List Of Questions To Ask A Recruiter

A few weeks ago, someone said that they used a (long) list of questions that they'd email to each recruiter they dealt with. I cannot find that list regardless of what keywords I use to search the site here, so does anyone happen to remember this? Or... maybe if today's my lucky day, is the person who wrote that list reading this? I'd love to read through those questions and call CR England back, because I think I may be going to head off to them very soon and would like to make sure there's nothing I missed of dire importance.

Thanks in advance, and have a great Wednesday :)

That was me with the list. Brett has a lot of information on the site as well, but I will post my list again for your pleasure. lol

Questions for Trucking Company Recruiters

Company Name:

Recruiter Name:

Phone Number:

Email:

1. Where is your orientation?

2. Is the orientation a controlled curriculum for subject matter and teaching points? Mileage? Time?

3. Do the trainers get graded by the students after completion or is there a feedback loop to make the training better? Team driving during training?

4. What is the pay during orientation and training?

5. What is the pay after training completion? List for each division please: tanker, dry van , reefer , etc. Please list if it is for ALL miles, or is a progressive (“tiered”) pay scale.

6. Any bonuses post completion? 6 months? 1 year?

7. Is there a 401k and how is it structured? Cap limits? How much does the company match?

8. During orientation are lodging and meals paid for by the company?

9. If the trainer takes home time does the newbie keep driving?

10. What electronics does your company furnish to make a more safe and efficient driver?

11. Where are the main hubs?

12. Does the company have any dedicated contracts? Divisions? Is the newbie eligible for them?

13. What medical and dental plans are offered? Details and pricing of each plan to include time with company?

14. Can you switch trainers if it doesn't work between the two of you for whatever reason?

15. Idling policy?

16. Inverter installation policy? APU in trucks?

17. Is per diem built into the pay?

18. Breakdown and layover pay? Detention pay?

19. Are they no touch or is unloading involved? Pay for unloading?

20. How many miles do they usually put on a truck before they pull it from the fleet?

21. How does the pay period work? Do they use TRANSFLO and does it cost you? Do bills have to be sent in by a certain day to get paid during a week?

22. General home-time policy and where they want the truck when you go home?

23. Slip seating or assigned trucks?

24. What speed are trucks governed at?

25. Vacation policy?

26. What miles are paid miles and what miles are not?

27. When am I working and not getting paid?

28. If weather, driver (sick) or road conditions are such that I feel it is unsafe to continue driving, will I be penalized for parking until it is safe?

29. What are the reasons I could be disciplined and or fired for?

30. What can I expect my first year earnings to be? 2nd year?

31. How many miles per week does a newbie average?

32. Is there a tuition reimbursement program? Explain how it works please.

33. How many of their recruits as a percentage remain past 90 days?

34. What is the number 1 reason new recruits quit or their biggest complaint when they're terminated?

Dry Van:

A trailer or truck that that requires no special attention, such as refrigeration, that hauls regular palletted, boxed, or floor-loaded freight. The most common type of trailer in trucking.

Per Diem:

Getting paid per diem means getting a portion of your salary paid to you without taxes taken out. It's technically classified as a meal and expense reimbursement.

Truck drivers and others who travel for a living get large tax deductions for meal expenses. The Government set up per diem pay as a way to reimburse some of the taxes you pay with each paycheck instead of making you wait until tax filing season.

Getting per diem pay means a driver will get a larger paycheck each week but a smaller tax return at tax time.

We have a ton of information on our wiki page on per diem pay

Reefer:

A refrigerated trailer.

APU:

Auxiliary Power Unit

On tractor trailers, and APU is a small diesel engine that powers a heat and air conditioning unit while charging the truck's main batteries at the same time. This allows the driver to remain comfortable in the cab and have access to electric power without running the main truck engine.

Having an APU helps save money in fuel costs and saves wear and tear on the main engine, though they tend to be expensive to install and maintain. Therefore only a very small percentage of the trucks on the road today come equipped with an APU.

Please don't cross companies off your list because they don't give you responses to these questions in writing or verbally. It is just a list to help you gather information. Recruiters are busy just like everyone else. I think the biggest reason they won't respond with an email with answers is because they are busy and it takes extra time. It could be because they are busy or because they are lazy; just like any job there are people that perform their job well and those that don't, that goes for recruiters as well I am sure.

Also a lot of information is constantly changing. Trucking companies change their pay, their home time, and all that stuff quite often. So recruiters may just think it useless to answer these questions when the information might change in a week or two. You sort of have to get a feel for the company through the recruiter. But as many on TT have said, try to talk to REAL drivers at truck stops. If you talk to 5 drivers from ABC company and they tell you EXACTLY what the recruiter said... there you go your information is verified. If those 5 drivers tell you the EXACT opposite... then you have a red flag possibly.

As an example there was one company I spoke with who doesn't hire students. But the recruiter lady on the phone spent 45 minutes helping me find companies that do hire students. I don't know if she was bored, liked my voice, or what, but after she told me her company won't hire me she still helped me compile a list of companies that hire students, and she gave me her opinions on the companies she knew something about. In my mind that put her company look very good to me, she genuinely wanted to help me just to help me.

Wow dude. I mean.......

I'm getting leery... it seems silly...Is this some weird way of...I don't get this...Why bother asking

Paint you skeptical, huh? Geesh.

I don't know if I'm the most enthusiastic person ever or what but I remember my early days in school and on the road vividly. I mean to the point that I remember some conversations word for word, I remember what certain people were wearing, I remember the weather - all of it. And that was in '93!

I was soooooo excited about getting an opportunity to drive a rig. During those 7 weeks of school I thought I was going to explode if I couldn't climb into one of those big beauties going by on the Interstate and head for California!

Our school was next to an Interstate and I stayed at a hotel during that time. Every evening I'd grab my tunes and walk over to the bridge going over the highway, crank up Bob Seger, and sit there for an hour or two just wondering where the trucks were heading and what it must have felt like to be looking out that windshield. I don't think I slept for days at a time I was so excited.

Am I the only one that was like that? Because after all of these years of running this website it seems most people coming into this industry are just skeptical, cynical, and aggravated with everything all the time. I know for a fact I never had a single thought about companies screwing me over or the process being handled all wrong or any of that. I was just thrilled that I was about to be driving around this big, beautiful country in a big, beautiful American big rig.

Mathew, just roll with it. Don't sweat every detail about the process. I can assure you that most things aren't going to make much sense for a while. Once you've been in the industry for a bit and you learn how things are done this stuff will make sense. But right now just take it a day at a time and roll with it.

That was me with the list. Brett has a lot of information on the site as well, but I will post my list again for your pleasure. lol

Questions for Trucking Company Recruiters

Company Name:

Recruiter Name:

Phone Number:

Email:

1. Where is your orientation?

2. Is the orientation a controlled curriculum for subject matter and teaching points? Mileage? Time?

3. Do the trainers get graded by the students after completion or is there a feedback loop to make the training better? Team driving during training?

4. What is the pay during orientation and training?

5. What is the pay after training completion? List for each division please: tanker, dry van , reefer , etc. Please list if it is for ALL miles, or is a progressive (“tiered”) pay scale.

6. Any bonuses post completion? 6 months? 1 year?

7. Is there a 401k and how is it structured? Cap limits? How much does the company match?

8. During orientation are lodging and meals paid for by the company?

9. If the trainer takes home time does the newbie keep driving?

10. What electronics does your company furnish to make a more safe and efficient driver?

11. Where are the main hubs?

12. Does the company have any dedicated contracts? Divisions? Is the newbie eligible for them?

13. What medical and dental plans are offered? Details and pricing of each plan to include time with company?

14. Can you switch trainers if it doesn't work between the two of you for whatever reason?

15. Idling policy?

16. Inverter installation policy? APU in trucks?

17. Is per diem built into the pay?

18. Breakdown and layover pay? Detention pay?

19. Are they no touch or is unloading involved? Pay for unloading?

20. How many miles do they usually put on a truck before they pull it from the fleet?

21. How does the pay period work? Do they use TRANSFLO and does it cost you? Do bills have to be sent in by a certain day to get paid during a week?

22. General home-time policy and where they want the truck when you go home?

23. Slip seating or assigned trucks?

24. What speed are trucks governed at?

25. Vacation policy?

26. What miles are paid miles and what miles are not?

27. When am I working and not getting paid?

28. If weather, driver (sick) or road conditions are such that I feel it is unsafe to continue driving, will I be penalized for parking until it is safe?

29. What are the reasons I could be disciplined and or fired for?

30. What can I expect my first year earnings to be? 2nd year?

31. How many miles per week does a newbie average?

32. Is there a tuition reimbursement program? Explain how it works please.

33. How many of their recruits as a percentage remain past 90 days?

34. What is the number 1 reason new recruits quit or their biggest complaint when they're terminated?

Dry Van:

A trailer or truck that that requires no special attention, such as refrigeration, that hauls regular palletted, boxed, or floor-loaded freight. The most common type of trailer in trucking.

Per Diem:

Getting paid per diem means getting a portion of your salary paid to you without taxes taken out. It's technically classified as a meal and expense reimbursement.

Truck drivers and others who travel for a living get large tax deductions for meal expenses. The Government set up per diem pay as a way to reimburse some of the taxes you pay with each paycheck instead of making you wait until tax filing season.

Getting per diem pay means a driver will get a larger paycheck each week but a smaller tax return at tax time.

We have a ton of information on our wiki page on per diem pay

Reefer:

A refrigerated trailer.

APU:

Auxiliary Power Unit

On tractor trailers, and APU is a small diesel engine that powers a heat and air conditioning unit while charging the truck's main batteries at the same time. This allows the driver to remain comfortable in the cab and have access to electric power without running the main truck engine.

Having an APU helps save money in fuel costs and saves wear and tear on the main engine, though they tend to be expensive to install and maintain. Therefore only a very small percentage of the trucks on the road today come equipped with an APU.

Cool. I was trying to get remember where this was, too.

Thanks, TTM

Um, okay. I sent this list a recruiter with Driver Solutions and his response was to call him? Why would they not want to email the answers back? I am concerned now.

Um, okay. I sent this list a recruiter with Driver Solutions and his response was to call him? Why would they not want to email the answers back? I am concerned now.

Because anything that is in writing can be used against him if he tells you wrong. Recruiters are meant to get a student in the door, and most will make up false things just to get you to join. If he tells you that they have a western fleet that hires rookies and you go solo and then find out you need a year of experience to join that western fleet you can use it against that recruiter who told you in writing that they hire rookies in the western fleet. But if there's no actual proof then he never told you. He can deny it and easily get away with it. Just an example.

It basically boils down got this. They want to tell you whatever they can for you to join but once you realize what they said is wrong you have no evidence that you were told that. Not all recruiters are like this but some are. Some recruiters really have no idea what's going on with the company and never even been inside of a truck. It's the sad truth. So I'm not trying to tell you that your recruiter is a liar, but they prefer not to put things in writing.

Yeah I kinda figured that.

I copied that list of questions. Thanks man, that will help me a ton

Please don't cross companies off your list because they don't give you responses to these questions in writing or verbally. It is just a list to help you gather information. Recruiters are busy just like everyone else. I think the biggest reason they won't respond with an email with answers is because they are busy and it takes extra time. It could be because they are busy or because they are lazy; just like any job there are people that perform their job well and those that don't, that goes for recruiters as well I am sure.

Also a lot of information is constantly changing. Trucking companies change their pay, their home time, and all that stuff quite often. So recruiters may just think it useless to answer these questions when the information might change in a week or two. You sort of have to get a feel for the company through the recruiter. But as many on TT have said, try to talk to REAL drivers at truck stops. If you talk to 5 drivers from ABC company and they tell you EXACTLY what the recruiter said... there you go your information is verified. If those 5 drivers tell you the EXACT opposite... then you have a red flag possibly.

As an example there was one company I spoke with who doesn't hire students. But the recruiter lady on the phone spent 45 minutes helping me find companies that do hire students. I don't know if she was bored, liked my voice, or what, but after she told me her company won't hire me she still helped me compile a list of companies that hire students, and she gave me her opinions on the companies she knew something about. In my mind that put her company look very good to me, she genuinely wanted to help me just to help me.

I spent about 40 minutes on the phone with the recruiter from CR England and after all the doozies I've dealt with (comapnies who either don't want me because of a 4.5 year old misdemeanor or because my &^%* credit score is too low), I've decided to go ahead, bite the bullet and go with CR England. I'll probably be leaving at the end of this month.

Glad you found your fit. Good luck!