Losing the will can anyone help

Hello I’m new to the forum,

I passed my class 1 from class b in October last year and I’m finding it extremely difficult to get a job.

I’ve been with my current employer for over 20 years and part of my role is a transport manager for a 3.5t van, its a great company but sometimes you can’t chose who you work with.

My uncle is a class 1 driver and he was the one who noticed I was low and said I should do my license ( he can’t get me in where he works 2yrs), I thought about what he had said and with things only getting worse where I am I decided to look in to it, I watched YouTube
videos, read some forums and decided to go for it.

Unfortunately this was just after the pandemic and the backlog for everything I needed to do was so long so it took me about 18 months.

I have a friend who works out of EMG Maritime who advised about the pro driver scheme but I’ve phoned several times and left my number but no joy, I’ve applied for loads on indeed and also got a contact for XPO that didn’t go very far, I e not even had one I interview offer.

It’s extremely disheartening I am grafferter and eager to learn this new skill but I just can’t seem to get a foot through the door, the only thing would be agency adhoc but I need job security.

Does anyone know any companies taking on new passers in the Leicestershire area, the only last thing I can do is do sat/sun agency for a few moths to get some hours on but this will mean working 7 days most weeks and not seeing my family which isn’t ideal.

Any advice or feedback would be great.

Thanks

I think it has definitely got tougher to get a start in the last few months, especially considering where things were during the “shortage” last year.

I can’t help with any possible Leicestershire openings, but trying to get ad-hoc shifts via agency would be the best way of dipping your toe and getting some experience whilst keeping your current job. With a Mon-Fri full time job, you would be limited to 1 day of weekend work per fortnight (legally), but I have been doing exactly that for the last 16 months to gain experience, and it has paid for my licence twice over, whilst I get the hang of the job so it is a route I can recommend. I’ve still not made the jump to full-time driving yet though.

Good luck with it and if you stick at it, I’m sure you’ll get your foot in somewhere soon!

Sdhgv:
this will mean working 7 days most weeks and not seeing my family which isn’t ideal.

Any advice or feedback would be great.

Thanks

Learning driver’s hours regulations would help.

Sorry, cheap shot.

I’m in a similar situation after luckily landing my first job, it’s difficult to find something better without losing the job security of a full time job.
I would think that following Goff’s advice would be a good route.

Get in car with work gear in boot and plenty of CVs then go and hand your CV to the TMs of the many companies on the industrial estates around Leics

Bardon and Magna Park industrial estates are the two which immediately spring to mind

stu675:

Sdhgv:
this will mean working 7 days most weeks and not seeing my family which isn’t ideal.

Any advice or feedback would be great.

Thanks

Learning driver’s hours regulations would help.

Sorry, cheap shot.

I’m in a similar situation after luckily landing my first job, it’s difficult to find something better without losing the job security of a full time job.
I would think that following Goff’s advice would be a good route.

And that’s how long it’s been since I did my theory haha.

Check out the DVSA website under operating license application and decisions pages, it lists the addresses of one man band operations to smaller hauliers to drive around and have a chat but avoid the peak times when the office will be busy.

Sdhgv:
I passed my class 1 from class b in October last year and I’m finding it extremely difficult to get a job.

I’m not surprised, with all the hype that was flying around about driver shortages, massive wages and going straight from car to artic, I didn’t see one single media person ask any small-to-medium sized haulier about the realities of these ideas, it was all a lot of management guff from The Suits in the really big companies.

Yes some people will say this outfit or that outfit takes new Class 1 passes, but I can only speak to what I know is representative of my locality.

First off, most employers aren’t going to hand the keys for a loaded artic combo to a new pass, that’s potentially £100,000 to £200,000 worth of kit.

Second, I don’t know if there was ever a real driver shortage, but in my area, there is most definitely a surplus of drivers these days - one TM for a very well known outfit told me he gets between 100 to 400 applications for every single job advert. Same guy won’t even consider a new pass, most of them don’t last a week, some get binned inside their first shift. If there was indeed a shortage, it is a shortage of people companies would be happy to give a job to.

You need to get your feet under the table with some basic stuff, think 7.5T on agency, once you get a bit of experience and shown you can be trusted and relied on, maybe you’ll get a chance to “move up”, but I doubt it would happen overnight without a huge dollop of luck.

A point worth bearing in mind, references aren’t the big issue they used to be, but for any employer your main “reference” will be the download of your past 28 days, they’ll be looking for issues with taking breaks and speeding and similar basic stuff. A “satisfactory card download” is a common pre-condition of a job offer, and no TM is inclined to take a punt on a newbie who can clearly be seen to be a risk to his O-licence.

Sorry if all this sounds a bit harsh, but I’m not a fan of BS’ing people

Here’s what happened with one inexperienced guy who decided that there wasn’t much room on the hard standing to spin his truck around on the sea front, and he decided he had a better idea. Needless to say this was a “career decision” for him
bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cj5ee3e86y6o

Zac_A:
Here’s what happened with one inexperienced guy who decided that there wasn’t much room on the hard standing to spin his truck around on the sea front, and he decided he had a better idea. Needless to say this was a “career decision” for him [emoji38]
bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cj5ee3e86y6o

What could possibly go wrong driving a truck onto a beach [emoji50]

Maybe he wanted to go for a paddle in the sea [emoji1787]

Sent from my CPH2173 using Tapatalk

It’s all ok, he was tipping bucket and spades, and some hay and straw for the donkeys.

simcor:

Zac_A:
Here’s what happened with one inexperienced guy who decided that there wasn’t much room on the hard standing to spin his truck around on the sea front, and he decided he had a better idea. Needless to say this was a “career decision” for him [emoji38]
bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cj5ee3e86y6o

What could possibly go wrong driving a truck onto a beach [emoji50]

Maybe he wanted to go for a paddle in the sea [emoji1787]

Sent from my CPH2173 using Tapatalk

It was JeffA, he wanted to check the ocean’s temperature due to all this climate change.

There was the driver from the Middle East who was supposed to deliver in Gibraltar but somehow ended up in a bird sanctuary near the coast in the north east of England , sat nav plunder.

simcor:
What could possibly go wrong driving a truck onto a beach [emoji50]

I got the story from one of their TMs, I’m not sure where the driver was delivering to, or if he’d taken a wrong turning, but apparently he saw a couple of cars on the sand and decided that it would be ok to drive an artic onto the beach to turn around He might potentially have made it if he’d kept moving forwards-only, and gently spun it around, it was when he stopped to reverse that his wheels sunk into the sand.
google.co.uk/maps/@54.59685 … ?entry=ttu

P45 in the post.

Apparently he was an agency driver, so it’s even more straightforward than that.

If you want a job you have to go out and find one.

When you’re on the forum saying you’ll be working 7 days a week - you need to revise the driver & WTD hours, any work should be logged on the tachograph when you get into a truck. If you drive a 3.5 tonne van you’ll record your hours as other work.

Get approaching the companies in person, and don’t limit and set yourself to a class 1 job. I’m sure many companies will happily throw you into a 7.5 tonne or rigid, especially if you’re in a van job. It won’t be as laid back though as most 7.5 tonne work is multidrop.

Unless of course you can find a job from nepotism.

Sdhgv:
Hello I’m new to the forum,

I passed my class 1 from class b in October last year and I’m finding it extremely difficult to get a job.

I’ve been with my current employer for over 20 years and part of my role is a transport manager for a 3.5t van, its a great company but sometimes you can’t chose who you work with.

My uncle is a class 1 driver and he was the one who noticed I was low and said I should do my license ( he can’t get me in where he works 2yrs), I thought about what he had said and with things only getting worse where I am I decided to look in to it, I watched YouTube
videos, read some forums and decided to go for it.

Unfortunately this was just after the pandemic and the backlog for everything I needed to do was so long so it took me about 18 months.

I have a friend who works out of EMG Maritime who advised about the pro driver scheme but I’ve phoned several times and left my number but no joy, I’ve applied for loads on indeed and also got a contact for XPO that didn’t go very far, I e not even had one I interview offer.

It’s extremely disheartening I am grafferter and eager to learn this new skill but I just can’t seem to get a foot through the door, the only thing would be agency adhoc but I need job security.

Does anyone know any companies taking on new passers in the Leicestershire area, the only last thing I can do is do sat/sun agency for a few moths to get some hours on but this will mean working 7 days most weeks and not seeing my family which isn’t ideal.

Any advice or feedback would be great.

Thanks

My old firm take on new passes and are looking. They are based in Asby del a Zouch not that far from Leicester. Ev cargo is the companies name.

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I can’t speak for your area but the jobs in my area are there.
Granted they are mainly crap jobs but they are there.
A willingness to do class 2 work helps massively as well. you do not have the experience so you can not be picky.

try Cobley’s Transport at Broughton Astley. they have all classes of vehicle,and you may get your foot in the door by going on the smaller van’s or 7.5 tonners first.

Or relocate to a different area saturated with industrial areas and hauliers, Avonmouth as an example or Gregory Distribution ltd take on new drivers at their depots all over the country,including Scotland, nice people there stunning scenery.

For Class 1 there is a need for manoeuvring experience. My first couple of months were fairly stressful i recall but i got through. This is the problem for a new pass. Firms need to provide another driver to go out with and supervise you. A good firm will give you nice easy jobs to do so you gain gradual experience rather than attempting to cope with some awkward drop in say London.

It’s a hard learning curve but you get through. You need the challenge to master the art. The suggestion of doing agency work at weekends is good. Ask a firm if you can go out with a driver for the day… they may let you do some reversing with supervision. Any practice you can get will be worthwhile.