Trucking Companies in the Maritimes that hire newbies

[kodie14]

Does anyone know of any trucking companies that hire right out of driving school? We are looking to relocate to Nova Scotia and I am trying to find companies that hire with no OTR experience similar to Schneider National in Ontario. It seems that most companies that I can find requires 24 months verfiable experience. These are the ones I do know about:

Midland
Maritime Ontario
Day and Ross
SLH
Conrads
Classic Freight
Sobeys (can't find too much on this one referring to drivers specifically)

Any help would be appreciated...:asking:

[Coyote_NB_CA]

hi,
D&R forget it min 2years ext. no records! same on Fastrax, and for a small mistake they are kick you out.
with no exp. hmm AYR in Woodstock but the boss is a .......
On NS (S NB) area Celtic, Armor and some small O&O (but the most are on D&R)
D&R you will stay unpayed many times on there Yard and waiting, layover after 12/24h bit 20 min b4 you catch a load to the next yard (200 miles) and stay again.

[Old1tooth]

I lived in NB from 0 to 28. I moved west for work.
My buddy got retrained to class 1 because his union job was "down Sized".
Luck for him I was living in Edmonton and could give him a place to stay.
He worked his butt off hauling drilling pipe for 9 months, then was able to get work back in NB.

His opinion was that there was way more drivers then work in NB (And prolly in most of the merrytimes). Therefore the guys with experiance will always get the work.

You can always check the Canadian Job Bank to see what is available. That will give you some idea of the situation.
The job code for Truck Driver is 7411 if your using the job bank.
Good Luck!

[brolarter]

You might want to look at McConnell transport out of woodstock NB.
I do know they use to hire new drivers.. pay is ok and so is their equipment...
If they pick you up you'll get OTR experience.. like FL. run's and chicago. mostly NJ upstate NY and delaware then either back to NB, debert NS, Ontario or Montreal. 98% is refer and sea container work with 2% being dry van.
produce to sobey's.

ref: sobey's drivers.. in the maritimes its done by Armour Transport.. Armour is ok to drive for good pay and benifits, equipment is alright. long haul you do New York city, and NJ then up to TO. then back east 5 to 6 days. but as a company driver you tend to get bottem of loads and wait times brokers have top billing, as well truck you get gets parked at a terminal on days off and time and again local drivers will use your truck. they will use your gear and some will lay in the bunk with greasey dirty boots on.. so if you can put up with that not a bad company.
Rest of the major compaines require 1 to 3 years experience.

[BlueRaven]

Wow the D&R description was dead on. The best places to start in the Maritimes in my opinion is with a small company unless you don't mind running all over North American then i would suggest Keltic, AYR, McConnell but they all have their negatives. Armour was a good company don't know about now, they have expanded so fast in the last decade. All i remember if you started going cross border that you had a really hard time to change to just Maritimes only loads. I prefer staying with small companies as they tend to look after their drivers and actually seem to care. Big companies don't know you or don't seem to give a rats arse, they just look at their bottom line.