About To Start Training

I only have a month to go before i start training. In your opinion who is a good company to get my feet wet? I've been leaning toward U.S. Express, J.B. Hunt, and Maverick. Any info is appreciated!

We teach people how to choose the company that best suits them based on their preferences. It's actually far more simple than people like to believe. Basically, start with how often you'd like to get home and what type of freight you'd like to haul. Since you're going to be coming out of school your choices will be limited to begin with. Once you narrow them down by home time and freight you'll only have a few choices, if that. Then you can dig in a little deeper to look at pay, benefits, types of equipment they have, and things of that nature.

Here are some resources to help out:

• Trucker's Career Guide: Choosing Your First Truck Driving Job
• Article Category: Finding The Right Truck Driving Job
• Forum Topics Tagged "Choosing A Trucking Company"

That being said, one of the big mistakes new drivers make coming into the industry is obsessing about which company to go to work for instead of preparing themselves for making a strong start at a career with an incredibly high failure rate. The company name on the side of the door will matter very little, especially early on in your career. The knowledge you have, your attitude, and your temperament is going to be a far bigger factor in the happiness and success you'll find out there.

We advise everyone to spend as much time as possible studying our High Road Training Program, and going through our Truck Driver's Career Guide so you'll know what to expect when it's time to get going. Here they are:

Truck Driver's Career Guide

High Road Training Program

Go through all of the permit sections, the endorsement sections (we recommend you get them all in the beginning to get it out of the way), and also go through the Logbook Rules and Weight & Balance sections. There's a ton of materials to learn.

So don't waste your time worrying too much about who you should go to work for. You're going to go with a large, successful carrier with great equipment and ton of opportunities. It's far more important to prepare yourself with the knowledge you'll need and the right attitude and expectations.

Believe me, there's no shortage of people who in the end spent more time researching which company they wanted to work for than they did in the trucking industry before dropping out altogether. At the company-sponsored programs fewer than 50% of the people who show up even wind up getting their CDL at all. That's how difficult it is to get started in this career. So use your time wisely and prepare yourself well for it.

I only have a month to go before i start training. In your opinion who is a good company to get my feet wet? I've been leaning toward U.S. Express, J.B. Hunt, and Maverick. Any info is appreciated!

I can tell you up front, JB Hunt does not have a training program. They will only accept applications from someone that has at least a few months experience. I drove for JB Hunt for a year, unless that has changed in the last couple of years of course. Just a heads up.

Ernie