Is 1 year really enough anymore?

Hey, in one parallel universe I just KNOW exists, Pete Carroll gives the ball to Marshawn Lynch and Seahawks beat the Patriots in the Superbowl, so any trucker is redeemable from there, lol

 

It's not just because of the insurance carriers .
Most drivers with less than 2 years experience are still learning the basics.
Companies other than megas, aren't real comfortable putting newbies in $200,000 rigs.
2 to 3 years minimum, your comfortable with the systems, you've been through several season changes, you've got some miles under your belt in different driving scenarios.
This let's companies know you have a handle on things, they're not going to have to spend a lot of time and money training you, other than their way of doing things, they know you're not going to tear up the equipment, insurance companies are more comfortable with you and the list goes on.

 

Back in the Cambrian Period, I was 15 months into my first driving job, and was at my wits' end with the company. Incompetent dispatch, micromanaging, junky cabovers, low miles, driver-unload multiple-stop just-in-time bullcrap freight, and they thought the world ended in the middle of Kansas. There was another company in the area that everybody said good things about, but they wanted two years.

I finally figured, "Well, I'll go down and apply anyway. They're not gonna have me shot; the worst they can do is tell me to come back in nine months." A week later, I was in a conventional heading for Arizona, flipping the bird to the hellhole I'd escaped from.

Just apply. You've got nothing to lose.

 

Sometimes that works. A guy sure doesn't have anything to lose by trying. If you hit a company at just the right time and you make a good intial impression you might just get lucky.
A friend of mine lucked into a tanker job that way. LOL, that was fifteen years ago and he's still there.

 

I got into my local tanker company with just having mostly dump truck experience. My goal was a local job to gain more experience with, so it got me what I wanted. The insurance was not much of an obstacle here, of course I wasn't straight out of school either. I had a year but allot of it being class b dump truck

 

If that was the case the companies could never grow and would eventually run out of drivers we get the same thing in the mining industry where they'll always ask for drivers with a minimum of 2 years dump truck experiece etc etc i always ask so were all these "Experienced" drivers born with experience or what? They were beginners once upon a time.

 

Yes but some places build themselves out "to train". Other places don't want to take on that additional structure. They just don't have the time or personnel or desire to train when qualified people are out there.

 

They get their drivers from the available driving pool. Your looking at this from the wrong prospective. Where a mega might need 1000 drivers a month a small company may only need 2 every 3 or 4 years. That mega will lower their standards just to get these drivers. A small company will look for that exceptional driver that stands out as being someone they can mentor along. However your right experience don't grow on trees. It takes doing. Some do and then others go drive for a mega.