rooky questions for a future trucker

Pumpkin Oval Head · Feb 1, 2013

pokerhound67 said: ↑

first, if you get your cdl, there are at least 100 companies that would "eagerly" hire you. dont stop at 5 companies...compare many before making a decision.

you may be better off getting a cdl through a community college than going to a company that will school you as well. many more choices once you HAVE a cdl. jmo.

dont know aboout central refrigerated. crst and swift are on MY list of "the 3 companies no one should ever go to work for" (other one is cr england). crst and cr england have 50 negative reviews for every positive one. with swift my opinion is a little more controversial. 2 reasons i think no one should work for swift: 1. they stole money from nearly 9k drivers when they failed to provide adequate training. these drivers had their licences suspended, and swift did nothing to refund the money. fbi raided the swift school, blah blah blah...was a pretty big deal, and swift made NO EFFORT to do the right thing. theft, pure and simple imo. 2. they have new policies which require drivers to log a minimum of 30 min for pretrip, and to log on duty time at shippers/receivers. they dont pay for this time, so imo this is theft of service. bottom line is, under these policies, you will not be able to run NEARLY as many miles with this company as with any other. not opinion in this case...pure fact.

questions to ask a recruiter:

what is pay (cpm)?

how many miles does the average driver get paid for per week? (if they say 2500, its a stock industry answer, probably not the truth)

what is the average length of haul? (this will also give indication of how many miles you can expect to get...longer length of haul means fewer loads per week. each load you have to pick up and deliver, both of which involve wait times. also normally will wait for next load)

benefits?
home time (how many days out for each day home?)
401k? match?
do trucks have apus? bunk heaters? if no, what is the policy on inverters? (if no apu and no installed inverter policy, i wouldnt work there.)

those are the biggies on my list, though im sure ive left a lot out. good luck to ya!
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All good points.....but as a newbie, many companies require you have 2 years experience before they will hire you. So just realize that while you are doing your job search.

buckeye bandt · Feb 2, 2013

well ffe has a very good school they pay 29 cents at least and 450 during training not sure what stevens pays but havent heard much bad about them--- well swift lets see besides the companys reputation i will tell you a story i was in salina kansas at a flying j waiting behind a swift driver was getting about 10 minutes waiting so i knocked on the door he was in bunk sleeping said it was only his second week out and he wasnt very good at backing up so thats the only place he couldfind to park so that should tell you something about there school and training program and the sad thing i think there training is better than englands

old timer123 · Feb 2, 2013

buckeye bandt said: ↑

well ffe has a very good school they pay 29 cents at least and 450 during training not sure what stevens pays but havent heard much bad about them--- well swift lets see besides the companys reputation i will tell you a story i was in salina kansas at a flying j waiting behind a swift driver was getting about 10 minutes waiting so i knocked on the door he was in bunk sleeping said it was only his second week out and he wasnt very good at backing up so thats the only place he couldfind to park so that should tell you something about there school and training program and the sad thing i think there training is better than englands
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They always say when a swift or jbhunt driver leaves a trk stop,theres at least 4 parking spots open up.LMAO

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