Almost One of You

China, I applied for dock positions with ABF, XPO, Estes, and YRC before getting my CDL. I have visited ABF, Reddaway, FXF, ODFL, and Estes barns in more than one place to speak to managers and ask for suggestions. I have accounts and apps with all of those, and have called HR and told them I'm open to relocation anywhere in the mountain west. I greatly appreciate all your suggestions.

Haven't visited a DATS in person yet, but looking them up today. Speaking of which, where are you Big Don?

I applied for MVE, but their questions lead me to believe it would be a rough place to work. It sounds like they typically hire like Carolina Cargo, they asked drug and accident questions several times.

Bob, I appreciate that. You are correct that it would be pushing my skillset at this point.

I went out of my way to find a school that had pups, found one that said they were originally an LTL company, then I found out that they didn't have them when I arrived there and went elsewhere for training. I did do city straight truck P&D, which I know isn't the same. I was in a little eastern city with narrow old streets and acute angled turns and docks way back in there. We did rural stuff as well, old factories with docks meant for Henry Fonda's truck. Sometimes they rented B trucks when theirs broke and I ran them without issues, although I hate doing P&D with reefer floors.

I'm positive that I'd have some tough days at first, and I'd be slow. We ran tight steep mountain roads in the Rockies with no shoulders and 12% grades and lots of tight city corners during school with a 48 and a sleeper, so I think a daycab with pup would be a relief once I learned how to back one. I'm probably wrong about that, but I'd like to try it.

 

Also, @Chinatown, an ODFL manager emailed a reply to me that they require 180 hours.

I could go look up that thread where the woman got hired right out of HACC to run linehaul, to see how many hours she had, but I just crossed them off and spoiled my profile with them. I had two driver apps open with them and one for a clerk before that, during which I tried several times to contact a DM or TM and was brushed off. I was also brushed off, once kindly, at two other of their terminals. Despite their reputation for letting local managers decide, I have found otherwise. And I'm clean cut enough to make Ron Howard look like a gangsta.

It may seem extreme or reactive to delete a profile, but if that company gets hacked, there is now nothing in my profile which is correct, including my name. All these companies want enough info to steal my ID two times over. When it obviously isn't going to work out I edit the profile with fake everything. I even have a blank resume I upload in place of the real one. Every one of them outsources their HR info storage into one of the systems like Taleo, ICIMS, driverapp, etc., and every one of them will corporately deny responsibility if one of those get pwned.

I was a contract recruiter for a large transportation company; their HR would email me an attachment, in plaintext, before every session I did; 900 pages of resumes straight from Taleo to go print in hardcopy at Kinkos for recruiting sessions. These had address, SS#, everything I would have needed to have 100' of ID's if I was that kind of person, and they sent it to me as an outsider, not vetted with them at all. I wonder how many of the other recruiters went out of their way to destroy those printouts when they were finished with them.

Corporate peeps have absolutely no clue about data security. And do not care.

 

Got through the app and there was an 80-question psych-eval waiting. I won't do those. I suggest that no one else do one, because you do not get to see or contest the "results" or see who they share them with down the road. Speaking as a former transportation recruiter myself. Do not touch those with a bargepole.

Have some other apps in. Some companies who are hurting for drivers are making it hard to change that. Interesting how that goes hand in hand.