Previous Employment History

Ive been reading that companies are fairly strict on your previous employment. Mine has gaps where ive been self employed or worked for other contractors on a temporary basis and I dont recall the dates or information of when or who ive worked for. I havent filed taxes in several years. I have a perfect driving record and no felonies ever. That being said will that keep me from being accepted into Primes or any other driver training program?

Documenting employment could be problematic in your case. They are REQUIRED to get TEN YEARS history, if you have ever driven CMV before - but only 3 if you haven't.

Yet and still - they are looking for SOME DOCUMENTATION to account for your whereabouts and means of supporting yourself. This can take the form of letters from clients, contractors you did work for, etc. You don't want to have too many "unaccounted for gaps".

As much to make sure you weren't off at an ISIS training camp, as for showing some stability. I have my own Sub-S corp (for example) and MY NAME is part of my business name - so my W-2's for the last 20 years, along with my 1040's/1120's can back that up.

In your case - lack of filed returns can cause you complications on a number of levels. Aside from proving income - trucking is going to see W-2's filed by your employer. Since you haven't filed in years, you are likely to GET FLAGGED as soon as your W-2 hits the system. I worked "off the books" for 17 years. One of my clients got a prior year audited, and had to 1099 me to be able to take the large deduction for computers/labor (or take a huge hit on penalties and interest). That 1099 got me FLAGGED AND NAILED. I've been on the books ever since.

I'd start putting together some documentation. If any of these contractors you've worked for are "friends", perhaps they can provide you with some work history to cover the gaps (wink wink).

Rick

I have a similar problem; I've got no employment history, since I've never actually been employed before (I'm a pretty big introvert and I've never had to work since I've been able to stay home, so I haven't). After doing some cross-country driving and enjoying it enough to realize I could probably handle truck driving pretty well, (especially since I could easily be on the road all the time without home time being a big deal for me) I decided to look into it, but I have no employment history at all (and I'm in my 30s).

Based on the idea that truck drivers that are qualified and have no negative marks on their history have a very easy time getting jobs, I hoped that it would make it easier for me to get into this line of work, but as I'm starting to look, I'm seeing the same thing - a lot of required employment history. Is there any good advice out there on overcoming the lack of employment history as an obstacle? I should probably add that due to the aforementioned introversion, I have basically no friends from activities that I could use as references either, only family.