They'd rather hire newbies, Huh?

Yeah, this makes no sense to me either, unless of course their just after the federal training funds by tagging the "experienced" drivers as "Unexperienced", although they all continue to use the "insurance" excuse.

I can't think of any other industry that uses this lame practice for hiring.

 

This is true as I know several owner ops who refuse to add more trucks-drivers due to the insurance increases, both liablity and w/c. One accident can put a smaller co. out of business in a hurry.

I wonder how this concept differs, if at all for the "self insured" companies? Prob not much I would guess.

 

Update on Job Search:
I attended one of those Schneider "Career Fair" things earlier today, up in Albany. I was suprised to learn from their recruiter that they are leaning towards Experienced Drivers, especially for their dedicated routes.

The guy who was in line with the recruiter prior to me was told to contact them back in a few months. Why?, because he didn't have any experience even though he held a Cdl A license.

I on the other hand was told that due to my experience, would in fact qualify for one of the 5 positions they were looking to fill here in this part of the state, part of their dedicated northeast & canada runs, as they are only filliing these slots with experienced drivers only for this gig. I filled the app out again as he couldn't find me in their system from the app I submitted last year.

Told me they would contact me back in 3 or 4 days, and to stay in touch with him if I don't hear back from them at that point.

Also:
Just got a call from Keystone. Seems they locked a dedicated account for an auto parts retail outlet. He invited me down to their warehouse tomorrow for a RoadTest-Interview. I told him that the guy from his co. that called me last week, told me notta because of no recent experience. He wasn't too happy with that, and apologized. Hmmm.

Seems the tides have changed a bit here, as this is 2 companies I spoke with just today that are now leaning towards experienced drivers over notta experienced. A good sign.

Let's see what happens...

 

I sure will Scarecrow.
I gotta be in Chester round 10:30am. I did some research on them, and they seem very stable(been around since 1953), their putting up new facilities(another container port in Elizabeth NJ on 100acres they just bought), nice equiptment, and offer good pay-benefits, so we'll see.

 

Yeah, one of the recruiting companies I'm working with recommended Celadon as their #2 choice over Arnold. Due to my location on the map she told me that they couldn't get me home for 2-3 weeks, so I passed on sending an app to them. Only going to use OTR(out 2-3wks) as my very last of options, as I like regional-local better.

 

Update:
Interviewed today, got there 15 minutes early(of course). Shot the breeze with the hiring manager for a few minutes, then he took me right in and had me fill out probably 40 pieces of paperwork as none of their trucks will be at this terminal till next week so no road test today. They also had me drive up the road and do the whiz-in-the-cup thing too.

In the meantime, I have to go get my dmv medical card renewed, so I'll call the doc tomorrow on that, as it's after closing hours here now.

Also had to stop into dmv and get my address printed on me license, even tho I paid NY $15 about 5 years ago when my address changed(ny used to put this handwritten decal on the back of the license to make it legal, huh?). Of course they took the money then and I never got the new license, and woulnd't ya know, they took another $15 again today for yet another request-form for them to mail me the one they never mailed me 5 years ago. So typical of things like this in NY.

They told me to call them Monday as it takes a few days to do the drug test results and verification on the job app. Once all of that is in order, they'll have me down to road test next week then give me a start date.

Their gig starts at that terminal May 5th, but they have runs from their other facilites south of this terminal and will bring all the new hires for this terminal in a week or two prior to the 5th so we can start making money and learn their way of doing business.

They also mentioned how frustrating it's been trying to hire drivers of late because most drivers lie on their job apps, and of course they're unable to hire them. No wonder certain companies want newbies...