire too often. Its probably been about 6 months since Ive seen a dedicated job open up there. However, you really never know....one could open up today.