How much experience do you need to get on with a good company?

It varies by each company & each account & often depends on whether the account is growing or shrinking and the number of highly experienced drivers with an application on file at the company.

 

How much experience do you have?

At Autozone website, they're only currently hiring in 9 states. No minimum experience listed; to me, that says "All may apply, few will be chosen".

Ace Hardware says "Minimum one year in the last three".

Unfortunately, Yellow Freight's demise last August dumped 30,000 experienced drivers back on the market, many of whom have 20 years experience in the last 20 years.

If you already have a CDL job, stay with it, learn, and grow. Then you'll be ready for the top shelf jobs when the market finally opens up.

Job-hopping never used to be an application killer in this industry, but it is now.

I'm a CDL driver and heavy duty mechanic, I've been switching between the two since 1998. Now, suddenly, I'm stuck driving for a less-than-stellar company because there's nowhere better for me to go, because I'm a "job hopper".

On the other hand, I'm 5 years from retirement, so #### it.

Good luck.

 

Outstanding post -- THANX!!!

-- L

 

Experience tells me that whenever a company dumps that many experienced people into either a town (or in this case, a narrowly-defined market), it will take about 5 years for the glut to work through. In 5 years time a lot of those Yellow drivers will either be in a job that they will stay with, retired, out of the business, or will have passed away. Until then, a good number of them will take ANY cr@p job for the time-being, and will upgrade to anything better as those positions open.

 

Define a "good company".

 

But it's not like the freight Yellow was hauling magically disappeared. Other carriers stepped in to pick up that work, have acquired most of the shuttered Yellow locations, and are already beginning opening some of the locations. Those locations will need drivers, so that's one avenue I'd be pursuing if I were looking for a job.

 

How much experience do you need?

That will vary (obviously)....from one carrier to the next....but as a bare minimum for the current CDL job market...I would suggest:

• Minimum 3 years driving experience
• Excellent safety record (no accidents/incidents/citations)
• Experience with different types of freight (not just dry van or just reefer -- or just OTR, or just local)
• the more CDL endorsements you already have, the better -- but hazmat as the bare minimum
• stable employment history (one example: no more than 3 CDL jobs in the last 5 years; but "stable" criteria will of course vary from carrier to carrier)
• Here's a BIG ONE: experience with driving at night (night-shift duty)

Note also: some private carriers are obviously better gigs -- than others.

Private carriers to avoid:

• Dollar General
• Circle K

Now that Pilot/Flying J is fully owned by Berkshire Hathaway -- I would steer clear (pun intended ) of that one, as well.

-- L

 

These days, you'll probably need at least 2 years for those companies. Sometimes you need to know someone, but the most surefire way to get those jobs is to have a decent amount of OTR experience on top of good record. How much of experience you got?