I am about to start attending my local CDL Mill (Smith & Solomon). From what I can tell, all the comanies that hire newbies (Schneider, Swift, etc) send newbies away for the same training whether they graduate a CDL Mill or not. This brings up two questions.
Is there any reason to attend a CDL Mill? The only reason I can think of is that it might increase my chances of getting hired by a company.
If I graduate a CDL Mill and get sent away for training by a company (hopefully Schneider), would it still be tuition based where I'm under 18-month contract, etc. or would it be different?

 

as a total novice,do i understand that if i pay to get my cdl i'm going to have to pay for company training to? I'd assume you need training and orientation but not the course fee of complete program?

 

NOTE I start class on tuesday and am not a truck driver yet. The way i see it is if you get your CDL on your own that opens more doors for you.

Sure there are companies that will someone without a cdl (ie SNI, swift, Roehl, CRST, etc) but WITH a cdl your choice go up greatly. Several companies hire 0 experience people WITH a cdl. I've heard better things about these companies, and you don't owe them your soul.

not sure whether or not you have to contract sign with SNI if you already have your CDL...if you do though i would have to say hell no to that. No way i am going to pay for school, then work at crappy wages to pay off school i've already paid for.

thus is my take

PS "IT'S A TWAP!!"
Ackbar is the shiznit

 

I got my CDL on my own. It allowed me to be more choosy about who to work with. If you go through company program for CDL their gonna teach you their way.

In a private school, at least with mine, the instructor talked about tricks of the trade and what to look out for at trucking companies. He seemed to focus on each of us individually instead of the preset company instruction book.

Ex: for me backing was easy, but shifting wasn't. So we spent more time shifting and less backing.

 

Poser, if you don't mind, which companies have you heard about?

thanks

 

http://www.classadrivers.com/index.php?method=JobSearch

Pick your State ..
Pick your Employment Type (DONT pick Student Training here, pick what kind of trailer you want to pull ..)

At Your Experience Level pick Driving School Training ...
Pick Solo / Team ..

and BAM!

 

I live and went to cdl school in IL, and schools have to be at least 30 days here, 8 hours a day. There were only 3 people in my class so I received just about as complete traiing as you can get out of a cdl school. We spent two weeks in the yard and behind the wheel training, and believe me I still was not ready to solo. I started work for a company that required I spend 285 hours behind the wheel with a trainer and was paid $350.00 per week during that time. And I still had allot to learn, I have been a solo driver now for 15 months and just recently mastered backing in just about every situation you can get into. The schooling is for the most part just enough to get you licensed by the state, but that is when the real work and lessons begin. When I went solo I was more then happy I had spent months and months getting there. You are driving a killing machine, and anyone that would hire you without any formal real life training is pulling the trigger, and I would highly recommend you stay away from them. $350 a week is not bad, but the lessons learned during training will be worth much more then that when you get into insane situations by yourself, and you are the only one there that can get your butt out of that situation.

 

Personally, I got my CDL on my own. I would never sign a contract with company to send me to school and have to owe them for at least a year. There's alot more companies out there hiring students now than when I did it back in 1994. Like a couple of other people here said, your choices open up conciderably when you already have a CDL. Either way, the choice is ultimatly yours, so good luck with whatever you choose.

 

In my situation I'm 25 and a clean record on anything and everything. I have my CDL with tanker and Hazmat. I'm trying to get hired with TMC but they want me to go to CDL school for 3 weeks for $3,000. WHY?

I have already gone through my written and driving tests. It's the reason why I did it that way versus a school. Hell, Throw me in orientation for a week and stick me with a driver for 4-6 weeks and let him teach me.

 

$1000 per week of training really is a very reasonable price when compared to other industries such as Information Technology. $1500 in IT would get you about 3 days if you were lucky.

There's really a lot to learn about trucking before you can consider yourself a professional .. and 3 weeks to cover basic general knowledge, some backing yard maneuvers and road time is about right.

Sure, there should be more training .. but the way I look at it is trucking companies arent in the business of making money from training people, but its a good hand-off point so that you can be in a position to at least help a company break even if not make a little during your finishing training.