No Driving School, But Successfully Tested & Obtained Florida CDL Class A License - What Are My Options For Jobs/companies?

A recent graduate IS a new CDL holder.

Thanks, captain!

A "new CDL holder" is not necessarily a recent CDL school graduate.

you are correct! haha

One thing to note, anytime a Trucking company has a position for a "New CDL holder" it is implied that they have recently finished an approved school, whether it is a private school, like NTTS, PDI, TDI, SAGE, or a Community College program. This will hold true for 90% of companies that hire new drivers. I say 90% because There are some companies that might look past the lack of schooling, but I have only found ONE, Western Express, however, I may have misinterpreted their advertisement.

...We don't take it lightly when somebody jumps in here acting like a Banty rooster and telling us we don't know what we're talking about.

All deserved seriousness aside, that's got to be one of my favorite things you've wrote on here. (emphasis mine)

Paul J wrote:

I was looking at an entry level driving job for Schneider the other day. Eligible candidates are "new class A CDL holders." Doesn't say anything about having to attend an accredited school.

Not what I read: Schneider Jobs - New CDl Holders

States they will hire new CDL Holders who attended a school. It continues to offer a list of schools they will accept applicants from. All of the larger carriers (we are aware of) willing to hire and road train new CDL holders will not hire someone unless they graduated from a school offering a minimum of 160 hours of instruction. How many times and how many different ways must we restate attempting to short-cut the process by skipping the school part is ill-advised?

Paul J. also wrote:

i'm kind of in a similar position as the gentleman that started this thread, so this is interesting to me. Seems strange that a company would advertise for "new CDL holders" when they mean "new graduates of CDL schools." I am going to make some calls and see what some companies actually have to say about it. I'll let you know what i find out.

You need to read all of the web content to understand hiring a new CDL holder is conditional on graduating from a school. You might save yourself some time and aggravation by listening to what we are telling you. If not then by all means, please call them. Call them all and let us know how that goes.

Greetings to everyone who posted on this thread.

After much research, I decided to go to CDL school. It took about 10 calendar weeks, 4 days per week, just over $4,000 in tuition and expenses.

I now have my certificate for 300 hours of CDL Schooling, including more than 1,000 miles on my log book.

Scheduled to start at a mega (that does not have driver facing cameras), in about two weeks.

Thanks again for all the advice.

God Bless!

Congrats - glad to see things are working out for you.

And thanks for updating us...

Rick