Yes, upon graduating from CDL school you have choices. There are several carriers who hire students after graduation: Swift, Werner, Schneider, PAM Transport, US Xpress, CR England, CRST, Roehl, Stevens, and a few others. They all have some sort of orientation then training over the road (OTR)/on the job with a driver trainer. The big factors seem to be the length of the orientation/training period, the rate of pay during those times, location of orientation, cents per mile once you upgrade to 1st seat, and the types of loads they haul.
Our search was pretty exhaustive and overwhelming at times because of our criteria. We wanted to find a company who would let John be my trainer for the on the job training, accept his past OTR experience as valid and not require he go out with a trainer, ran cross-country as opposed to only regional, how they addressed the climate control issue in "no idle" states, and hauled dry van. We weren't interested in refer (refrigerated) or flat bed. It became apparent to us in the beginning of this adventure that his OTR experience might be an issue when we were first doing research to see if our goal was even possible, before I enrolled in school. The 1st company we called was US Xpress and they flat out said "no" they would not hire John as he did not have a year of OTR experience within the last 3.
Werner wanted him to do 150 hours with a trainer and me 270. Stevens wanted almost the same but then we'd have to drive solo for at least 3 months before we could team (really?!?). CRST (a teams only company) wanted John to ride with a driver trainer for 28 days - same as the recent grads. CR England and PAM didn't run cross country. PAM also paid pretty low. Finally we decided to apply to Schneider as they indicated he wouldn't need to go on the road with a driver trainer and I'd only go a week with one then he would essentially be my driver trainer. AWESOME! Well, we get a call from them, submit our approval paperwork to start the process prior to orientation and the call stating "I'm sorry, you don't live within one of our teams hiring area". Now, we are very close to several of their listed hiring areas but our zip code was not on their list. We told them we would be putting everything in storage and if they could give us a zip code we'd get our PO Box there. Their response: "let me talk to my hiring manager and see if I can get an exception".
We checked in with them everyday for a few days and they still did not have an answer. So we started to get creative and re-evaluate our plan. Perhaps a smaller, local company would let John train me and put us in a truck. A company he used to work for was hiring so he suggested we go by and talk to them. The term "re-hireable" came up and this turned everything around. See, John used to work for US Xpress when the 1st company he worked for - a smaller company - folded and was purchased by US Xpress. So, he called them back up and asked if he's re-hireable. They said yes! And, orientation is only 3 days, John would need to do 50 hours with a driver trainer (not so bad given the other options) and I'd do 120. US Xpress then sends their recent grads out as teams for the next 2 months and yes, John can be my co-driver. Wow! We've come full circle! They emailed us the application within a couple of hours. This is Thursday afternoon. We sent back the applications by close of business that same day. By 10:30am Friday we got a call from the recruiter asking if we can report to Dallas on the following Wednesday.
It's pretty wild the way things played out. John had hoped in the beginning we could go with US Xpress then as I was going through school was suggesting I go ahead and go with them because of their reputation over the rest of the mega-carriers. Had Schneider called us up to orientation we would have missed the US Xpress opportunity. As I like to say, the universe has a way of providing when you are on the right path.
Next Up: Throwing my life into boxes for the 8th time in 4 years
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