[TITLE: HOW TO FIND A GOOD PAYING TRUCK DRIVING JOB WITH NO EXPERIENCE]
Hi There, Rick with Smart Drive Test talking to Bill Walker today about how he got a truck driving job.
One of the things I do when I teach students who are taking truck driving or
taking the heavy equipment course at our school that I worked at is to encourage
them to start looking for a job as soon as they do the training. But many of them
are somewhat dubious about trying to look for a job before they get their
certificate. You cannot start early enough to be looking for a job. And Bill
I hold up as my poster child because he finished his training last year with
me on a Thursday and on the next Tuesday he was working in Grand Prairie driving truck in
the oil patch. So we're gonna talk to Bill today a little bit about how he
went about that process of getting a job before even finished his training.
Introductory credits.
My turn to talk now? Your turn to talk now? (Laughter).
Actually I guess I really started looking, even before I started looking for
a job I had to look at where I wanted to be. Right. And I started, you know northern
Alberta that time, that's the hot spot. If you want to make money, you go to northern
Alberta. And that sort of divides into two segments: you got the Fort McMurray on the northeast
side; and then the Grand Prairie on the northwest side. Right. Note that north is involved
in both of those directions. And at the time it seemed to me, now looking through
Kijiji which is one of the... that seems to be one of the more popular ones that
employers use in northern Alberta. Kijiji's the big deal. Right. So I used that a
lot. There's lots of other websites out there. You know: you wanna go truck
driving northern Alberta, or truck driving northern BC. And it's very simple. You plug it
into your your Google and and stuff comes up. There's lots of sites.
But i sort of zeroed in on Kijiji and I found at the time this was one that was still
at that
"am I gonna go do this? Am I even gonna get my license stage?" It seemed like there was a
lot of people out there looking for work. And there was a nice, small albeit, but
there was a smattering of people who said: "we will train." Right. So if you're
just getting a license that mean that's a big deal because they'll
say two years experience necessary! Well, that's all great, but I've only got three
years to do this. So I didn't have a lot of time. So I sort of zeroed in on Grand Prairie
and I did make contact. It was phone numbers. I mean you're already on
the internet looking at Kijiji, so you can look up where they are, where their head
office is, and take a look at the maps and see, "would I want to live around there or
are not?" Right. So I did all that sort of work and I did contact a few people. By
this time I'm going to do it. I've booked the lessons with you. So I've talked to a
few people. And most of them took the time to talk to me. But you know the
other side was, "ok give me a call when you get your license." Right. Ok so, it
still wasn't a stay me, you weren't cut off.
So I had a list of people that I could call once I got the license. Right. But
the other thing and I think it was almost more important... is... Well I'm a
yappy guy. I talked a lot. I did this very very consciously. It was
with meaning. I figured the more people I talked to about what I was gonna do, the
better chance I had of running across somebody that knew somebody or knew something.
Yup. And that in the end was exactly what happened. I was a counter man here in
town at one of the parts stores - and just talking. And all the sudden somebody
piped up: "oh, you're going to go to Grand Prairie? Ya, I'm thinking of doing that.
Really! Have got a job? Well no, not yet. What are you gonna do? I'm gonna drive truck. My son works a trailer repair
place up there. He'll know people. Here's his phone number.
Give him a a call."
Yup. I knew I was gonna commit myself to this. So I had actually turned
in my notice at the parts store. Got my license on Thursday, and I was so sure I was
gonna get it
six weeks before, I wasn't so sure. Anyway, I did - got it on Thursday.
Walked out of there Friday night unemployed. but with a phone number.
Saturday morning, in my jammies, I made the phone call and I had the job! You
know, it was a combination of a whole lot of things, but don't discount the
networking. You know, I know it's a catch word, but it's true:
talk to everybody. Because everybody knows something and they just may know
something you need to get there. And one of the one of the points that you raised
right at the beginning and one of the things that all these sort of job search
advice and experts give you is that figure out what you want to do, right. And
one of the things you want to talk about, yes, I wanted to be a truck driver, but at
the same time you want you did some research about where you wanted to live and
where you wanted to work.
Yeah, and I chose Grand Prairie because it's a city. I knew it would
work better for my wife to live in a city than out in a rural setting. Rural settings
work for some folk. I just knew it wasn't gonna work for me. So yes, absolutely! You
gotta have some say in that; you gotta have some control over where you want to
be. Or you know that could be alright but it could be a complete disaster to. Yup.
And that's a great point, because if you don't want to work in Grand Prairie, you don't
want to work, you know,
way up in the north in a camp or something like that. So you need to
decide whether you wanna work in a camp or you want to live in a town because there is some
trade off with that: people who work in camps as opposed to renting an
apartment or what not. Yeah there is, and both have real good points.
You know if you're able to get a camp job; now with a truck driver though,
it's a little more difficult to get a camp job because remember what you're
doing, you're transporting goods.
I go into these camps all the time. I'm taking stuff in there that they
need. Or maybe I'm taking stuff out of there that they want somewhere else. But
I'm not living there. So, I would have to say this: you know...there's
less truck driving jobs are going to be involved with a camp than one might
think. Right.
You know there are some. But you know most of those are going to be in
extremely isolated areas. You're talking ice roads in the
winter time - that kind of thing. Which isn't that bad actually. We can talk about that for
another video. So basically networking, which is what is the advice
the lot of people give about finding jobs, is that this is really going to tap
into the job market and this is really what you did and you even talked to
people, like you said before you even got your licence. You were talking to people and
getting feedback. And you found that people were, for the most part,
helpful. Yes, I did you know. Most people like to help other people if they have
the opportunity or to impart some of their knowledge and get the opportunity.
If you're prepared to listen. And this is something you want to go into with a big
chip on your shoulder. Because believe me...believe me...
and I've worked on the waterfront for twenty years; I've worked in
some very very macho tough situation. They're all sandboxes compared to the
oilfield. So don't go up with a chip on your shoulder.
Because believe me, it won't be there long. Lots to learn in the oil
patch. I'm Rick with Smart Drive Test; This is Bill Walker. He works in the oil
patch as a truck driver. And what we're talking about today is looking for a job
as soon as you start your training. Don't wait until you get your certificate, start right
away! Rick with Smart Drive Test. Thanks for watching. If you like the channel,
subscribe below.
Bye now! Bye.
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