new driver here, need YOUR advice!

You really need to lose the rose coloured glasses.

 

If you want to be on the road and travel, pick a 48 state carrier. You're young, so there's plenty of time in the future for that local stuff & being home a lot. I hated local work fighting traffic every day; stressful. There plenty of traffic on the open road, but nothing to compare with local work.
A few companies run 48 states, Canada and an occasional Alaska such as System Transport, Waggoners Trucking Co., Jones Bros. Trucking.
Almost every OTR company hires from your area; I listed a few.
Here's some more:
Don Hummer Trucking
Sunset Logistics (www.sunsetus.com)
Navajo Express
Freymiller
Red Leaf Corp.(www.redleafrecruiting.com)
Pride Transport
Halvor Lines

Not all have pet policy, so you'll have to make some phone calls. Sometimes it's not on the website.

 

That's true.
No company is for the employee; they're in business to make money for the investors and shareholders; they come first. The employees are just a tool or cog in the machine to make a profit. Sure there's some real good companies out there, but the mistake some drivers make is thinking they are special and want to be known by a name and not a number. That's naivete and not the real world.

 

Yu . He's right otr is a pain in the arse...go local!!!.

 

OK follow the lead see what comes of it.

 

You're over thinking it. Many companies also don't hire new grads for OTR.
There's plenty of local jobs available around all mid sized or large citys. The difference is you have to work harder to find them; it takes lots of leg work and cruising around in the car and knocking on doors.
OTR jobs are easy to find; just do a couple of online applications and you're hired.
If local is what you want then go for it. Some of us wouldn't walk across the street for a local job.
Here's some that hire for local; I've seen their ads over the past few months. A few drivers posted on here took some of those jobs right out of school and didn't stay long because of boredom and routine and in some cases low pay:
Sygma Network
ABF
Southeastern Freight
Gordon Food Service
McLane Company
Cowan Systems
You'll have to dig through the websites to find the jobs but they're there and some only require a CDL permit. Some are listed as "driver helper" because you start on the bottom of the ladder.

 

Another thing to keep in mind is a lot of your local gigs are gonna be driver unload, not all I'm sure but most, especially food and beverage companies. ChinaTown has given you a lot of leads, look into them see if any fit YOUR lifestyle. Plus you are in or near Chicago, there are a ton of truck stops within reasonable distance, go talk to some drivers, just don't be weird about it. Good luck

 

Here are the 2015 T ruck Load Carriers Associatons Best Fleets to Driver For list:
Bay and Bay Transportation Eagan, Minnesota
Bison Transport Winnipeg, Manitoba
Boyle Transportation Billerica, Massachusetts
Central Oregon Truck Company, Inc Redmond, Oregon
Erb Group New Hamburg, Ontario
Farm2Fleet Chattanooga, Tennessee
Fremont Contract Carriers, Inc. Fremont, Nebraska
FTC Transportation, Inc. Oklahoma City, Oklahoma
Grand Island Express, Inc. Grand Island, Nebraska
Halvor Lines, Inc. Superior, Wisconsin
Interstate Distributor Co. Tacoma, Washington
Kriska Holdings Ltd. Prescott, Ontario
Landstar System, Inc. Jacksonville, Florida
Liberty Linehaul Inc. Ayr, Ontario
Motor Carrier Service, Inc. Northwood, Ohio
Nussbaum Transportation Hudson, Illinois
Paramount Freight Systems Ft Myers, Florida
Tennant Truck Lines, Inc. Colona, Illinois
TransPro Freight Systems Ltd. Milton, Ontario
WTI Transport Tuscaloosa, Alabama