Trying To Evaluate Which Company Is Best For Us. Help!

Amber has worries:

I do worry just a little that we might get less instruction stretching a trainer between two people instead of being one on one.

Once your trainer has a handle on his/her student's abilities, the rest of your training is simply to make sure the student gets all the rough edges smoothed off of their driving technique. For 98% of your "training" time, you will be tooling down an Interstate. There's very little anyone needs to train on for miles and miles. So all but the driver can get their shuteye and relaxation. Trust me, your trainer will be up and at 'em when a trainee is at a shipper or receiver. Then it's one-on-one, and in your case, the not-driving trainee can watch and learn too. So in that respect, having two trainees on board is a better deal that just the usual one trainee.

And, as Old School points out,

Amber, you've now gotten to the hand wringing stage of this endeavor.

... and ...

You guys just need to jump in the water and make your own splash.

You have narrowed your short list down to just two or three companies. Your decision can now be made as I suggest: "Then talk to the recruiters and play hard to get." You will not regret whichever way you decide to go.

Errol, That makes perfect sense about the training! I try not to worry but it comes so naturally ☺️

I still don't understand what you mean when you say play hard to get? What am I trying to accomplish by doing that?

Thank you for all you time and advise I really appreciate it!

How to play hard to get:

• Know in your heart you are "worth it". (Worth it as a new driver. Both of you are ready to take the steering wheel in your hands and burn those miles.)
• Make sure the recruiter knows your opinion of yourself, but ...
• Don't be eager to jump on board - you still have options.
• If you can, throw in a tease of interest.

But what am I trying to accomplish?? Getting more money? Or what?

I do feel like Don and I will be a great asset to any company, we are ready to learn and work hard.

Amber starts out:

Any thoughts on how to choose or a company that you think would be a good fit would be helpful. I know we can make money at all of them with a positive hard working attitude but which would be the best fit???

We feel the pressure to pick one now but have no idea how to.

Old School chips in:

Amber, you've now gotten to the hand wringing stage of this endeavor. You just don't know what you don't know, and you're afraid you're not going to make the best decision. Guess what? There isn't a best decision!

You guys just need to jump in the water and make your own splash.

... and, yes, ...

If you're at a total loss on making a decision just put three names in a hat and go with the one you pick.

...

For now you just want to get started somewhere. It's really not that critical who you're driving for. The critical part is how you are developing as a team. The company can't make you into a great team. You guys will be responsible for that part. You can't do that sitting on the couch reading reviews.

And you say you are down to deciding between Covenant and US Xpress.

My final advice is to talk to the two company's recruiters. Recruiters most probably don't have any negotiation power, but make them eager to sign you on. (That's the hard to get part.)

Finally, since both companies seem a good fit, go with the one you feel most comfortable with. To get things moving, both of you decide on a deadline so you can get moving in your new career. A deadline to make the choice. Say ... Wednesday this week. Something like that.

Thanks Errol! I know we could go with a bunch of other companies but we do need to narrow it down, we had already been looking hard at us Xpress and covenant so with old school saying they are both well run why not just make ourselves choose between the two. Wednesday was the exact day I was thinking we needed to make our final decision on. I will let you guys know!

Amber, are you and Don looking to run a dedicated route of some kind? If so then you might be able to narrow your search based upon what types of dedicated team routes/accounts are available from different companies. Just a thought to help in your decision making process. That is if running dedicated is something you are considering of course.