Prime: Orientation and Training?

Hey newb... watch it! You have had one bad experience. That doesn't make us all a bunch of #######'s.

Advice - dump this guy like the plague.

 

Whats the name of your trainer? So if i get him i'll go ahead and ask for another one.

 

ill be back at springfield this weekend for my cdl testing.. then he is taking a friend with him comming to prime... so he wont be out loooking in the general pool of newbies...

 

You really should stop by Stan Auman's office and have a discussion about this jerk with him. I'm sure they'd be interested about how he's dragging Prime's name through the mud.

 

You may run into problems with Prime if you tell them this or show them the video. Before a Student goes out with an instructor they both sign a form that says that the student will not drive unless the instructor is sitting in the passenger seat. If you drive, or are allowed to drive without the instructor in the passenger seat you will be terminated. My current student's roommate when he was in for his first week had his instructor get up and go to bed on him, he continued to drive for almost 2 hours. When he reported this to Prime HE was terminated for failure to follow the policy.

 

As Ironpony said, this is a policy that changes depending on something. What it is I'm not quite sure. One of the problems is that many trainers (myself included) will not take out a trainee that went to an outside school. I've done it, and haven't found one that I'm comfortable having drive my truck. I had a guy once that had 5 hours behind the wheel before coming to Prime, what fun that was coming up Parley's out of Salt Lake. When you are in training, you are supposed to know how to drive the truck, if you don't know how to drive, we have an instruction program that you need to go through. They let too many people from the outside schools slip thru that shouldn't, so trainers stop taking anyone that didn't go thru Prime's school.

 

Boy are you in for a real shocker. This is a policy that MOST training companies have right now. It's not just Prime. I too went to an outside CDL school and applied to probably 10 training companies. All but three of them said they aren't taking outside CDL grads (from my area), Prime, KLLM, and FFE. At first I decided to go with KLLM. I was all packed and ready to go, then KLLM called me the day before I left for orientation and said they had to take back the offer. Then Prime and FFE gave me the green light at the same time. I decided to go with Prime. This was back in March, so obviously their policy has changed. But you're going to run into this everywhere, not just at Prime.

If you really think about it, that policy makes sense and isn't abserd at all. During this economy, there are thousands of people applying with limited space. These companies can either train their own drivers their way and know what they are getting, or take a chance on an outside CDL grad. On top of that, they lock in their own students for a year, or else those students need to pay for their CDL training. It's a win/win for Prime and these other companies. Trucking is a business, not a charity. They are here to make money. And running their own CDL school is just another way to make money when this economy is rough.

I've been with my trainer now for about 10 weeks and have approximately 40,000 of my 60,000 mile requirement done. I took some hometime that turned into a full week (was only supposed to be 3 days but my trainer got stuck in Canada making a solo run), my trainer took 4 days off, and we were down 2 days due to truck problems. Most weeks we've averaged about 5,000 miles and sometimes more. Things have picked up a bit here lately since produce season is in full swing. I hate to read about the bad experiences some of you are having because my experience has been fantastic so far. My trainer is awesome. We get along great and he's a very good, patient trainer. I truely couldn't have asked for a better trainer or a better training experience. Don't get me wrong, it's been a long 10 weeks and I still have at least another 4 weeks to go before I get my own truck, but this has been an invaluable experience for me. I truely feel that Prime drivers are better trained than most other companies simply due to the amount of time they require you to be in training for. I really don't believe 6 weeks, like most companies have, is enough time.

Anyway, I hope things improve for those of you who are having a tough time. My experience so far has been nothing short of steller and so far, I highly recommend Prime if you can get in.

Good luck to you all!

 

Well, I offered to go thru Primes training AND offered to sign a contract with Prime! I'm sorry but, from a purely buisness standpoint, if you have a person who has gone thru training (and it was GOOD training, very VERY difficult and I got 100 percent across the board) and I'm STILL willing to sign a contract AND go thru their own training, even though I have a CDL, then I have to have to ask the question - WHY THIS POLICY?

I'm going to liquidate some assets-round up 4K and go with Watkins & Shepard as THEY will allow a person with a CDL to go thru THEIR training program (which is apparently, very VERY good, tough) and W&S will send you out with your own truck within a month + 10 days of your training!

They have the best Reputation I've seen so far on these blogs! Hardly anything but good things to say about them as a whole, especially the training. That says ALOT!

 

what does prime offer as far as retirement?

 

Well best of luck to you! I applied to WS as well but they weren't hiring from my area. Seems like a good company.