Questions I should be asking the recruiters?

...if you are in construction your all life ...why switching , i believe there are tons of opportunities there ...$90 day layover seems like joke ...any skilled trade in construction makes from 30 per hour and sleeps home daily ...just my opinion
I have many friends with six figures salary doing tile , trim , cabinets , plumbing , electric

 

Layover should be $160 minimum. $16 after 2 hours. Likely rarely get any pay if customers are on the ball so you could easily give up 4 hours or more daily.
driver referall usually only paid out if employee stays 2 years which is unlikely considering low wage low layover pay

 

Ask company drivers at the company you are considering. Make the recruiter put you in contact with current working drivers doing the type of driving the trucking company wants to hire you to do. This message board is a good place to find drivers for many companies. Also, under NO CIRCUMSTANCE be talked into getting hired to do any type of Dollar store dedicated account. It doesn't matter what the actual name of the Dollar type store is called. It may be Dollar General, Dollar Tree, Family Dollar, or anything else. Those accounts are chronically short of drivers because they are the perfect storm of bad conditions to get new drives fired after multiple accidents. Veteran drivers almost never work on those accounts. Those accounts pay slightly higher Cents Per Mile (CPM), but lots of time is wasted unloading and dealing with difficult customers. They require very good backing skills and most new drivers have very poor backing skills.

Recruiters are like car salesman or military recruiters. "Sure, the Army will let you sleep until 11 am daily and never march if it rains. Sign right here."

In my opinion you are wasting your time asking recruiters questions. Ask drivers working for the trucking company who are doing the job you are interested in doing. For example, if you are getting hired for Over-The-Road (OTR) or irregular, long-distance trucking answers from drivers in the same company that are working for a Dedicated account to one shipper or one receiver may have different rules and pay structures. The drivers in other divisions (Dedicated, Regional, OTR, Reefer, Flatbed, etc) may know the answers to questions that pertain to all drivers, but not the pay and schedule questions that apply to the division you are getting hired for.

Concerning Detention Pay, it's a very small piece of your pay as a driver, most of the time. There is also a common game in the industry that "promises", when it's really a suggestion, that if you have to wait at customers then you will get paid for that waiting. Many companies have specific rules and policies that will cause you to only get paid a portion of the amount they claim and only on some of the time you wait. Many companies require you to be on-time, or you get no detention pay, no matter what. 5 minutes late, no detention pay for the 8 hours you waited to get unloaded. If you are early, your detention pay cannot start until the original appointment time. If the customer allows you to deliver 3 hours before the original appointment, but they don't unload you until an hour after the original appointment, your detention pay cannot be more than 1 hour. Many companies have a policy about how long you must wait before detention pay can begin. My last company required 2 hours of free waiting after the original appointment before any detention pay was possible. Some very big customers have contracts with trucking companies that prohibit ANY detention pay, no matter how long you wait. Each company has their own policy, pay rate, and definitions, and limits on detention pay.

I would want to know
1. when does detention pay start? (how long after I arrive, or how long after the appointment time)
2. If previous customer makes me late for current customer, does that prevent getting paid detention time?
3. What is hourly pay rate for detention time?
4 What limits on detention pay are there? (some companies may only pay a maximum of X hours per day)
5. Are any of your customers exempt from paying for driver detention they create?

What trucking companies really mean when they say they pay detention pay is "If our customer pays us for your waiting, then we'll pay you."

 

My company pays detention pay after 1 hour at $20 per hour. We don't really have layover pay. We can get $100 for 34 hour reset at truck stop vs free at home. We have a guaranteed minimum pay every week. It all comes at price, they run us 70 hours in 6 days. Dispatch never runs out of loads. They actually book more loads then we can do. So they have reschedule loads lots. It get kind of old over time. They keep pushing the drives to go because they are on the hook for the minimum pay. They pay detention pay even if they don't get paid for shipping or receiver. They will pay for parking at truck stop if you needed it.

 

Training pay of 32 CPM can be 32 cents paid to you for each mile the ruck you and the trainer share. It can also be 32 CPM just for the miles you drive in that truck you and the trainer share. Or it can be 32 CPM for the miles above some target amount, say 5,000 miles) IF you and the trainer drive more than the target.

The rate of pay for detention varies by company but I've seen $10-30 for company drivers. SOMETIMES detention pay rates are low and it's ok because there is very little detention. This is possible on dedicated or regional accounts where the customer and the trucking company are doing their part. The same with layover pay, etc.

Typically the recruiters will know nothing of the trucking company except a couple of facts provided by the company like average miles per week per driver/truck. Average yearly pay, or a new one, Average pay among our top X % of drivers. The recruiters and the company will never underestimate pay or bonus amounts to drivers and they will always underestimate the delays and time spent away from home.

My strongest recommendation is that you never make plans on picking or completing CDL school until after you have found the company, or may 1-3 companies, you are going to work for. CDL school is usually rushed and because it's rushed you will not have time to research companies. The CDL school will arrange several trucking companies to present themselves at CDL school. MOST students in school will limit their choice to one of those companies. Those companies are often the worst companies in the business, or local to the school. Most students do not know enough about the industry to ask enough questions of that presenting company. And the representative may not answer or may not know the answers. However, they will show you a shiny truck and talk about freedom and the open-road, not the traffic jams, constant disrespect, and being tired with no place to park.

Remember 1) Who to work for, 2) which CDL school, 3)when to start. If you are out of work, or low to moderate income you may qualify for a WOIA grant to pay for CDL school. EVERY CDL school will find a company to lend you money for school. There are trucking companies that will provide "free school" in exchange for a 1 year contract to work only for that company. "Free school" is not necessarily good or bad. Some of the worst companies, C.R. England, have them and some of the best schools have "free school".