"You have to drive OTR 1 Year before anyone will hire you-Myth or Fact?

There are many new drivers pulling containers in my area. They can't fill the seats fast enough.

 

This noob got on with a local private fleet right out school.

 

Congradulations. There's always an exception. You would have never gotten on with my outfit.

Edit:
I take that back. There was a person who had a unique skill that we needed so we sent him to truck driving school to get his class A so he can move trucks around.
He later commented on how useless truck driving school was and that he learned more from us than he did from that school which reinforces our policy of not hiring noobs. We are not a truck driving school.

 

I'm pretty sure _some_ places do that because of some funk with their insurance company.

 

My buddy got on with Pepsi and they got his CDL for him this year. It is a side bay unloading job but he's home daily, works 4 days, and makes 20hr+ with incentives and bonuses. They hired him rig ht when the weather got warm. So I feel when a company is desperate and its season they'll hire noobs. Plus it depends on area cause these areas (big cities) are feeling the driver shortage the most. If you live in BFE or a small town it will be difficult and you'll have to network a job or wait.

 

side haulers is definitely the easiest way to get on
you wont have to worry about getting fat doing that
you work in a tourist area you will at least get experience from
april to october

 

When this guy came back from truck driving school with his new class A license he needed to get signed off with our driver trainer. After coming back from the test drive the trainer just shook his head and refused to sign him off so the manager gave us the task of teaching this guy how to drive to our standards. The lack of skill demonstrated by this new class A driver was mind blowing.
There is a shortage of qualified drivers. The average starting with our outfit is 75K yet we have spots that have been open for over a year now. It's not because of lack of applicants, its because of lack of qualified drivers. My outfit can easily fill that spot with a fresh driving school noob but so far there has been no hint of that.

 

You're correct. Coke and Pepsi do hire noobs. Those are the companies that I would not suggest to anyone unless you are very desperate to do back breaking local seasonal work. Many, many, years ago I put in an application with coke just for Sheets and giggles and they hired me on the spot. Obviously I turned it down.