Hello, I am graduating Jan 4th, 2008 from US Truck Driving School in Michigan.
I am having difficulty getting hired because I was disabled and unable to work between june 1996 and feb 2007 leaving me without a work history besides driving a taxi from feb 2007 through present.
I have a medical release with no limiting conditions yet, this gap in my work history is holding me back.
Can anyone give me advice in finding a company which would be willing to give me a chance to prove myself and regain my future ?

BTW, I refuse to lie so please do not suggest that tactic.

I do not have any family and would like to remain on the road without a homebase to return to.
I would like to run northwest/southwest but, am open to any and all offers of employment.

I would guess you had back problems by the way the companies are acting. However, that should not matter since you were cleared by the doctor. I think the only way you might have a chance is to get a letter from the doctor addressing the specific problem you had before and how you are 100% fit for work.

Most Decent Trucking Schools/Companies will help you get employed and Help you with the Gap problem, I understand about not lying, but sometimes you have to with such a Big Gap or were you receiving Workers Comp, cause that is still employment. US TRUCKING & INTERNATIONAL TRUCKING are suppose to help you with employment issues...

Check with your School and ask for some help!

Good Luck

If he had a workers comp claim it will even be harder to get a job. Trucking companies run the other way when they see that.

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My childhood dream of becoming a truck driver turned into a nightmare!

I am not a big advocate of lying but sometimes ya gotta do what ya gotta do. I went to school in 89 and because I had a year of no work history (we sold a house and just traveled for a bit), no one would hire me, maybe I didnt look hard enough or put in enough applications, but I was scraping the bottom of the barrel and Swift would not even hire me. So as a last resort and one of the last applications I put in, with JB, I put on there that I worked for my brother in law and when they called to verify my employment the secretary did and that was the end of that. I stayed with them for quite some time and the secretary got a nice dinner. If I remember correctly (not sure I do) I think I had to pay $2,500 for school and that was alot of money back then, still is, and I could not grasp why I could not get a job just because I had the funds to take a year off. So even though I lied on my application and could have got fired if they ever found out, I have absolutely no guilt or regrets about doing so. I am not really suggesting that you lie as a tactic but do what you gotta do. Just keep plugging away and good luck.

Say U own a trucking company, & you're evaluating driver applicants. U want a driver who's fairly healthy, because some customers may want "driver-unload, driver-assist" service. One applicant says he's had past injuries, or a medical condition. This means potential workmans-comp claims against your business; would U hire this guy, when you've got a stack of other applicants with no past health issues?

Another applicant claims he hadn't worked for a number of years. Lets say he claimed living with his parents, who supported him while he stayed home and played video games all day. You run a criminal background check & it comes back clean. The problem with this huge gap of never working at all, is the possibility that the guy had lived a life of crime, and just never got caught. He may had been a drug dealer, or a middleman who laundered drug $$, or maybe he did do jail time, but it was in a Mexican jail (or any foreign nation) where their criminal records are not linked with the Dept of Justice's databank here in the US.

The driver U hire may have to haul a multi-million $$ load of electronics, tobacco, or hard liquor. There had been past cases where the driver had worked in league, and cooperated with truck hijackers. Whats the possibility that this driver, who came back clean on the criminal background check, just never got caught, or his criminal past is on another computer databank in a foreign country. Would you hire this driver, while there's a stack of other driver applicants who show consistent verifiable working history for the past decade?

I'd surmised you're religious, and had been taught the value of never lying no matter what. Every Christmas season, we, as a society, promote the myth of some guy who travels in a sleigh pulled by reindeers; we tell the children he's real !! Stores across the nation hire an obese, retired old man, struggling on Social Security, to dress up and make this LIE come to real life. We promote this LIE, all for the mighty dollar. To maximize profit and consumer spending, we tell our children this LIE, because its a Christmas tradition.

And it doesn't stop there; there's the Easter Bunny, and passages in the history books to hide the shameful past of America's history. Taking lands from native American Indians, killing and slaugthering Indian women & children because they were "savages" and worship a pagan God. Our history books are full of deceit and LIES if you do the research hard enough.

If I were in your shoes, I'd say I had my own business, was self-employed selling merchandise at weekend swapmeets. I'd never mention my medical past, unless its written and documented; in which case I'd say its nothing serious at all. Continue to hold on to your principles, and your chances of finding a trucking company to hire you, are not very good. If you insist on being honest, talk to owner operators who may hire you as a 2nd-seat driver. They're not obligated to some CEO, or a panel of Board of Directors, who had already stipulated in writing how to pick out who's qualified, from those they should discriminate against.

Sheesh, thanx alot

here, here, passing! or can I call you pass? go the sole proprietor route--everything you do is a biz anyway--some of it is r&d or promotion. they will skip the verifying call when you list yourself on the form.
oh, and by the way, even though the tactics were crappy, the pale faces were just another conquering tribe. things werent always rosey between N.A. tribes, especially during droughts and such.

Pass, you've hit the nail on the head. It's the best suggestion for him, I'd say.

Good luck!!!!

You say you were Disabled from 96-07 what was the Disability? It must have been something major to not allow you to work for almost 11yrs.
Maybe that is more of the problem than the gap of employment? What was the cause of the disability? Maybe it was something you did unsafe to cause the disability? Not sure really, you haven't given a hole lot of info on this issue.

But it has been said in this forum that maybe you had Back problems or a Worker's comp claim and this is the problem. I had Back Surgery on 9/18/07 and have had a (WCC) sense 06. I start with ROEHL on FEB-11.
So I don't think that is the problem. I think it is more of the Disability and what it was and what caused it. I mean 11yrs not working is a long time.
So with the info you have provided it might be hard to steer you in the right direction.

I thought my criminal back ground check would be a problem for me to get a CDL or a job because of all that I've heard. But all I did was put apps. in everywhere told them the truth cause if you don't they will find out sooner or later. And the calls and e-mails started to come in and then I just had to pick one. I would start with the big co and ask them what was the problem most of them will let you know.

Then once you know exactly what the problem is then start with the smaller co's or maybe working for an o/o. But once you start lying it gets harder to cover your butt. There are a lot of HHG co's out there that would probably take you but that is a hard job I did it for 8 1/2yrs.
What ever you decide I wish you the best and please keep us posted.

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WE ARE IN CONTROL OF OUR DESTINY!!!