Choosing a Trucking Company

Choosing a trucking company is different for experienced drivers and those just looking to come into the trucking industry as a new driver. For the brand new driver your options are more limited. Here is some of the criteria that will affect your options.

Your age
Whether you graduated from trucking school or not
Your driving record
Your criminal record
Endorsements
Home time needs
Where you live

Trucking companies will list most of their preferences with regards of the information above. As a new driver your choices will also usually be to pull dry van, flat bed, haul refrigerated freight, or tankers. Specializing further will usually require you to be an experienced driver.

However, you should take a look at the options available to get an ideas of what you might want to get into in the future. If possible consider driving for a trucking company that has those positions available also.

That being said, lets get to the nitty gritty in the next phase of your process in deciding how to choose a trucking company.

What to look for in a trucking company

One of the best tips I can give you though, is to see if you can find a trucking company with a terminal near your home. This may help you with your home time arrangements. Unless you stay right off a major route the trucking company you consider travels.

In that case, it might not matter if they have a terminal near you. This is something you should inquire about with a trucking company that you are interested in.

Make sure you look at many trucking companies to see which one fits your needs most then compare them to each other. A list of some of the things that may be important to you are...

How they dispatch loads (cell, qualcomm, preplanned) (dispatching and load planning)
Is dispatched forced or non forced
Safety Rating of the Company
What things they pay you for and how much...layover, stop pay, loading/unloading
Whether they pay using HHG, Practical Miles, Actual Miles or Hub Miles
How often you will get home
What type of equipment you will be operating
Retirement and benefits plans available (dental, vision, health
Insurance costs (Single and/or Family depending on your needs)
Tuition Reimbursement
If you have assigned equipment or slipped seating
Turn Over Rate at the Company (Industry average OTR is 90% 2013)
If there is a rider program/policy (if that is important to you)

Being proactive by asking these questions will help to turn your trucking job into a trucking career that makes you happy as soon as possible. Have a plan to get to where you want to end up and follow the steps necessary.

There are too many truck driving jobs to start off at one that doesn't meet some of your needs and you end up as an unhappy driver. (Keyword is some. It will be hard and in most cases unrealistic to find the perfect company that has everything you need. You have to find the one what is right for you based on how you prioritize your needs.

Some recruiters will mislead to you, sometimes intentionally and sometimes ill informed of actual company operation or trucking life in general. (Many get paid by bring on drivers.)

Once you eliminate the companies by what they offer, (or don't offer) then you need to talk to drivers that work for the companies you are seriously considering if possible.

Make sure what they (the drivers) are saying about the company is the same thing the company recruiter is saying about the company. Things that don't match about a company you like, call the recruiter back and question him on it.

You know, the things that matter to you and your specific needs, pay, home time, lay over pay, rider program, insurance benefits, etc.

What may be most important to one driver, may not be important to another driver. If a retired vet wants to drive simply to travel the country for free or complete a childhood dream, he may buy a truck without concern with building wealth on the back of trucking. But he already has medical benefits and a check coming in. So he might be more concerned with where the freight carries him not the insurance or retirements benefits of a company job.

A family man may need to get home every two weeks so the home terminal and travel lanes are important to him. Benefits may be more important to him/her than just pay for mile. Buying a truck is a huge risk without a good amount of money set aside.

On the other hand, a single young man, might care less about the benefits, instead the highest pay may be more appealing. He doesn't care about home time so he wants to run coast to coast and stay out for months. His selection of companies will be different.

So I have provided some things to compare company for company to see which one meets your needs the best. Remember, no company will be perfect for everyone and most likely not perfect for you.

However, you are more likely to make a better decision if you put some type of system in place for choosing. Which is why you should use the questions listed that is important to you as a rough guide.

Now if reality happens to work against you and you can't really get what you want in a company as a new driver, you will just have to deal with your options until you get that year in.

Your options after that point will increase dramatically if you keep your record clean. Trucking companies need good truck drivers bad.