what are my chances of gaining employment?

Hello and Welcome to the site

I would suggest to you that you go to your local Community/Technical College. Funding is available for training, in many fields, through the WIA Program.

Best of Luck to You and Your Success!!!

 

^^^^ what he said and NO, driving a fork lift will not help or the unloading and loading of trailers. If you have a job that pays better than $9.5 an hour keep it while you go to school or actually just keep it and forget bout this cesspool called trucking!. If you still want into trucking then SAVE as much as you can and read some of the posts about "operating capital," do a search about operating capital and read to understand!

 

Well , let's see . An average of 9,000 jobs are lost in the industry every month . With Arrow shutting down and YRC likely to by March you'll have 10,000 more experienced drivers to compete with on top of the 100,000 out of work besides the additional newbies turned out of school in the next three months . I'd say to better your odds you should marry the daughter of a trucking company owner . No , forget that . They'd want better than that lifestyle for their daughter . You face the same 100,000 to 1 odds as everybody else .

 

In other words....KEEP THE JOB YOU HAVE! Unless you like to gamble!

 

I got hired on with a good small company right out of school with 0 experience. My background was in sales, I traded my high heels, business suits and breif case for work boots, coveralls and work gloves.

It doesn't matter how many other people are looking for a truck driving job or are applying for the same job you are, you only have to sell yourself.

I put together my school transripts, MVR, work history and all and took it to kinkos and made several presentation books. Then I personally went into the small companies to apply and leave my book and make my pitch.

I did't worry about my not having experience, it can actually be anavantage over an experienced driver, why? I am not coming in knowing how he should run his company, he gets to train me the way he wants his drvers to do things.

I agree that there are a lot more drivers looking for jobs than there are openings. However, the majority are not willing to do the foot work, they will apply online and wait to offered a job. You want it, go get it, don't get discouraged by a few rejections, keep at it and you will get a job.

The pay varies, don't expect to get rich, but don't settle for being broke either.

Good Luck to you...

 

if you want to transfer to other job, just make sure before you quit your current job, that you have 100% chance to be hired on the company that you are going to transfer to.

 

Yeah, I was going to say the same thing, I know where you live and it is going to be tough, even in southern parts of Canada, there are very few places hiring right now

 

I discovered today that WIA funding is ONLY available if you are unemployed or slated to become unemployed. Also it is ONLY available for carreers that are in "HIGH DEMAND", and here in AZ trucking is not one of those. WIA has some funding here for nursing and some other carreers though that are in demand.