The best thing you can do for your future is find the employer that can and will hire you BEFORE you decide whether you go to CDL school or which CDL school you should attend. Your goal is a good job, not just another piece of plastic in your pocket. The Employer may have their own school, or not. They may hire from schools with this certain feature, or not.
THERE IS NO DRIVER SHORTAGE. Every CDL school will tell you the industry is falling apart because they can't hire the 50 million CDL drivers they need every month for the next 200 years. It's not true. The industry is slow. It's been slow for 2 years. The Driver Shortage Myth is a combination of industry and sloppy media companies working together, projecting how many drivers will be needed if Wal Mart, Amazon, every other business keeps growing at 40% per year FOREVER and several other false assumptions. ANY businessman can have a plan to grow his business by any amount he can dream. That plan, realistic or not, doesn't guarantee anyone a job or that there will be customers or that his expenses won't overwhelm his plan.
The customers paying to move freight have too many trucking company and trucking companies have more trucks and trailers than they can keep full and moving when the economy is slow. The economy is slow right now. The prices customers are willing to pay to move freight is low because there are more companies willing to move that freight and those companies are willing to cut margins, maybe just break-even, to move that freight. Breaking even moving freight won't pay higher prices for fuel and insurance and maintenance and electricity in offices and rent.
Before you decide to jump into trucking:
1. You need to have picked out one or two trucking companies that will hire someone with a brand new CDL.
2. You need to know if those companies have their own CDL school or only hire newbies from certain schools. Just attending an accredited PTDI school does not mean Company A can hire newbies from School B. Maybe they can, maybe they cannot. Ask the company which schools they can hire students from.
3. You need to sort out what kind of trucking you can/want to do and how long you can/will be away from home. Your family needs to be consulted. Being away many weeks at a time is a great way to cause a divorce. If your family life requires you to be home every weekend, or every night, or just a couple of times per year, your trucking company is not going to change to meet your needs. The company may have other jobs you can move into, or they may not. When you pick an employer you are picking pay, schedule, region, insurance, procedures, customers, etc., etc. YOU WILL NOT CHANGE THE EMPLOYER.
4. If you can't start working right after CDL school ends, like within a few days to a week or two, hold off going to CDL school. The same is true if you are moving from one state to another. You are just going to complicate your life and require time off from work if you finish CDL school, change states or have weeks and months of family obligations before you can use your CDL. Go take care of that BEFORE you start CDL school.
5. If you have high blood pressure or other health issues you will be given a medical exam. You will also take a drug screen. That will be AT LEAST require you to P into a cup. Some companies will also use your urine AND take a hair sample to test for drug use. If there is ANY doubt you can pass a drug screen DO NOT GO TO CDL SCHOOL. Failing or refusing a drug screen will have the same effect on your record. Nobody is going to believe your long complicated story about how you walked through a room of weed smokers as you were on your way to save orphans from a fire at a Bible Study. You will be tested. You either pass or fail. Nothing else matters to the people giving drug screens. Your state's laws about certain drugs DO NOT MATTER. Trucking lives by FEDERAL regulations. Federal regulations prohibit many drugs and NOBODY IS ASKING IF YOU AGREE WITH THE FEDERAL REGULATIONS. Treat a drug screen like an IQ test. You either pass or you fail. You know it is going to happen. If you choose to fail the test your enemy is in the mirror.
6. You will need to have a written list of your past employers for the last 3 years or back until the end of high school, whichever is shorter. That means company name, supervisor name, address, phone number, job title/description of work, pay rate. If you have gaps of 30 days or more, write up a brief explanation for each gap. Companies are required to have that info from you and verify it as much as possible or they cannot hire you and their insurance company will not cover you.
Future Students of CDL Schools...Practical Realities in 2024
Discussion in 'Trucking Schools and CDL Training Forum' started by tscottme, Oct 7, 2024.