For New Drivers, Unemployment Gap Over 6 Months Can Be Disqualifying. How To Address This Policy?
Topic 34872 | Page 1
I too am a Cali native, I had bigger gaps of unrecorded employment. Worked a lot for cash, or on my own gigs. All I got was 2 recommendation letters from 2 people, who knew what I did during this times, and was not being trained for terrorism. That's what they wanna know since 9/11 changed everything. 1 was from my lifetime friend of 58 years, and 1 from an old boss I've known 25 years on his companies letterhead, ALL was good to go with my 1st mega company I started out with.
There's a lot of entry points into trucking. Whether you go get your CDL on your own and find a local job or just getting into a company sponsored CDL program. I know a lot of places are pretty reasonable during the interview process. When they ask about employment gaps just tell them exactly what happened.
Here's an option, although not appealing to most. Work for a Walmart store or distribution center for a year, then apply for the associate to driver program. Walmart has completely shifted its direction when it comes to hiring drivers. They're focusing on training their own drivers now and seeing great success with it.
CDL:
Commercial Driver's License (CDL)
A CDL is required to drive any of the following vehicles:
- Any combination of vehicles with a gross combined weight rating (GCWR) of 26,001 or more pounds, providing the gross vehicle weight rating (GVWR) of the vehicle being towed is in excess of 10,000 pounds.
- Any single vehicle with a GVWR of 26,001 or more pounds, or any such vehicle towing another not in excess of 10,000 pounds.
- Any vehicle, regardless of size, designed to transport 16 or more persons, including the driver.
- Any vehicle required by federal regulations to be placarded while transporting hazardous materials.
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As a new driver applying for OTR and local driving jobs, I am finding that a number of companies that train new drivers have a disqualification threshold of no more than a 6-month unemployment in the last gap in the last 12 months. I am pivoting careers out of tech as a software engineer into commercial truck driving. These days, given the layoffs in tech and the glut of engineering talent, it's not at all unusual for people to be unemployed for 12-18 months. My question: what is the best way to address this policy at the corporate level? As far as I can tell, trucking companies are hungry for qualified candidates, and larger companies with structured training programs are set up to take the risk on new drivers. I don't know anything, of course, being completely new to commercial driving, but it seems like this unemployment gap policy could disqualify good candidates.
I am open to any insights, and guidance on how to constructively change this policy. Thanks in advance.
OTR:
Over The Road
OTR driving normally means you'll be hauling freight to various customers throughout your company's hauling region. It often entails being gone from home for two to three weeks at a time.