12 years driving and can not find a decent job...

That's kind of the problem that I ran into. I was OTR about ten years ago. Ran the past ten years accident free (local). And those was not easy miles. Miles on two lane highways along with very difficult backing situations.
Being laid off, I was faced with the same situation. They said that I had no recent OTR experience. But again, they will pull someone out of trucking school and put them on the road. Some companies even have trainers that have less then a year experience. Come on, gimme a break.
Look like I found a decent one, it's a small based TN company. I am half way through orientation. I even seen one of the owners of the company. You cant say that for those big companies (especially the one with the blue trailers).
Hope the best of luck to you Biscuit

 

true that, one of my former classmates from driving school last Nov is a trainer. I'm not saying he isn't a good driver, but that isn't long enough to be training others..

 

Reading this post also makes me sick, i have 4 years experience and i have had a hell of a time within the last 2 years trying to get back into a truck.
Schnider, J.B. Hunt, Swift, Crete, and so on have told me 1 of 2 things: 1) i do not have a current cdl out of the state i currently reside in and 2) lack of recent (6 months) experience. Regardless if i have an out of state CDL, i haven't forgotten how to drive a big rig, who are these companies trying to play as stupid? If these big name trucking companies WANT ME THAT BAD, they best have a rig with a fully loaded trailer sitting outside my front door BEFORE i believe a recruiter. To add insult to my misery, i WILL NOT sit through 2 to 4 days of orientation or spend the most of 6 weeks getting retrained, i want to make money now, not sometime in the next century.

 

WOW! This post is crazy.
#1 you will find that a cdl in your home state will be a requirement everywhere. Honestly there is no reasonable excuse not to have it transferred, that 20 minutes will save you a lot of headaches along the way.

#2 You don't have recent experience so what most companies will want is exp in the last year. As far as orientation goes your not gonna sit? What makes you so special? Im listening!

The only way to get around orientation is find a small company, and most of those have strict insurance and won't be able to hire ya with your low past experience with the added non driving time in there.
Good luck I guess but remember your no better than anyone else so do what you gotta do. These BIG companies that I am not a fan of mind ya are just doin what the insurance companies want them to do to give in experienced guys a shot

 

Doesn't make sense to me. Inexperienced means inexperienced. Seems like an established safety record (like my 1.5mil) would be the preference.

 

For starters, i do know i was suppose to transfer my Missouri CDL over to an illinois CDL within 30 days after i got my Missouri CDL. 2nd of all, illinois is one of THE MOST CORRUPT states in the mainland 48, to add insult to this, i have to not only take the written tests AND the driving test, but i have to do it through either a credible school or a community college, i am having a hard enough time trying to find "a job" that pays decent BEFORE i can go through a "credible school". A local community college stated that i have to cough up $3 thousand BEFORE i sign my name to any of there paperwork to even come close to touching any of there tractor trailers.

getting to your second question, I have to have a MINIMUM of 6 months RECENT otr BEFORE i can get hired on anywhere, even a mom and pop trucking outfit, as you clearly stated poorrednek. I do know i have no one to blame but myself, however, i do wish to point out when a truckload of manure (####) hits me in the face, that is when i flip out (i get rather cranky and pissed off).

in closing, i am not a big fan of the bigger trucking outfits either, J.B. Hunt, Schnider, Swift all have contacted me stating "yeah, we will try to hire you", then they never call back to inform me either way if they will hire me or not. That was within the first 4 years i had a CDL, a missouri CDL is good for 6 years after getting it, an illinois CDL is only good for 4 years. I really do not like being lied too, espcially within the last 6 years, if someone calls and says "we will try to hire you" or along that line, the least they can do is call back stating "we cannot hire you at this time".

 

In my case, my timing was good.

I drove over 8 years...no tickets, no accidents. Got divorced, left trucking for a bit over 3 years. Hated managing people ("Get off the dang phone and go back to work" got really old really fast!), and decided to try to go back on the road.

Called a few companies, knowing my options would be limited. Schneider took me, pending passing a road test (which I aced), and I've been with them almost two years. But this WAS two years ago, and the market was vastly different. I'm glad I'm not trying to make the change right now.

Good luck to you!

 

Hey Ten Ken, do you mind me asking what company that is?...Cuz I just finished orientation with a small TN based company as well. I too met the owner, who used to be a driver. They aren't based out of Ashland City, are they?

 

Ashland City huh? Who you with Dillon transportation or RE West? I used to run team at dillion they are a good company just had a problem with the load planner on hometime. So we had to go.

 

The company is Big G express out of Shelbyville,TN. They have a yard off of TN840 around the Mt,Juliet area, one in East TN off of I81 just north of I40 junction as well one in Deaton, TN (US 231 just north of Shelbyville,TN). Look like business is picking up for them, the customers are complaining that they dont have enough empty trailers to put thier loads in.
Orientation last about a day and a half. This will be a short week for me because of orientation, but that is to be expected.