XPO Local LTL For New CDL Grads?

Hi everyone! I just passed my CDL class and have my class A. XPO recruiters came to our school in Joliet IL offering $25.33/hr for a no-experience needed LTL position. They stated it would be driving with a good amount of dock work involved. A $5000 sign on was also offered but with a 2 yr commitment. I'm not into the idea of signing a contract so I'd pass on the sign on bonus. Does anyone have experience with this position? I mean the pay sounds good for a home daily local job with no experience, however how much dock work is involved I wonder. Any replies on XPO as a company would be appreciated too!

Hi everyone! I just passed my CDL class and have my class A. XPO recruiters came to our school in Joliet IL offering $25.33/hr for a no-experience needed LTL position. They stated it would be driving with a good amount of dock work involved. A $5000 sign on was also offered but with a 2 yr commitment. I'm not into the idea of signing a contract so I'd pass on the sign on bonus. Does anyone have experience with this position? I mean the pay sounds good for a home daily local job with no experience, however how much dock work is involved I wonder. Any replies on XPO as a company would be appreciated too!

Howdy, Colin & welcome to TT ~!!!

Any reason you don't want to start the good ole' OTR way?!?!? We've got a quick & easy application~~

Apply For Truck Driving Jobs

A few people that you can search (comment/thread wise) on here would be:

Stevo Reno ... he interacts with XPO ...

Banks ... he did Dock to Driver with FedEx ...

Bobcat Bob ... drives for ODFL, might be similar~!!

Until the pro's chime in, that's a start~ Congrats on getting your CDLA!!!!

~ Anne ~

ps: Being in Joliet, you could look into ODFL also . . . and my hubby's company hires right from there, as well; FAB Express ~! ;)

Howdy neighbor! I live in Joliet and work linehaul for Old Dominion, at XPO you'll be doing a LOT of dock work. More than likely you will drive Aurora work the dock for a few hours and then go back. We had a couple drivers who worked there for a few months and only did 1 real run. That said XPO is a good company and it would be a good start toward making 100k a year.

Not to toot our own horn too much but at OD we start at $25 a hour and require very little to no dock work we have a few runs that require it but generally it's only 2 hours while you load your trailers then scoot.

I don't think you sign a contract for the bonus. It's probably paid out in increments totaling 5k. Find out if you have to return it if you leave before the 2 years.

Hourly sounds like it's p/d work and they do what FedEx does. Top 35-40 guys have daily routes and everybody else works the dock. They run linehaul as needed. You can spend weeks at a time working the dock as the lowest in seniority, depending on how busy they are.

Thanks for the reply! Does OD hire with less than 1yr experience?

Yes, since you have a CDL as long as it is with a approved school you'd go out for 4 weeks with a trainer.

If they make you sign a contract for a bonus, there are 5,000 ways they can take that back too besides a 2 year commitment, id tread carefully on that, if it sounds too good to be true.......it usually is. Thats the nature of contracts.

Other than that I have no experience and thus no opinion about XPO, I do see their trucks running around alot in the Portland Metro area when I'm home, they seem solid from the looks of their equipment.

Colin, others will correct me if I'm wrong, I think in that area most of those companies are union. If that's the case, you may have to wait some amount of time before you can get the better routes.

We do recommend starting OTR. Get used to the driving and backing. Drive OTR for a year, then look for that local job. This doesn't mean you can't start local. If that was the case then I would suggest that you choose a company that you could retire from.

Good luck.

If you do P&D , you'll make the hourly rate for the first 8 hours of your shift, then time and a half for anything after. If you're doing linehaul , you'll make that rate for any time working the dock, and while doing non-driving tasks like hooking and dropping your trailers, and fueling the tractor. The actual driving for linehaul is paid at something like 58 cents a mile. BTW these rates all go up on May 30 when a company-wide 3% raise takes effect. I doubt there's a contract, rather you'll get part of the bonus at 6 month, part at 12 ,etc.

Colin, others will correct me if I'm wrong, I think in that area most of those companies are union. If that's the case, you may have to wait some amount of time before you can get the better routes.

With local at an overwhelming majority of the companies seniority is king regardless if you're union or not. Some companies rebid routes and/or trucks every 6 months to a year. I recall Bobcat saying he got a great run just to have it taken by someone with higher seniority when they rebid. That presents an additional challenge because you're unable to plan too far in advance around bid time because you don't know if you're gonna get stuck with a route that you didn't want, not to mention possibly making less money due to less miles. At my job we bid routes daily. Each company handles it differently but the 2 places I've worked at (1 union 1 not) they go through seniority to schedule your first 2 vacation weeks. If you have additional vacation you bid that after everyone has taken their 2 weeks. After that its first come first serve.

Unfortunately with many local companies top tier drivers don't reap the rewards of doing so in the same way an OTR driver does.