I’ve had my class 1 for 3 months now and I’m getting just enough shifts.
I’m trying to get trunking work but they all seem to want at least 12 months experience, even through agencies.
The irony is, the place I work for through the agency takes anyone with a licence, and sends you to some places you wouldn’t want to take a van.
So I don’t have enough experience to drive in a straight line and swap a trailer. But it’s fine to send me to small yards with no sign of a loading bay and just get on with it!
The ‘experience’ issue is just a pretext and a carrot used by the industry to get drivers to do the least attractive jobs.
It’s nothing new but it will get worse as political pressure increasingly reduces the amount of the more attractive work assuming you mean distance full load/trailer swap trunking type work.Even better if it’s day work not nights.
It will be an industry dominated by short haul movements combined with the warehousing sector during the resulting downtime or local distribution/multi drop type work.
With what decent work there is remaining being way over subscribed and subject to the usual ‘experience’ pecking order.
The truth is whatever driver ‘shortage’ there might be is mostly the result of the quality of the work on offer more than the money and drivers who’ve walked away rather than be lumbered with the limited choice of too much poor quality work in a degenerating industry.
Kenny_C:
I’ve had my class 1 for 3 months now and I’m getting just enough shifts.
I’m trying to get trunking work but they all seem to want at least 12 months experience, even through agencies.
The irony is, the place I work for through the agency takes anyone with a licence, and sends you to some places you wouldn’t want to take a van.
So I don’t have enough experience to drive in a straight line and swap a trailer. But it’s fine to send me to small yards with no sign of a loading bay and just get on with it!
Not that I ever did such a thing.
But if I did… I would know that the agencies tend just to ask if you have 12 months experience as a mere box ticking exercise.
Can’t remember the last time I have been questioned on my experience. Or even had a reference used.
Try smaller firms. We took ( retired now) on new passes and under 25s. Having done the job from the ground up rather than a uni course means smaller firms are sometimes more understanding.
Not that I ever did such a thing.
But if I did… I would know that the agencies tend just to ask if you have 12 months experience as a mere box ticking exercise.
Can’t remember the last time I have been questioned on my experience. Or even had a reference used.
They would easily find out first time they download your card
Carryfast:
It’s nothing new but it will get worse as political pressure increasingly reduces the amount of the more attractive work assuming you mean distance full load/trailer swap trunking type work.Even better if it’s day work not nights.
My idea of attractive work is to leave Rugby at 0830 and spend all day doing three or four drops round Magna Park with most of the day spent sitting around on the internet. Like now for example.
Not that I ever did such a thing.
But if I did… I would know that the agencies tend just to ask if you have 12 months experience as a mere box ticking exercise.
Can’t remember the last time I have been questioned on my experience. Or even had a reference used.
He’s only had his licence 3 months but otherwise it’s the best thing to do, ■■■■■■■■ the bullshitters
Kenny_C:
I’ve had my class 1 for 3 months now and I’m getting just enough shifts.
I’m trying to get trunking work but they all seem to want at least 12 months experience, even through agencies.
The irony is, the place I work for through the agency takes anyone with a licence, and sends you to some places you wouldn’t want to take a van.
So I don’t have enough experience to drive in a straight line and swap a trailer. But it’s fine to send me to small yards with no sign of a loading bay and just get on with it!
Any thoughts? [emoji1]
Sent from my MRD-LX1 using Tapatalk
Do the ■■■■ jobs, get the experience, move to what you want when you have the experience. It’s only 12 months.
Carryfast:
It’s nothing new but it will get worse as political pressure increasingly reduces the amount of the more attractive work assuming you mean distance full load/trailer swap trunking type work.Even better if it’s day work not nights.
My idea of attractive work is to leave Rugby at 0830 and spend all day doing three or four drops round Magna Park with most of the day spent sitting around on the internet. Like now for example.
That’s a shunting job Harry.It’s only a matter of time until the POA gets turned into ‘other duties as required to suit operational requirements’ and/or the ‘three or four’ drops gets turned into ten or more.The latter will obviously run into a ‘driver shortage’ situation in which case again no ‘experience’ issues for the OP and you’ll probably be enjoying your retirement by then.
Jimmy McNulty:
Do the [zb] jobs, get the experience, move to what you want when you have the experience. It’s only 12 months.
Don’t buy it.
The ‘experience’ in question generally isn’t transferable to the better jobs it only applies to the same crap jobs.The ‘experience’ word generally means a closed shop for the best jobs.
If you take the crap you’ll stay on it.
But, I lied all those years ago to get into jobs that I wanted.
‘What sort of experience do you have?’
‘I’ve driven A frames from Trondheim to Morocco mate’
‘Great, can you start on Wednesday with a 20 footer to London’
As others have pointed out, due to everything on your card open to question, that avenue of self-promotion has been neatly coned off now.
That avenue actually ended long before that partly because of the liars.
But moreso it also obviously made/makes the idea of taking the crap work in the hope that it will lead to better work an oxymoron.The truth is doing that just perpetuates the ‘closed shop’ of the best work.While the naive mugs that play by the rules stay lumbered with all the crap.
Carryfast:
While the naive mugs that play by the rules stay lumbered with all the crap.
Yes, that seems fair comment. And the way it should be really. I mean, if I was a haulier in the 1980s looking for a driver to do Italy runs, I’d be looking for somebody with their wits around them ready to make up a complete crock of crap to get out of a tricky situation with the Gendarmerie.
The trouble is that you always lacked the one thing needed to do the continental work you craved- gumption.
Jimmy McNulty:
Do the [zb] jobs, get the experience, move to what you want when you have the experience. It’s only 12 months.
Don’t buy it.
The ‘experience’ in question generally isn’t transferable to the better jobs it only applies to the same crap jobs.The ‘experience’ word generally means a closed shop for the best jobs.
If you take the crap you’ll stay on it.
There are 30,000 HGV driving jobs in West Yorkshire.
I can do anything I want be it one hit trunks or European work, multi drop or ADR tanker work.
I had five full time jobs in 2021 and a week on the agency but I was never out of work.
Why you don’t you actually go and do a days driving work and shut the ■■■■ up about the fact you were asked to do a day’s warehouse work 200 years ago.
Carryfast:
While the naive mugs that play by the rules stay lumbered with all the crap.
Yes, that seems fair comment. And the way it should be really. I mean, if I was a haulier in the 1980s looking for a driver to do Italy runs, I’d be looking for somebody with their wits around them ready to make up a complete crock of crap to get out of a tricky situation with the Gendarmerie.
The trouble is that you always lacked the one thing needed to do the continental work you craved- gumption.
Yep and the roads of Europe and Asia look like they were often littered with the wreckage of the result of taking on people who would have found it challenge to keep the old council Clydesdale on the road and out of the ditch.
While obviously just adds to the evidence if you believe the start at the bottom narrative and take the crap work you’ll stay on it because you’ll be typecast as a mug with no ‘gumption’.
