Now that Memorial Day is over, let’s have a frank talk about holidays and truck driving. If you think that you’ll be one of those rare truck drivers who are always home on every holiday, then you might rethink your plans to acquire truck driver training. Heavy equipment operators are another story.

Typically, heavy equipment operators work on a job site that is owned by a private company, public corporation, or government entity. Many of them get holidays off, but there is no guarantee. A truck driver, on the other hand, is more likely to work holidays for one simple reason – they deliver the goods that serve as the backbone of modern society.

Truck drivers transport everything from basic toiletries to lumber and automobiles. Anything that is sold in a store has to be transported from the manufacturer to the retail outlet where consumers purchase it. Also, raw materials are often transported by truck drivers so that manufacturers can build the products they sell over the retail counter. All of this means that holidays like Christmas and Easter are especially busy times for truck drivers. But other holidays might be busy times, as well.

If you deliver hardware and tools, for instance, you might be busier around Father’s Day than most other times of the year. If you deliver flowers and fabric, you might be busier around Mother’s Day. Deliver turkeys? Thanksgiving will likely be a peak season. If you deliver produce, you’ll be busy all year.

That’s not to say that you’ll be delivering ON Christmas Day. You may be on the road up to Christmas Day. Many retail stores will receive a new product on the morning of Christmas Eve, and if that is the case, you’ll likely be there with your truck. But if you are thousands of miles from home, you’ll be traveling on Christmas Day to get back to your family.

Most truck drivers understand this when they enter the profession. You have to be flexible if you want to make the big bucks as a truck driver.

Now is the time to think about what you want to do with your career in the coming year. December is often a time of reflection for many people. Truck drivers are no different. Think about this past year and what you want out of the coming year to kick the New Year off right.

If you are thinking about becoming a truck driver, there is no time better than now.

Truck drivers are in high demand and are paid very well. If you have specific skills related to the truck driving profession, then you’ll earn top dollar. These include the ability to load and unload cargo, the freedom to work long haul, and the skills necessary to perform specialized truck driving services such as carrying hazardous materials and running dual trailers. If you own your own rig, you can make big bucks there too.

The question every truck driver must answer – beginner and veteran alike – is this: What do I want for the future?

Answer that question professionally and personally and you’ll be able to chart your course to the next career progression. If you haven’t kick-started your truck driving career yet, you can start right now. Enroll in a truck driving course at the beginning of the year. Then you’ll be poised to have a great profession the rest of your life.

Last weekend, Associated Training Services (ATS) posted a pretty good listing of heavy equipment jobs and trucking jobs from around the country. Of course, we posted some on the previous weekend and the weekend before that too.

You can try to keep up with these job listings on a weekly basis, but if you put all your eggs in one basket, you are not likely to get a job at all.

The best approach to finding a job in trucking is to get the necessary training, such as a course in truck driving that prepares you for your CDL testing, and follow that up by circulating your resume to employers looking for truck drivers.

The same goes for heavy equipment jobs. If you want a job as a rigger or signalperson, as a crane operator, or as a heavy equipment operator, then you should get trained and qualified. After you’ve achieved a basic level of education in the proper skills, then you can start circulating your resume. ATS has a job bank, a list of employers looking for qualified personnel. Our career services department will help you find employment after you graduate from one of our classes.

Getting a job in trucking or heavy equipment operations is not difficult for workers who are qualified and certified. You can start that journey today.

As Baby Boomers begin to retire, more and more truck driving jobs will become available. When they do, that opens the door for more people to step into these jobs. In order to obtain a truck driving job, however, you have to be trained and qualified. You have to earn a Class A CDL license.

It’s not hard to get one either.

On the whole, heavy equipment operators who have a Class A license enjoy a higher income than other operators. Class A drivers are some of the highest paid workers on the job site because they know how to operate more vehicles.

Even if you don’t plan on a career in heavy construction, you can still earn top dollar as a long haul truck driver. And if you own your rig, then you can charge more still.

Some truck drivers have been known to earn six-figure incomes just by hiring themselves out as long haul truck drivers. And if you carry the right freight (i.e. hazardous materials), then you make even more. All it takes is the right training, the right mindset, and the right financial and career strategies to put you in the position of being a top earner.

If you are ready to start your truck driving career, start it today with training that will lead to your obtaining a Class A drivers license.

Major transport companies have, in recent years, started to push into areas that were once the domain of small owner operators. The oil fields and associated mining were once happy hunting grounds for these small owner operators because of the specialized nature of their work. Sand tankers are a good example – a few owner operators were able to service the needs of most areas and make a good living.

Today, those small operators are being overrun by big transport companies, and it’s all related to economies of scale. Large transport companies can buy in 100 or 200 trucks, gaining huge discounts because of the size of the order. Those trucks can then be distributed to wherever the need is greatest, then re-distributed when required. Of course, with 100/200 trucks in operation, that suddenly increases demand for drivers, and flow-on effect can be felt in the industry across the nation.

The end result is a general shortage of truck drivers, and in some areas, a chronic shortage of specialized truck drivers. On the weekend we saw a job vacancy listing from Schneider. They are looking for experienced sand tanker drivers in Odessa, TX, and drivers are looking at pay rates of $65,000+. Schneider are not alone when it comes to specialized drivers – a closer look will demonstrate a shortage of drivers everywhere.

You can’t expect to start life as a truck driver in a $65,000+ specialized job. However, it doesn’t take a lot of experience to be snapped up by large companies, especially if you work hard at establishing a reputation for being a good driver who always arrives on time without incident. It all starts with a commitment from you, and good quality truck driver training. We can deliver the training, are you committed to completing your training and building a solid reputation as a truck driver? If so, contact us, the industry needs you!

Taking on a new career can often be difficult, and truck driving is no different. However, the real difficulty is trying to decide on the type of truck driving you want to do. There are so many different options available ranging from long distance to local – and even then you have options within those options.

For example, there are many truck driving jobs that will have you home each night. These jobs include:

• dump truck driving
• waste disposal trucks
• heavy equipment transport
• delivery trucks

When it comes to delivery trucks, the options are very broad. You could be driving a tanker full of milk or grain from the farm to a processing plant, live animals to a feed lot or abattoir, or just general deliveries from factory to bulk store, rail head, port or another business.

You have similar options when it comes to long distance driving. You can also add international driving for rigs that cross international borders. With long distance driving, you could be driving trucks with multiple trailers and when it comes to the types of goods transported – it could be anything.

There are few careers that offer so many different options based on a single training program. Three weeks of truck driver training will have you ready to undertake your commercial drivers license test. From there, your biggest decision is going to be the type of truck driving you want to do. Fortunately, most people enter their truck driver training with a firm idea of the type of truck they want to drive, where they want to drive it, and whether or not they are looking at home each day or long distance driving. If you’re looking to become a truck driver, perhaps you should consider the type of truck you want to drive first – that then is one decision out of the way.

This is a true story that was related to me recently involving a middle aged man who had grown up on ‘the wrong side of the tracks’. He could barely read or write and had spent much of his adult life either unemployed or working as an unskilled laborer. He would have remained unskilled as well if it hadn’t been for the efforts of one employer.

I won’t go into names. I don’t want to embarrass anyone, but this employer noticed one thing about this man – he was fascinated by trucks and could name every truck model used on a work site. That employer took the time to teach this man how to read and how to write – not as well as many of us, but well enough to learn the road rules and to pass a test to gain a driving license.

Once he had his driving license, he starting working on gaining a commercial drivers license. It took several attempts before he could even get his permit, but once he had that there was no stopping him. So what is he doing now? Those events happened almost ten years ago. That man, who was once illiterate and really going nowhere in his life, is now one of the best truck drivers working for this construction company – and yes, he’s still working for that same company. He’s now married and with a couple of youngsters, something he had never dreamed could happen to him.

I know many would argue that it’s not the commercial drivers license that changed his life, however, I would beg to differ. Learning to read and write certainly changed his life, however, fulfilling that dream of driving a truck is what really had the biggest impact. It made him self confidant and able to stand up tall and proud. We can’t promise that something as simple as a commercial drivers license can change your life, but if you think your current career is going nowhere, then perhaps it’s time to change.

It doesn’t take long to obtain a commercial drivers license and once you have one, there is plenty of work just waiting for the right driver – perhaps a new career could change your life as well.