Where should I start looking in Roanoke, VA?

If you don't mind the food service hustle US Foods has a terminal in your back yard I believe. From what their drivers have told me the pay is excellent, great insurance (if that's possible anymore) and I think weekends off. One of their drivers told me he was making 80 grand a year working out of Roanoke. Of course he was running around and working so hard I could barely understand him. Lol. Might be worth checking into..

 

I work for us foods and what he is saying is the truth it's hard work though but it's days and mostly weekends off in my area plus real good money.

 

@mwhjr1988 - There are tons of LTLs with terminals in Roanoke.

Old Dominion, Southeastern Freight Lines, FedEx Freight, Estes, just to name a few.

Cast a wide net. You'll get on at one of them. In the meantime, get your doubles endorsement added.

 

Yes, those companies "line haul" jobs are gravy; great pay and drop & hook freight. Estes Express and Old Dominion are probably the best of those. My buddy makes over $70K with Estes Express "line haul."

 

All I ever hear is how great these 80,000 a year
Line haul jobs are, yet they are always hiring and
Half of them are down to taking students.
Used to be 3 years minimum to get into these places.
There should be a waiting list to get one of these jobs,
But they're a dime a dozen.
Something doesn't add up.

 

People don't want to work. LTL companies are work. It isn't long before new hires realize this and move on, creating a lot of churn at the bottom of the seniority tree. Incidentally, this seems to happen just as the top half of the tree starts retiring.

 

Not all linehaul jobs are created equal.

Some companies use drivers to run short hops to a hub and have them do dock work all night before driving back to their home terminal. XPO and FedEx Freight are examples of that philosophy. Estes also has a "hub" classification for drivers who do that type of thing. Most drivers don't want to do any physically demanding work and nobody likes riding around on a forklift essentially outside when it's below freezing or in the summer inside 130 degree trailers.

Also, some companies no longer resemble what they were in their glory days. YRC and their subsidiaries like Holland are examples of those. They've had to lower their standards to match the fact that their pay has fallen way below the rest of the industry.

Neither situation describes the situation where I am. We have high pay, plenty of miles, and no dock work. Still, most drivers who already work here (on daytime P&D) don't even want the job because they either can't handle working nights or just don't want to despite a $20k or better pay raise. When my company puts an ad out or a sign up, it's because they want 100 applications to fill a couple of openings. Most drivers either don't have the necessary endorsements, don't have enough experience, or are job-hoppers who aren't worth the expense of training.

When they tell us "were hiring for linehaul, does anybody know any good drivers to refer?" They mean we need 1 driver, and we need him due to growth, not turnover.

Some companies are desperate for a reason, but others just have problems finding quality, qualified drivers.