Question About Hiring Zones

Howdy, all! Just joined the forum today. I've been lurking for weeks now, soaking up any and all advice I can get. I'm currently enlisted in the US Army, scheduled to medically retire around October time, and I'm looking at OTR as my next move. I'm in talks with both Swift and Prime, and just sent an email to Maverick. I don't have my CDL , so I'm looking at company run training.

Anyway, I had a question about hiring zones. I sent an application to Roehl, and was denied because they weren't hiring in my area—Arlington, VA. Why would they not? And looking at the pages for other companies, they have very irregular hiring zones. Why? Is it because they don't regularly ship there? Or are there legal reasons?

Thanks for the help!

My understanding is that they may not have enough freight for that location to guarantee home time.

Here's an example. Say you live in Western Colorado. You could not be hired by TransAm because they do not run into that part of the state.

Without having the available freight and customers, a company would not be able to get you home. So therefore, they do not hire out of certain areas.

South Florida is a particularly difficult area. The freight is pretty limited coming out of that area, so the good majority of companies don't hire from that region.

Look for the companies that run through all 48 states such as Swift, Prime, XPO Logistics, Jim Palmer, Wil-Trans and US Xpress. With the exception of US Xpress, all of these companies have their own training schools.

Wil-Trans:

Darrel Wilson bought his first tractor in 1980 at age 20, but, being too young to meet OTR age requirements, he leased the truck out and hired a driver.

Through growth and acquisition, Wil-Trans now employs over 200 drivers, and has a long-standing partnership with Prime, Inc. to haul their refrigerated freight. The family of businesses also includes Jim Palmer Trucking and O & S Trucking.