Prime Recruiting Conversation

Well my patience has run out with this recruiter with prime after daily phone calls and emails there has been no reply from her in over a week. I understand I am not the only applicant they have but I don't have time to wait with no reply. I will give them one more chance and if nothing g then its time to try knight.

Well my patience has run out with this recruiter with prime after daily phone calls and emails there has been no reply from her in over a week. I understand I am not the only applicant they have but I don't have time to wait with no reply. I will give them one more chance and if nothing g then its time to try knight.

Let us know what happens Andre . I went to an orientation today and put in an application at Lone Star College Transportation Institute. I have decided to pay out of pocket to get started. Well anyway, Prime has an add in the Student Driver Placement pamphlet they gave us offering exactly what you guys have discussed and from my view starting out a new career with training , a career I intend to do for fifteen to twenty years, it sounds like a win win situation. I am going to try to keep my cool and keep on eating beans out of the can for lunch( there damn good by the way)for a while and roll with the punches.The first year will be experience whether good or bad. I do understand some of you being frustrated with home time especially if you have to get home to your significant other, but I do not even have a pet so maybe a company like Prime would be good for me. I hope they get you in there Andre , and it seems if they do the only worry you would have then is home time. These are some of the other companies with adds in the pamphlet I received today. TMC, U.S. Xpress, Core, TransAm, Schneider, H.O. Wolding Inc., U.S.A. Truck, Covenant Transport, Werner, Maverick, and deBoer. Thanks for all those who posted here, It really gives an inside look at what to expect. I wont even think Roadside Country Fried Steak until far into my first year.

Prime is my company of choice I like the pay. I have no problem to be out for three weeks while not ideal its not a deal breaker I do have other questions with regards to their other divisions benefits and there cost. There are a lot of questions I have and for what ever reason the recruiting agency ms holly Harrison will not reply to me.

I've spoken with a few Prime recruiters this week, so I have some info to add. Even though their company sponsored training page here on TT says that they hire from all 48, I've been told that Prime absolutely does not hire from Idaho whatsoever, as they do not run freight up there. Also, other northern states such as Montana and North Dakota are very difficult, if not impossible.

I got a strange vibe from the first recruiter I talked to. I've spoken with recruiters from several other companies, and they all seemed very eager for me to fill out an application and come on board immediately. The Prime recruiter, on the other hand, seemed to spend the first ten minutes I was speaking to him looking for any reason to not hire me, before finally running my zip code in Idaho and telling me it's not one of their hiring areas. However, he still e-mailed me an application link and told me to apply, which I thought was odd.

I called back a few days later and got a different recruiter. When she told me that the issue hiring from Idaho was getting drivers home for home time, I explained to her that my residence there is basically a mailing address. My plan getting into driving is to just basically live on the road taking "home time" wherever I end up, saving money on a permanent residence and seeing different parts of the country. She told me Prime would be able to hire me so long as I'd sign something saying I had no expectations of Prime routing me through Idaho for home time, which would have been fine.

Called back a couple days later to verify this info before I applied, and it was flatly denied by the third person I spoke with (as well as my original recruiter when I e-mailed him asking about it). I explained my situation with taking home time on the road and not needing to go back to Idaho for any reason, and the third recruiter told me "the cost of routing a driver home to Idaho for home time is simply too prohibitive". When I tried again to elaborate on my circumstances, telling her that my plan for home time would most likely be to just get a hotel room in whatever city my home terminal ends up in if not taking my time off somewhere out on the road, she said "well eventually everyone needs to get home". I don't think she was listening to me.

I guess there are always extenuating circumstances, like if I got called for jury duty, and I'm sure it's a legal thing on their end where they simply cannot hire anyone with an address in a certain state. Still wondering where the lady who told me about the form I could sign got her information from. Just figured I would offer all this up there to anyone from a northern state who's hoping to drive for Prime.

Oh, forgot to add that you get 1 day home for every week out. Nothing mentioned that it was tied to miles.

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. I am in training now and just completed 10,000 miles...so my pay went from 600 to 700. My trainer is great and things are going good. I am in the tanker division and when I complete the training (40,000 or 10 weeks which ever comes first) l will be paid .45 CPM plus fuel bonus. You earn 1 day off for every 7 you drive. My fleet manager is nice to speak to and said if I need home time just let him know. I am very pleased with Prime and life is good....we are driving to Iowa, I take over driving at 0100.

I've spoken with a few Prime recruiters this week, so I have some info to add. Even though their company sponsored training page here on TT says that they hire from all 48, I've been told that Prime absolutely does not hire from Idaho whatsoever, as they do not run freight up there. Also, other northern states such as Montana and North Dakota are very difficult, if not impossible.

I got a strange vibe from the first recruiter I talked to. I've spoken with recruiters from several other companies, and they all seemed very eager for me to fill out an application and come on board immediately. The Prime recruiter, on the other hand, seemed to spend the first ten minutes I was speaking to him looking for any reason to not hire me, before finally running my zip code in Idaho and telling me it's not one of their hiring areas. However, he still e-mailed me an application link and told me to apply, which I thought was odd.

I called back a few days later and got a different recruiter. When she told me that the issue hiring from Idaho was getting drivers home for home time, I explained to her that my residence there is basically a mailing address. My plan getting into driving is to just basically live on the road taking "home time" wherever I end up, saving money on a permanent residence and seeing different parts of the country. She told me Prime would be able to hire me so long as I'd sign something saying I had no expectations of Prime routing me through Idaho for home time, which would have been fine.

Called back a couple days later to verify this info before I applied, and it was flatly denied by the third person I spoke with (as well as my original recruiter when I e-mailed him asking about it). I explained my situation with taking home time on the road and not needing to go back to Idaho for any reason, and the third recruiter told me "the cost of routing a driver home to Idaho for home time is simply too prohibitive". When I tried again to elaborate on my circumstances, telling her that my plan for home time would most likely be to just get a hotel room in whatever city my home terminal ends up in if not taking my time off somewhere out on the road, she said "well eventually everyone needs to get home". I don't think she was listening to me.

I guess there are always extenuating circumstances, like if I got called for jury duty, and I'm sure it's a legal thing on their end where they simply cannot hire anyone with an address in a certain state. Still wondering where the lady who told me about the form I could sign got her information from. Just figured I would offer all this up there to anyone from a northern state who's hoping to drive for Prime.

If your heart is set on Prime, I might look at taking it a rung up the ladder to get a definite answer. You could open a P.O. box near one of the terminals and use that as your filed address. You might try to talk to someone in the department for the PSD program or in reefer/flatbed/tanker ops to get some traction. If it's the company you want and you can be a good driver for them, it'd be silly for such a non-issue to disqualify you. Recruiters are so overwhelmed with applications that they are looking to qualify or disqualify people as soon as possible.

You could open a P.O. box near one of the terminals and use that as your filed address. You might try to talk to someone in the department for the PSD program or in reefer/flatbed/tanker ops to get some traction. If it's the company you want and you can be a good driver for them, it'd be silly for such a non-issue to disqualify you. Recruiters are so overwhelmed with applications that they are looking to qualify or disqualify people as soon as possible.

I wouldn't say my heart is absolutely set on Prime. It was one of my top two choices with Knight. Knight's not going to work for me, so I wanted to check with Prime before I moved down the list. I am looking for a company that has their base of operations more towards the western half of the country, and Prime appears to have solid pay, a decent training program, and it seems their drivers are more or less content. Just really hoping to avoid the in-cab cameras with Swift. Stevens would be an alternative, but it seems their pay is a bit on the low side and travel arrangements for their training program would be somewhat arduous for me. It seems like you only hear horror stories about CR England, and even on this site (where the idea is to deal exclusively with facts and be fair towards every company) some folks hint at having reservations about the way they operate, so I've pre-emptively ruled them out. Could do a company without a training program that hires new drivers, but I was hoping to avoid dealing with the hassle of getting pre-hires , finding a school, arranging for funding, etc.

The thought of using a PO Box or the address of friends who live in any of Prime's hiring areas did pop into my mind briefly at one point, but the recruiter specifically said "Your permanent residence and driver’s license must be out of the same state. We do not use secondary addresses." It was a strange thread to jump to, since I'd never suggested in any of my correspondence with him that I'd intended to use a separate address of residence from the one on my driver's license. He told me he'd be happy to process my file assuming I move within their hiring area. However that seems a bit ludicrous, as I'm not going to establish residency in another state in hopes of being hired by one company when there are so many others to choose from. Guess I'll go back to the drawing board. Hope I haven't rubbed anyone the wrong way with this post regarding my opinions of the other companies, just kind of silently thinking out loud. Appreciate the input Dude.

Something that has not been mentioned in regards to Prime's home time policy (for company drivers) is that you can only take a maximum of 4 days off during any home time. If you stay out long and get more than 4 days home they will bank any days over. So if you have 5 days accrued you can only take 4 and the last 1 day will be banked to the next home time. I've only heard of anyone taking more than 4 days at home when going home for the first time after training. If there are company drivers taking more than 4 days off then my FM is ripping me off!!!!! I've been told several times I can only take 4 days home maximum. Any longer than I'd have to take a leave of absence and park the truck at a terminal and fly/bus/train my way home on my dime. Trust me I've asked. I'm set to take 7 days off in Jamaica in August and will have to take a leave of absence like I mentioned and turn in my truck and fly home. Also (according to my FM) you HAVE to stay out a minimum of 21 days to take home time. I've heard new PSD's say that it's 28 days now but so far my FM tells ME it's 21 days.

The bottom line is OTR trucking is meant to keep your happy arse on the road and not at home.

In response to Seppo saying Prime does not run freight in Idaho or hire from Idaho, that is not correct, you must have been told wrong. I just started here at prime and am in training and I live in Idaho. Prime does deliver to a few places near my home and have heard from other drivers that they go that way. Sorry if this sounded rude it was not meant to, just wanted to let everyone know that that recruiter was not correct

How long does it take for a recruiter to reply to an emai? I emailed on Jan 12 and still no reply. I've also attempted to call her left a voice mail and nothing. I've attempted talking to a different one but they tell me I have to speak to the one I am assigned. This is frustrating.

When I was being recruited by Prime it took my recruiter 2 weeks to a months to respond to my calls and emails. Ive hears others say not long at all. Guess it depends on the recruiter.

RG, are you now working for Prime?