Drive For UPS Or FedEx?

Pardon my igoramce .... I'm exploring the idea of getting my CDL and 'driving for a living.' Interesting as I look thru job postings I don't see UPS or FedEx listed, yet I see alot of their trucks on the road. Is UPS or FedEx hiring? Are they good companies to work for? Thoughts? Thanks --

Those are jobs that are very very very hard to get. They pay well. They have good benefits. It is really hard to go straight into driving for them. I worked for UPS many years ago in college. Just to get to the little brown truck you had to work the warehouse for a couple of years loading and unloading trucks just to have a chance if a position opened. There is a long list of people waiting from what I have been told.

Pretty much impossible to get as a rookie. Everything that Wine Taster said is correct.

You'll probably need a doubles endorsement and HAZMAT if you want to be considered.

Dave

In my neck of the woods, theres alot of of jobs with FedEx.....but they are always listed thru the employment division..so look there..it might help.

I work for fedex as a pt dock associate and currently going through the process of getting into their drive apprentice program.. Try to get on as a pt dock worker soon as you get out of training ask about becoming a driver they will give you some paper work and tell you what steps to take before you can get into the program. It's really easy and they like to hear that you want to become apart of the fedex team full time

Those are jobs that are very very very hard to get. They pay well. They have good benefits. It is really hard to go straight into driving for them. I worked for UPS many years ago in college. Just to get to the little brown truck you had to work the warehouse for a couple of years loading and unloading trucks just to have a chance if a position opened. There is a long list of people waiting from what I have been told.

I'd always heard that those two places have waiting lists to get into, but I think things are changing right now and it seems to be a good time to be a truck driver with a clean record. I recently decided to change companies and I applied to 12 different places. 10 interviewed me and 9 made me offers on the spot. FedEx took 2 days to get back to me with an offer. In talking to terminal managers I kept hearing the same thing: With the new regs they are all having a hard time finding "good" or "qualified" drivers. That's why they were making offers on the spot. The terminal manager at FedEx said he used to have people lined up around the block for every job posting, but now he hardly has enough people getting through the prescreen to even interview. FedEx actually kind of expedited the process for me because I said I was actually supposed to start another job in a couple of weeks, but that I really wanted to drive for FedEx and didn't want to have to start somewhere else and then quit right away, but I couldn't afford to wait around the normal 2 weeks to see if they were going to offer me a job. And, like I said, he had an offer to me in 2 days and I was taking a road test a couple of days after that. He didn't want me going somewhere else.

Not relating this to say there is anything special about me. I still feel like a noob. But it goes to show that if you have a clean record, clean background, and over a year driving experience, even FedEx isn't that hard to get into nowadays. Everyone is talking about a driver shortage. So, to the new drivers, just be safe, take your time, get in a year as a solid employee and the opportunities will be there if you want a change.

You'll probably need a doubles endorsement and HAZMAT if you want to be considered.

Dave

UPS and FedEx won't even interview you if you don't have those endorsements. Every place I interviewed at that did any kind of LTL or city deliveries required them, but a couple said you had to have HAZMAT within like 60 days of being hired and they both offered to reimburse for it, too.

Here is another thing to think about. This is not something you will learn in a book or see in writing. It's a general feeling trucking industry wide. Almost every driver will give you an answer that is close to this....When asked what are you thoughts on UPS or FedEx and most drivers will say they do not like UPS or FedEx drivers. The companies are just fine. Nothing wrong with them. But the drivers though!

Now I did not say this to get a bunch of people to pile on UPS or Fedex. They are good companies but have very long waiting list to get a job there. The main reason people dislike the drivers for these companies is mainly due to the way they drive in ANY driving condition.

They drive to fast for conditions many times. Snow or ice or both they run full speed when they can. This is just another example of drivers giving companies a bad name.

Here is another thing to think about. This is not something you will learn in a book or see in writing. It's a general feeling trucking industry wide. Almost every driver will give you an answer that is close to this....When asked what are you thoughts on UPS or FedEx and most drivers will say they do not like UPS or FedEx drivers. The companies are just fine. Nothing wrong with them. But the drivers though!

Now I did not say this to get a bunch of people to pile on UPS or Fedex. They are good companies but have very long waiting list to get a job there. The main reason people dislike the drivers for these companies is mainly due to the way they drive in ANY driving condition.

They drive to fast for conditions many times. Snow or ice or both they run full speed when they can. This is just another example of drivers giving companies a bad name.

OK, this I have noticed. It was so obvious, in fact, that I started wondering if there was something special about doubles and triples that gave them enough traction to run full speed when I was slowing down for the weather. Heh. I passed a UPS truck one day and literally said, our loud, "Holy crap! I just passed a UPS truck!" Figured he must have been having mechanical problems.