It's time for some real talk - how screwed am I?

You are "screwed"...in terms of:

• The CDL job market is... generally speaking...easily the worst it's been in quite a while. There's still too much capacity in the market from the COVID buildup -- so prospective carriers can be much more finicky than previously.
• I'd suggest postponing your CDL job search until that personal vehicle accident is more than 5 years old; even drivers with clean records are working harder to find decent gigs now.
• Schneider tanker may be a good choice -- but I constantly see them advertising for new drivers in their tanker fleet. You may well later find out exactly why....

-- L

 

I am going to offer you some important advice OP.

STOP TRYING TO ANALYZE YOUR RECORD AND FIGURE OUT WHAT YOU CAN AND CAN NOT DO

START APPLYING FOR JOBS

THE ONLY WAY TO ANSWER YOUR QUESTION IS TO SEE WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU APPLY

right now it is one of the worse times in this industry to get a job, we have too many drivers/capacity and not enough work.

but that does not mean you can’t snag a job so start applying.

 

Only stuff they will care about is what appears on your state MVR…AND anything bad (tickets/ accidents) that your previous driving job employer has you on the record for while employed with them, because they will send a previous employer sheet to fill out allowing the old job to tattle on you for any of that, so you’d better be up front about that. Long time ago I got the boot from a mega-ish type company after 10 or 11 days of already driving around in their truck hauling loads once they’d gotten the sheet back and noticed there was a couple of minor/so-what type incidents from way back I didn’t bother listing on the application. I couldn’t believe it but that’s how ridiculous some of those big company safety outfits can be when trying to justify their own jobs. That was a real eye opener and lesson learned

 

From what I've read, 2 big milestones apply when you are not driving CDL. 1 year and 3 year. Up to 1 year out of the truck and some companies see that period as unfortunate but probably acceptable. 366 days out of the truck and it is undesirable, unless they are desperate for drivers. 3 years out of the truck and you are almost certainly going to need a refresher course from a CDL school for many companies. Beyond 3 years and you may have to start over with a CDL school. The big difference in trucking is there IS ALWAYS SOME COMPANY SOMEWHERE that will hire drivers with even the worst records/non-records. That doesn't mean those companies have decent pay and reasonable working conditions. In fact, they likely have terrible pay and terrible working conditions or they are VERY SMALL. So even if you have broken out of prison while serving time for triple murd3r you may be able to find a job somewhere. The question is how much abuse and theft are you willing to accept to have a job, if that is how the employer behaves.

Nobody can make the decision for you. I feel like MOST of these type questions are asking for the forum members to decide for you or whoever is asking the question. We aren't looking for a job and we aren't saddled with your bills. We also don't know your situation and how desperate you are for work. Because of that we can't decide for you. We can only give our best guess based on what we have seen and done currently and in the past.

One fair thing about drivers with difficulties in their past is they have to work harder to find a job that will accept them and that provides good enough pay and conditions for them. Only they can decide how mush work is too much and how little pay is too little. There is no vending machine dispensing jobs. IMO, most people asking about work on the forum simply will not do more than fill out an online application to get a job and they often complain that is too much effort. Talking to people on the phone <shudder, stranger danger, OMG, will I survive?> is usually not something they will do. Also, they rely on the opinions of strangers, which may be years or decades out of date, instead of finding drivers at the company in question and talking to them. Job searching often gives what you put into it.

Apply everywhere and only answers the exact question being asked. You are not ordering a job off Amazon. The process is built to serve the job providers not the job applicant. I hope you find a good job and that you drive carefully so every day after you are hired you become more attractive to future employers, not get more and more complicated stories employers should ignore. They have more applicants than they need and few companies are making much money moving freight so they can't afford to be lenient.

 

Couple of months or 6 mos. is OK. Still companies will hire you.

 

Many smaller outfits will look at anybody with a valid CDL who can pass a drug test and otherwise has all the right paperwork, and an acceptable driving record of course. They won’t care whether it’s been 10 months or 10 minutes. My last tractor-trailer job prior to this one ended in April of 2019 and I hired on at the current gig in February of 2025. However, I had been doing non-CDL hotshot driving with my little truck for most of that gap, and even took a break from that for a year and didn’t drive at all. Anyway, moral of the story is there’s always somebody desperate enough to give you a shot if you come correct about it, and once you’ve got your foot back in the door for a year or two, almost anybody will look at you. Maybe not Walmart but most other places. I’d rather work a 1099 outfit for a year and get a starter truck rather than try to mess with the mega joints anyway. Who cares if Swift won’t hire you. You don’t want to work there anyway.

 

6 months experience?