Contract to a company or go to school on own?

Find a trucking company you want to work for and then decide about school. Your goal in picking a company is to find a place that you want to work at for 1-3 years, minimum. You are very desirable as a driver if you get 1 year experience, and a clean record, at a company.

If you start this business assuming all companies are alike and you can hop around every 3-6 months you will wind up working at the companies that treat you badly. Look at trucking companies in your local area. Working for them makes it MUCH easier to get home regularly. No matter what never work for a trucking company until you've talked to some of their current drivers. No recruiter is going to give you the real information that helps decide which company matches what you want and which ones are DESPERATE to hire anyone dumb enough to apply with them. One of the best indication of the type of place it is is how many drivers have been with the company over 5 years. My last company had over 1,000 employees with 20 years.

Dry van companies require the least attention from the driver which allows new drivers to worry about driving and not babysitting the freight in the trailer. The customers for dry vans treat you like a possible criminal/hobo so that's not great.

Make decisions for the long-term. The bad companies will treat you like crap because most drivers stay a year or less, why would they waste time treating you like a human? Backing and shifting through the gears are skills you can learn if you don't elevate them to some imaginary impossible task. CDL schools teach a lot of people dumber and less talented than you to do them every week. You can learn them and EVERYONE who does learn them has a few bad episodes.

Tell us what area you live in as it makes it easier to get good suggestion on where to work if you INSIST on working for some huge national company on the other side of the country (never get home). Unless you have murdered someone this year, don't consider Western Express. This is a job where you are not given every detail you need on every trip you drive. Don't take it personal and don't assume that means you are doomed. It's just different from other jobs, it's not real hard.

 

Also, about half of trucking companies have Tuition Reimbursement TR plan. Most CDL schools will find you a loan to pay for school. A company with a TR may pay some fixed amount you can use to pay your school loan. Also Google WOIA or WIA program. That program gives grants to attend trade schools. It is administered through your state unemployment office.

 

Your other thread answered most of those questions. Career Change
I still recommend : in Phoenix.

 

Here's one that provides company training:

 

I spent the past year weighing this question myself. I ultimately decided I'd prefer to go to a private school rather than sign a contract with a company. I personally really didn't like the idea of being an indentured servant to someone for a year. I will try to land with a company that does tuition reimbursement.

I'm sure tons of people do just fine going to company schools too, it really is a personal choice that only you can make for yourself.

 

Right, that's ultimately what turned me off from company training. Getting your own schooling flips the script so to speak and makes the relationship one where the company needs you more than you need them.

If you go to a company school you start out $5k in the hole to that company and if you have to quit for any reason whatsoever they WILL want that money back and they won't care about your circumstances.

With my particular school loan, it's from the state of Ohio and has a six month grace period after graduation before I pay anything, plenty of time to find and secure a gig with tuition reimbursement. Let us know what you decide.