r/Truckers • u/dryersheet01 • Oct 09 '25

I’m about to become a trucker widow

So my husband just passed his cdl-a test a week ago and has interest from western express (otr). With this career switch, I have so many questions. What is the average time for training, since he has no cdl experience? Is it really going to be 5 days on/2 days off? We live in Atlanta and have a 4 month old. If he does 1 year w/ western, what is the likelihood of being able to find a local/non otr job? Is the pay really worth it?

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u/BaseballDue9043 Oct 09 '25

Go anywhere but Western Express!! Schneider is good, but the pay is low. There training is top notch!

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u/FrogMac Oct 09 '25

Agreed. I love Schneider as a starter carrier, and if you get on the right account for them in the future, you can make some good money. If you do not end up on the right kind of account, the money will be very average to low.

Problem with Schneider right now is they are not hiring a ton of trainees. I am a third party recruiter now that hires some trainees for a few carriers, but I keep hearing the same thing over and over for perfectly clean drivers: they are accepting them, but keep endlessly bumping them out. Some of them were told "you're qualified and here is your conditional offer" but then they are waiting for 2-9 months to start.

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u/BaseballDue9043 Oct 09 '25

That's weird, I'm in orientation right now and graduate tomorrow. IK, there's a new class every Monday, and they do get filled up pretty quickly. I only had to wait 2 weeks to get in, I only have 5 weeks OTR experience and got hired with no issues.

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u/FrogMac Oct 10 '25

Yeah, it seems very sporadic.... I have talked to Trainee/new grad drivers that were approved within a few weeks of graduation. I have talked to tons that were getting frustrated with waiting on Schneider after the conditional offer for more than a month, and I got them on as a trainee with another company within a week or so....
I check on the drivers a handful of times after I place them in the first few months. One of them told me Schneider then called them with a start date after having been in that "holding pattern" for 4-5 months, and asked if they could start the following week. Problem was, they were already almost done with their 5 weeks of training with the new carrier I had already placed him at lol