What Counts As 1 Year Of Experience?

For job applications put the hire on date.
Actual experience is the day you went out with a trainer.

 

I've never seen an app that asks for the actual day. I'm sure there are some, but most just ask month/year.
So your hire date is 12/2018
If they ask for a year experience, start sending in apps on say 10/1/2019. It's a couple months early, but if they need a driver they will sometimes waive the requirements by a couple months.

 

January.

 

Apply anywhere you want, even if you dont think you'll be hired.
Some companies have "X number of months without a trainer" and some use "hire date" and various other rules.
Saw an ad for Airgas and it had "1 yr. experience required", but further along in the small print it has,
"New cdl school grads with certificate from acreditied cdl school counts as 1 yr. experience."

 

If you were doing most of the driving with the trainer, it starts then.
If he didn't like to give up the reins very often to let you learn.. Feb.

 

Legally speaking it would be the anniversary date of your license. So look at the date the state said you were a licensed truck driver, 365 days later is a year so..... Presuming your drove for that year. If so simple enough, that's the day the state made you a legal truck driver.
The rest is just smoke and mirrors.