Will a "Failure to provide proof of insurance" suspension keep me from getting a job?

There are companies that won't hire you if you have a suspension for any reason with in the last 3 years... so if it was 37 months ago it is a non issue... but as stated there are also companies that will...

If you apply on one of those sites where you only have to fill out one application for several companies.. after you fill it out online, a list of companies that will hire you will pop up.. see if there are any you like and check out their website for more information.. but, don't go through the company recruiters.. internal or in house recruiters get paid hourly to fill seat in orientation and need to keep their numbers some what in check.. but they get paid to get you to orientation even if you get sent home for your MVR, or anything... go back to the external site where you filled out the application to get the companies that may hire you.. and go through them.. they are external recruiters and only get paid if you are hired.. meaning, if you make it through orientation, actually for some companies it is when they finish your employment history and background check... which can take time.. I have know people to be pulled off a trainers truck when their employment history or background check doesn't clear... usually for something stupid that would not of prevented them from being hired, like the didn't say the were fired from a job when they were.. as long as you weren't fired for punching someone.. being fired doesn't necessarily matter.. but, not being truthful about will get you sent home... so, with external recruiters if you get sent home for your MVR, or anything they don't get paid... if you leave orientation because you were told by the external recruiter that you will be paid .40 cpm and you find out in orientation it is .32 cpm..they don't get paid.. also external recruiters have have better numbers... meaning, the number of candidates they send to orientation that get sent home and not hired needs to be small...

Now I don't work with new drivers, I only work with experienced drivers... but, I did have to get my feet wet in the new driver recruiting.. and then never ceased to amaze me how I could stress over and over that you will be drug tested at orientation, even when I out and out asked if they would pass... there were those who got sent home because they failed true test.. folks.. don't do that.. not because the recruiter doesn't get paid.. but because now you have a failed DOT drug test..

 

I had my license suspended for the same thing but it was just over 10 years ago like 10 years and 3 months I'm not worried about it.

 

OP works in a non-driving role for FedEx, and wants to convert to a driving role with their current employer, utilizing their training program for this purpose. Outside recruiter is probably not the way to do that. Good post for others, in different circumstances, though.

Listening skills are unfortunately often another recruiter failing point. Not meaning to be critical, or keep picking on you, but these are things that are relevant to that discussion we started with, on that other thread, that didn't come up, over there.

Knowing what makes drivers so down on recruiters can help you to overcome it... not knowing, can't...

 

Lol.. actually I am probably better at listening, than an reading completely through post as I do tend to just skim over them... but, on the phone where I am actually listening to someone I am better..

criticism doesn't bother me.. and it is okay if drivers want to get down on recruiters.. we are not paid to make drivers feel warm and fuzzy towards us.. we are paid to find drivers who can actually be hired...

However, most drivers, do not understand the role recruiters do and the difference between in house recruiters and external recruiters.. if drivers really are sick and tired of being mislead or lied to by recruiters.. then they need to not utilize the recruiters that are more notorious for it.. the in house recruiters who get paid hourly and just need to get you to orientation...

In the recruiting industry, driver recruiting is not where the money is at.. mainly because there is always drivers looking for a job.. so, yes, a recruiter does get paid to weed through and screen applicants to find qualified drivers.. but, it is usually only for a flat fee... anywhere from $300 to $700... other industies, like electrical engineering, data scientist, and certain medical professions like Physical Therapy and Home Health AIDS are far more lucrative as you get a percentage of the first years annual salary, anywhere from 10% to 35%... but, those are also where you actually have to do the recruiting and head hunting... because seriously, have you ever seen a billboard, let alone the backs of hundreds of semi trailers saying that some company is looking for electrical engineers...

And while someone may wake up one morning and decide they are gonna go get their CDL and become a truck driver.. there are far less that say.. wow, think I will just go to college for four or more years and see if I like being a data scientist, or physical therapist..

The irony is that when I "recruit" a driver..all I did was take their call because they were seeking employment... so there is no real recruiting or head hunting in it.. where as with other industries you may not get any qualified applicants apply.. so you have to recruit or poach them... meaning.. they are not even looking to change companies.. but, you send them an email or informative to their house to plant the seed and hope they respond.. if they don't then you try an invite.. where you invite them somewhere maybe a nice restaurant or even a weekend mini vacation so that you can get face to face with them and pitch the company your are seeking them out for..

What needs to upset you isn't Recruiters.. it is the CDL schools who churn out so many drivers and the companies ( mega carriers ) who just don't bother with driver retention and just keep a steady stream of drivers rolling through the doors...

Let me get cynical here... but think about it.. the trucking industry has a turnover rate of over 100%.... last year I believe it was like 102%..

So, a new driver with their new CDL gets on their trainers truck and drives across the country.. and what is on the back of their trailer.. "Hiring Drivers.. great pay, great home time.. live the dream!" They are actually recruiting their replacement...

and unfortunately it works.. some person driving behind the truck unhappy with their current job decides.. hey I can do that.. and takes a picture so he can call the 800 number...
And because of the steady stream of new drivers there is no need for the mega carriers to try to retain drivers with actual great pay and home time...

 

Not to worry. Drivers have plenty of hate to go around... We can manage to hate the CDL mills and mega carriers, and still have enough left over to spare some for recruiters, politicians, law enforcement, bureaucrats, family, and ourselves...

 

Lol... you know.. there are wannabe drivers, bad drivers and complacent drivers that also add to the problem... and actually, have more of an impact on you as an driver that any recruiter...

What I mean, from the stand point of a recruiter... in other industries... they have to really sweeten the deal to attract new employees and retain employees.... so you see starting pay go up, more and better benefits, variety of perks and privileges added to deal..

But, in trucking, once a person takes that first bite and gets their CDL... often times through a mega where they don't pay upfront for CDL classes... they are are now in the rat race.. or more maze... and what happens for many new drivers is that now that they have a CDL and are a trucker.. they want to do it at all cost.. meaning if they had an incident and got fired or left one company.. they will take a low paying trucking gig just to safe face and be a trucker..

If drivers would not drive for .23 cpm, then a company that pays .23 cpm has no choice but to increase their pay to get drivers...

But that is not the only way drivers contribute to the low pay that most companies offer.. it costs money to keep a revolving door of drivers... advertising costs to attract drivers, added HR staff to process new hires, higher insurance premiums, paying to get new drivers to orientation.. and all the no shows... if a company wants 20 drivers a week in orientation.. then they need to hire and schedule at least 25.. lot of wasted money that comes out of what the company pays their drivers...

So.. here the thing.. when a recruiter sends a potential driver to orientation and they fail the drug test.. it may seem like it is no skin of your nose.. but it very much is.. drug tests cost money.. getting the potential driver to there so it could fail his drug test.. the costs for new drivers goes on and on... but, the money very much does come from the working drivers pocket... or actually it is money that doesn't make it to their pocket because the company figures out what it can pay driver after all the expenses are calculated...

Now, you might think, well I don't work for a mega so that doesn't apply to me... really.. it completely does.. if a company just has to pay.. say 5 cents more per mile than a mega to be considered a decent company.. then if the mega carriers are paying .23 cpm they only have to offer .28' and a company that want to be just a bit better has to add a few pennies and pay .32 and so on..

So in a very real sense.. or cents.. the cpm at the top paying companies is relative to the lowest pay that drivers will drive for at the low paying carriers..

There is a lot of other things Driver do that cuts into the pay for all drivers.. it costs every time a driver changes companies.. that's right.. when you tell a driver to quit a go somewhere else.. you are giving up some of your pay.. maybe not a lot.. .0003 a mile.. but, when it is hundreds of drivers hopping from company to company very day.. trust me.. your pay is influenced...

That's the sad irony of it.. when a driver advises other drivers to quit and go somewhere else, they are giving up some of their own pay.. and creating pay for advertisers, recruiters, HR staff...

So yeah, Drivers say they hate recruiters.. but yet in their actions they do more to increase our pay while deminihing their own pay and the pay of their fellow drivers..

So, we hear hate but feel love from you...

 

Well, it all sounds very reasonable, but there are some unstated assumptions in there, that aren't necessarily true. Companies (as a group, since we are referring to them, that way, with regard to relative pay scales) don't have to budget the same numbers for driver pay, training, and retention. There isn't something magic cap on this aggregate value. They can exchange it around, under a cap, sure, or they can raise the cap and take the excess out of customers, government training grants, or the like.

They pay what they feel that the market will bear, and the rates that they do pay, as well as the full store shelves, argue that the market will happily bear what they are paying, now. They continue to cry "driver shortage", because it gets the government off their backs about employment regulation, and it gets them 'job training' grants and consideration. They do something similar in engineering; they constantly whine about the lack of available talent, and all these jobs that they can't fill... and turn away applicants when they come out of US colleges, but hire them overseas. It's a smokescreen, to avoid being legislatively penalized for outsourcing to obtain cheaper labor.

The budget for employing people does not exist in a vacuum, and money does not have to come out of driver pay, to go into driver training. There is money being made from training, in addition to freight. They merely have to decide to spend it that way - and they don't see the need to do so. Like the rest of us, if they don't *have* to spend it on drivers, they'd really rather spend it on hookers and beer...

 

Lol.. once again I both agree with what you are saying.. but, disagree because you are not looking at the whole picture..

Years when I was learning to not was being taught by another driver.. and I am deliberately not using the words trained or trainer.. because I dint go that route.. I went the old school route.. he was not a driver trainer taking on students.. he was an experienced driver teaching me...

Anyway, we were pulling flatbed and would get regular runs to CA.. but, it was always easier to get a run to CA and we would have to wait for a load going back.. usually for about 4 or 5 days... now, no of course we didn't just wait in the truck stop for a load back.. he would get on the load board and find local freight we would shuffle along the coast.. maybe he would find a load of steal, or some bees, yes bees ... he always kept me busy with map telling me to find a route to somewhere..
my point.. he didn't teach about finding loads as I was way too new a river for that.. but, while He was on the load board or phone.. it would alway get him on a rant.. about... freight rates.. he would go off of idiots who were under cutting the freight rates.. willing to haul fright for cheap.. he would roll through the figures, and yell that t wasn't worth it, barely cover the fuel costs, this cost and that..

Here is an allegory...
You buy a truck and hire a driver and being a good guy pay your driver . 52 cpm
Buy a truck and hire a driver, but am scum and pay my driver .32 cpm

Well, now that we have a truck and drivers we need freight for them to haul so we look at a load board and both see a run that would be lovely for our drivers.. you place a bid.. well, I want that run for my driver and I can under bid you and still make money after paying my driver their .32 cpm
Well, you can't just have you driver sitting so you bid slightly under me and hope I won't steep lower.. but, I can and do.. and will still make a little for myself.. you crunch the numbers and you can under bid me again, but will just cover the costs and make a tiny tiny bit for yourself, as long as I don't under bid you again..

So low driver pay and cheap freight go together...

I am glad that in my truck driving experience that I got my start with an O/O, drove for both a small family run company as well as a mega carrier...

Something that stood out to me a lot.. was, when you drive for a mega carrier and you go to a shippers or receivers you will see other mega carriers there... but, when I drove for the O/O and the small company the shippers and receivers were not full of mega carriers.. it was small companies and O/Os..

Orientation was a mind blower.. with. The O/O there wasn't really any kind of Orientation, I filled out paper work, and took a drug test.. when I went to the small company there was sort of an orientation.. I was in the kitchen of their house and filled out paper work, they gave me coffee and some donuts.. and had a little packets of informations for me and a couple log books and stuff.. they took me to get a drug test and we stopped for lunch at a local diner.. got back to the house and he took me to my truck and showed me stuff about it, loaded some stuff like washer fluid, oil and tools, made sure I had his phone number in my phone, and other numbers and then sent me off to pick up my first load, after loading I was park for the night and take off in the morning..

When I went to orientation at the mega.. crazy.. there were there was 13 others there so 14 of us.. and it was a small class, orientation was 3 days .. and they had another orientation class coming in after us.. there were tables with computers, binder of information, we took the drug test right there.. not in the class room but they had their own on site drug test area.. we had an instructor, who had an assistant and there were two helpers.. who were drivers that were working at the terminal because of medical leave or whatever.. they had a big screen where they went over the power point presentation and we watched videos.. besides the 25 computers that were in the orientation class, there was a whole other room with 30 computers so drivers could take their modules.. maybe because they had a ticket or whatever, but they were always assigning modules.. how to drive in rain.. how to log correctly.. how to live on the road.. they even had healthy eating modules.. and that was just one of their many terminals.. they had other orientation classes and stuff at other terminals..

That is a lot of expenses... and seriously you don't think it is coming out of the drivers pay... of course it is.. the carriers know that they can pay their drivers less and they will still come in droves.. so they put the money in he hiring and orientation process so they can handle large groups of new hires in a fast streamlined process...

As a recruiter to place a new driver in an orientation class I just do some basic qualifications and get them a bus ticket.. for a small company, the companies I recruit for, I am running the background checks, verifying the employment history and such.. I have to send them an email and get an electronic signature for all the releases.. at a mega, you sign those the first day of orientation and that's when they will start to do the background check..

The mega carrier culture... which includes all the drivers who have bought into, live it and preach it.. is what is wrong with the trucking industry..
Drivers who will drive for .24 cpm them jump to this carrier for a few pennies more.. then have an incident and now are driving for .23 cpm but as soon as they can are gonna jump and get a few pennies more..

Now, there are drivers.. who just accept they are gonna start low at some mega carrier.. they drive there for a couple years, keep their record clean, gain experience and then move upward.. which is the way to do it.. earn your dues.. but that is not the majority of today's new drivers..

Which is why Driver Recruiting is an industry of its own now, like CDL schools and mills..

Just to remind you.. I am a recruiter.. and I do recruit experienced drivers for small companies for the firm I work for.. but I don't just do Driver Recruiting...