School or Friend

Unless your "friend" is in a position to actually hire you then going to a formal CDL school is the best way to go. The reason being is all of the big trucking companies will require you to have a diploma from an approved school before they will hire you. So even if your friend helps you get your CDL, you will still face a tough time getting someone to actually hire you without a diploma and little to no experience. It's just too much of an insurance risk for the company.

 

If you attend Stevens's school, they will expect/require you to go to work for them and not their competition when you graduate. If you don't want to be tied to a particular company AND have the cash to pay for school yourself, you should check to see if any of your local community colleges offer CDL training. Most community colleges charge thousand of dollars less than private for profit schools and provide better training.

I must also warn you that things are tight in trucking just as they are in other areas of the economy right now. Therefore, do not expect to make the big bucks right away.

 

I am going to school right now and I had to sign a 1 year contract unless I pay them cash. If you can afford a trucking school with no ties to a company, that's the way to go if you don't want to work for a certain company.

 

There's a lot of school graduates that can't find jobs . Don't worry about the big companies . You won't get a decent job with them anyway . All the big carriers have parked hundreds of trucks because freight keeps dropping . They are only hiring to replace drivers that quit . The only people getting good jobs now are people with personal contacts at a company . If you know somebody that can get you in with a smaller company the school is a waste of money . A couple of school recruiters have been members here but quit posting when asked questions like how many trucks carriers they referred students to had compared to last year and why they kept sending graduates to the same companies over and over . A student they graduate and send to a company today will leave that company and be replaced by another student within a few months .

 

I'd have to agree that a school is the way to go, although the friend would be much cheaper on the front end. For all the good it has done, I wish I could have found a friend to help me get my class A, because any advantage you gain by going to a school is over in 6 weeks time if no one picks you up for an orientation...then you find yourself out the money, time, holding just the class A and the bill. So many of the small companys are also going, or have gone out of business. I can't tell you how many 411 and internet searches for leads have led me to the dreaded three tone sound and "we're sorry, this number is no longer in service." Hang in there chaps, we're in for a long ride, and not the long ride we thought we were signing up for. Don't feel scammed, and don't give up. Keep swimming there nemo.