alamcculloch:
Just a wee heads up for the youngsters. Firms arent allowed to keep your details any more. Some data protection nonsense.
The only thing that’s nonsense is that claim.
Would you consider driving assessments as an interview? That seems the only credible way to select a candidate for the job. Or is there still a step between applying and assessing? I’ve not seen one in years.
Years ago i thought I’d have a change so apples to stagecoach for us driver
Got a call come.for an interview.
So off i went got there.
1st thing said we want to take you for an asermemt drive in a minibus. Which i did. Minibus was old clapped out barely road legal.
After half hour was told your drivings not very good. Your indicating to soon or to late.
.your not holding steering wheel correctly. Etc
Go away practice driving your car like you are taking your test then call us back in 6 months time
Applied where I am.now as truck driver small company interview conssietd of basically how long you been driving when can you start.
Got a load to hull this afternoon if you want pay you on hand for it and if you like the job were take you on. Which they did and still there 4 years on
LazyDriver:
Would you consider driving assessments as an interview? That seems the only credible way to select a candidate for the job. Or is there still a step between applying and assessing? I’ve not seen one in years.
Think it varies by company. I’ve e had jobs where I’ve ‘had a chat’, accepted then started work soon after with no formal assessment or interview. I’ve had others (like Tesco now) where I’ve dine an assessment and had a chat and been offered the job. I’ve had others wjerevuts more process driven so you do an assessment and go away and get called back for interview if you pass that, then get sent away again to wait for the next communication. I’ve gone through that but never been around at the end of the process to accept the job as I’ve already took another
LazyDriver:
Would you consider driving assessments as an interview? That seems the only credible way to select a candidate for the job. Or is there still a step between applying and assessing? I’ve not seen one in years.
I’ve done even fewer assessments than interviews!
I recall an assessment drive for a new container operation by Youngs transport in Southampton circa-early noughties.After a few sporadic,lean years due to the economic situation of the time,l took off in an aged DAF with one of those stick-geary-things around the quaint Hampshire country lanes and spent a torrid time wrestling with the bloody stick than watching the trailer wheels,clipped a kerb and received a job rejection letter a few days later.Knowing the TM had some actual lorrying experience,l appealled the decision by arguing that years of auto-boxes had diminished my stick-shift abilities and with my, not inconsiderable driving history including Euro-ops,would they review their decision please? And so began 7 years of very do-able container employment with a decent bunch of blokes doing good honest west country runs mostly.All good, till Kemballs of Felixstowe acquired the firm and a new awful Draconian,hyper-monitored epoch took root.Weekly diktats hither and yon,Coldstream Guards levels of cab condition ruthlessly mandated and a new RDC heavy work focus implemented.A gruesome example of how good swiftly can go very bad.Driver facing cameras and a tech-platform with ‘‘Over-driving’’ parroting’s, proved to be the Camel’s Back breaker.I was leaving anyway. 
manalishi:
Carryfast:
Be prepared to meet the real world that us mere mortals know.
Usually call you back to let you know means more applicants than they know what to do with and it’s then a lottery.
Having said that I did get the general haulage job over the phone from a Jobcentre lead and then I realised why.
Luckily I then got another phone call as promised to go back to Carryfast, after a temporary layoff to save a senior driver’s job after his depot had closed and he wanted to move to Feltham.
…On the same day that I’d just finally walked away after an argument about how many runs he wanted done in a shift between Weybridge and Watford hauling skyscraper loads of new pallets each load obviously taking ages to rope properly.
Then his son, who actually knew more about how to run a truck than his Dad did, called me back apoligising asking me to go back and promising not to take the ■■■■ again.My answer was no chance I’m out.
So not as ‘unemployable’ as some try to suggest.
Yes there are a lot of timewasters out there when all that’s needed for all sides to be happy is a job trial and the non HGV sector really is an over subscribed lottery.
But with the upside of relatively less face fits recruitment policies because too many applicants to pick any particular ones.
Or obviously downside depending.
Give BCA logistics a call.They are always advertising for car trade plate drivers but, as often, it’s actually the role of mobile vehicle condition assessor/valuer for car driver money, which is why.How you getting on with that game cf ? Done any hitchin?
I managed 7 years of that lark,driving literally anything that moves with copious hitchhikes from Lands end to John o whatnot.Nearly killed me but l thrived on it for years.Kind of interested to know how it still is,morbidly so, as l remember it turning incrementally into an OAP,pensioners driving club towards the early noughties with little scope to make a reasonable income.I’ll hazard a guess that there’s not been much of an improvement?
Luckily I’ve found a good agency working with a very select high end main dealership all public transport costs paid for and the time spent travelling to/from jobs just get a signature and no end of lease vehicle condition assessment/valuations bollox.
The problem is that obviously too many others know about it.Especially young people who obviously don’t want to drive trucks and the new car trade is in turmoil because customers rightly want proper cars for their cash not EV’s.But the factory isn’t allowed to sell them because of ‘climate’ quotas.
So the jobs are so few and far between I don’t notice what small income it generates in a month.
Working life has been a ■■■■■ from start to finish.
switchlogic:
Oh just remembered another that I might have mentioned before. Murfitts when I was 23 desperately trying to get my first truck driving job. ‘Come in for an interviewz’……AMAZING i thought as they won’t be dragging me the full 5+ hours width of the U.K. (their yard from home in West Wales) if they weren’t serious………I can still picture him and every bit of that office it’s been seared onto my brain. First thing he said? ‘Well, we can’t give you a job as you’ve no experience’……….I nearly exploded with rage, as if my experience of driving people on holiday across Europe wasn’t enough to drive one of their scabby Iveco drawbars, stormed out, got a bit weepy, stormed back in and demanded my CV back………’but we’ll keep it on file in case something comes up’ to which I replied I wouldn’t work for this tin pot company now of it were the last job on earth. Ripped it up, stormed out! Got into my V8 Range Rover (I’ve always been weird) and drove to London to go back to work as I couldn’t afford the petrol to go home then back to London in a few days.
In my case they were just another in a long list of continuous cold phone enquiries. Usually with the old Clydsedale loaded up with a dozer or shovel parked outside my house during extended lunch breaks ( luckily log book domestic regs not tacho ).
With hindsight and the advice on here I should have left it parked there all day, packed a suitcase with night out kit and gone to their yard demanding a job there and then.
You’re right about their crap close coupled outfits though so might have changed my mind on the way to Dover after being given the job.
Look on the bright side it was great parking the Surrey County Council wagon on Greater London’s nicked turf during all those phone calls eating my sandwiches and watching the tele I can still remember my Dad moaning about the phone bill.
Carryfast:
manalishi:
Carryfast:
Be prepared to meet the real world that us mere mortals know.
Usually call you back to let you know means more applicants than they know what to do with and it’s then a lottery.
Having said that I did get the general haulage job over the phone from a Jobcentre lead and then I realised why.
Luckily I then got another phone call as promised to go back to Carryfast, after a temporary layoff to save a senior driver’s job after his depot had closed and he wanted to move to Feltham.
…On the same day that I’d just finally walked away after an argument about how many runs he wanted done in a shift between Weybridge and Watford hauling skyscraper loads of new pallets each load obviously taking ages to rope properly.
Then his son, who actually knew more about how to run a truck than his Dad did, called me back apoligising asking me to go back and promising not to take the ■■■■ again.My answer was no chance I’m out.
So not as ‘unemployable’ as some try to suggest.
Yes there are a lot of timewasters out there when all that’s needed for all sides to be happy is a job trial and the non HGV sector really is an over subscribed lottery.
But with the upside of relatively less face fits recruitment policies because too many applicants to pick any particular ones.
Or obviously downside depending.
Give BCA logistics a call.They are always advertising for car trade plate drivers but, as often, it’s actually the role of mobile vehicle condition assessor/valuer for car driver money, which is why.How you getting on with that game cf ? Done any hitchin?
Luckily I’ve found a good agency working with a very select high end main dealership all public transport costs paid for and the time spent travelling to/from jobs just get a signature and no end of lease vehicle condition assessment/valuations bollox.
The problem is that obviously too many others know about it.Especially young people who obviously don’t want to drive trucks and the new car trade is in turmoil because customers rightly want proper cars for their cash not EV’s.But the factory isn’t allowed to sell them because of ‘climate’ quotas.
So the jobs are so few and far between I don’t notice what small income it generates in a month.
Working life has been a ■■■■■ from start to finish.
Sounds like a firm l did a few months for in Fenny Compton.Suit and tie,taking rather nifty limos to various newspaper journalists uk wide.Some fellow platers took Jags to Jeremy Clarkson regularly, for some reason, and his then wife would drop them at the train station.Nice while it lasted but ruined by an imbecile who regularly left us stranded on fridays with no follow on arrangements.No fun stuck by the A1 in Berwick in a January blizzard.Took me 4 lifts back home to Manchester.the final leg in a Grayston Sparrows crane.Absolutely knackered and yet feeling obliged to converse with the driver as we moved at coma-inducing speeds.So many micro-adventures had in that game.Sublime-ridiculous and downright surreal.Should have kept me a diary. 
manalishi:
I recall an assessment drive for a new container operation by Youngs transport in Southampton circa-early noughties.After a few sporadic,lean years due to the economic situation of the time,l took off in an aged DAF with one of those stick-geary-things around the quaint Hampshire country lanes and spent a torrid time wrestling with the bloody stick than watching the trailer wheels,clipped a kerb and received a job rejection letter a few days later.Knowing the TM had some actual lorrying experience**,l appealled the decision by arguing that years of auto-boxes had diminished my stick-shift abilities and with my, not inconsiderable driving history including Euro-ops,would they review their decision please?** And so began 7 years of very do-able container employment with a decent bunch of blokes doing good honest west country runs mostlysnip
Really? You had driven auto boxes for so long in the early noughties, that you’d forgotten how to drive a simple DAF stick shift?
the nodding donkey:
manalishi:
I recall an assessment drive for a new container operation by Youngs transport in Southampton circa-early noughties.After a few sporadic,lean years due to the economic situation of the time,l took off in an aged DAF with one of those stick-geary-things around the quaint Hampshire country lanes and spent a torrid time wrestling with the bloody stick than watching the trailer wheels,clipped a kerb and received a job rejection letter a few days later.Knowing the TM had some actual lorrying experience**,l appealled the decision by arguing that years of auto-boxes had diminished my stick-shift abilities and with my, not inconsiderable driving history including Euro-ops,would they review their decision please?** And so began 7 years of very do-able container employment with a decent bunch of blokes doing good honest west country runs mostlysnip
Really? You had driven auto boxes for so long in the early noughties, that you’d forgotten how to drive a simple DAF stick shift?
Lot’s of competing pressures,lengthy periods of unwanted joblessness. Throw in a sprinkle of driving assessment anxieties,no previous DAF experience outside of autos,and my previous history of silky smooth Swedish gearshifting,coalesced in a test-scenario = job kybosh until l contested the decision, would be the take-away from this little pastiche.Having traversed the Alps and Pyrenees for a couple of years in fairly challenging weather conditions and hauled cargoes from some ridiculously off-the-beaten-locales,sans satnav,l felt my metal had been adequately tested and wasn’t going to be thwarted simply due to inabilities with an unaccustomed and downright clunky stick-shift that proved…prejudicial to the whole process.Not an ego-trumpeting riff here,just an example of circumstances conspiring and rights being wronged.Apologies if this impacts on your sensibilities old bean.
manalishi:
Carryfast:
‘manalishi’:
How you getting on with that game cf ? Done any hitchin?Luckily I’ve found a good agency working with a very select high end main dealership all public transport costs paid for and the time spent travelling to/from jobs just get a signature and no end of lease vehicle condition assessment/valuations bollox.
The problem is that obviously too many others know about it.Especially young people who obviously don’t want to drive trucks and the new car trade is in turmoil because customers rightly want proper cars for their cash not EV’s.But the factory isn’t allowed to sell them because of ‘climate’ quotas.
So the jobs are so few and far between I don’t notice what small income it generates in a month.
Working life has been a ■■■■■ from start to finish.Sounds like a firm l did a few months for in Fenny Compton.Suit and tie,taking rather nifty limos to various newspaper journalists uk wide.Some fellow platers took Jags to Jeremy Clarkson regularly, for some reason, and his then wife would drop them at the train station.Nice while it lasted but ruined by an imbecile who regularly left us stranded on fridays with no follow on arrangements.No fun stuck by the A1 in Berwick in a January blizzard.Took me 4 lifts back home to Manchester.the final leg in a Grayston Sparrows crane.Absolutely knackered and yet feeling obliged to converse with the driver as we moved at coma-inducing speeds.So many micro-adventures had in that game.Sublime-ridiculous and downright surreal.Should have kept me a diary.
These are usually top or difficult spec special orders not held by the local ordinary dealerships and busy customers who want delivery at allocated times or sometimes service collections/ deliveries or delivery/collection of demonstrators or part ex deals or dealership transfers.
So sometimes a car to bring back from the delivery address but no hitching at all it’s just get to the bus stop and/or station to get to wherever you’re going or coming back from all travelling time and costs are paid as expenses and at hourly rate respectively.
They are all seperate jobs out and back no follow on multiple jobs like BCA etc.
The problem is it’s obviously way oversubscribed and the agency shares the jobs out no favourites so often only get one job in a month.
To the point where it’s obviously seen as better work by all types of drivers than any of the truck driving work on the agency’s books even for much less money.
Also orders now seem to be so slow that the sales staff are being sent out on delivery/collection work to give them something to do further reducing the amount of jobs.
In general it’s a great job but ironically that’s obviously the problem just like in the case of truck driving in better days.
As usual distance work matters and that’s how many trade plate firms are able to get away with attaching the job of lease returns condition assessor/valuer to the job of ‘driver’.
While there’s also plenty of local garage service driver/valeter/forecourt marshall/sweeper etc etc rubbish out there.No surprise paying higher rates than distance work to get people to do it.
Although still obviously more interest by young people in even that job, than driving a truck in this brave new world in which all the best quality work is increasingly sent by rail not truck.
manalishi:
my previous history of silky smooth Swedish gearshifting
To be fair the DAF 16 speed synchro in the 2300 ATI/85/95 was as good as a synchro box could ever get while the Sania 10 speed was one of the worst together with the evil shifting eco split and Merc boxes.Unless you’re referring to the even more laughably bad 12 speed synchro in the old 2500.
In general silky and smooth are mutually exclusive with synchro boxes and the 16 speed DAF’s shift quality was as miraculously close to constant mesh as makes no difference and way better than either Volvo or Scania.
Possibly with the exception of the Volvo 12 speed 3 over 3 and splitter.
manalishi:
the nodding donkey:
manalishi:
I recall an assessment drive for a new container operation by Youngs transport in Southampton circa-early noughties.After a few sporadic,lean years due to the economic situation of the time,l took off in an aged DAF with one of those stick-geary-things around the quaint Hampshire country lanes and spent a torrid time wrestling with the bloody stick than watching the trailer wheels,clipped a kerb and received a job rejection letter a few days later.Knowing the TM had some actual lorrying experience**,l appealled the decision by arguing that years of auto-boxes had diminished my stick-shift abilities and with my, not inconsiderable driving history including Euro-ops,would they review their decision please?** And so began 7 years of very do-able container employment with a decent bunch of blokes doing good honest west country runs mostlysnip
Really? You had driven auto boxes for so long in the early noughties, that you’d forgotten how to drive a simple DAF stick shift?
Lot’s of competing pressures,lengthy periods of unwanted joblessness. Throw in a sprinkle of driving assessment anxieties,no previous DAF experience outside of autos,and my previous history of silky smooth Swedish gearshifting,coalesced in a test-scenario = job kybosh until l contested the decision, would be the take-away from this little pastiche.Having traversed the Alps and Pyrenees for a couple of years in fairly challenging weather conditions and hauled cargoes from some ridiculously off-the-beaten-locales,sans satnav,l felt my metal had been adequately tested and wasn’t going to be thwarted simply due to inabilities with an unaccustomed and downright clunky stick-shift that proved…prejudicial to the whole process.Not an ego-trumpeting riff here,just an example of circumstances conspiring and rights being wronged.Apologies if this impacts on your sensibilities old bean.
I’m confused. Which trucks in the 1990’s and early 2000’s were automatic? And if you had such extensive experience driving manual boxes across Europe, a simple rive around Hampshire should have been a doddle.
Or are you related to Currywürst
the nodding donkey:
manalishi:
the nodding donkey:
manalishi:
I recall an assessment drive for a new container operation by Youngs transport in Southampton circa-early noughties.After a few sporadic,lean years due to the economic situation of the time,l took off in an aged DAF with one of those stick-geary-things around the quaint Hampshire country lanes and spent a torrid time wrestling with the bloody stick than watching the trailer wheels,clipped a kerb and received a job rejection letter a few days later.Knowing the TM had some actual lorrying experience**,l appealled the decision by arguing that years of auto-boxes had diminished my stick-shift abilities and with my, not inconsiderable driving history including Euro-ops,would they review their decision please?** And so began 7 years of very do-able container employment with a decent bunch of blokes doing good honest west country runs mostlysnip
Really? You had driven auto boxes for so long in the early noughties, that you’d forgotten how to drive a simple DAF stick shift?
Lot’s of competing pressures,lengthy periods of unwanted joblessness. Throw in a sprinkle of driving assessment anxieties,no previous DAF experience outside of autos,and my previous history of silky smooth Swedish gearshifting,coalesced in a test-scenario = job kybosh until l contested the decision, would be the take-away from this little pastiche.Having traversed the Alps and Pyrenees for a couple of years in fairly challenging weather conditions and hauled cargoes from some ridiculously off-the-beaten-locales,sans satnav,l felt my metal had been adequately tested and wasn’t going to be thwarted simply due to inabilities with an unaccustomed and downright clunky stick-shift that proved…prejudicial to the whole process.Not an ego-trumpeting riff here,just an example of circumstances conspiring and rights being wronged.Apologies if this impacts on your sensibilities old bean.
I’m confused. Which trucks in the 1990’s and early 2000’s were automatic? And if you had such extensive experience driving manual boxes across Europe, a simple rive around Hampshire should have been a doddle.
Or are you related to Currywürst
Well don’t be,l may be askew on the timelines but the nits you seem to be picking seem a tad irrelevant in the main.Whatever axe you wish to grind is known only to yourself.Just a throwaway parable that could yield interesting fruit from others was the spirit of things not helped by your contribution it’s fair to say.
Carryfast:
manalishi:
my previous history of silky smooth Swedish gearshiftingTo be fair the DAF 16 speed synchro in the 2300 ATI/85/95 was as good as a synchro box could ever get while the Sania 10 speed was one of the worst together with the evil shifting eco split and Merc boxes.Unless you’re referring to the even more laughably bad 12 speed synchro in the old 2500.
In general silky and smooth are mutually exclusive with synchro boxes and the 16 speed DAF’s shift quality was as miraculously close to constant mesh as makes no difference and way better than either Volvo or Scania.
Possibly with the exception of the Volvo 12 speed 3 over 3 and splitter.
You got me on the technicalities there,not a strongpoint of mine tbh,but i’ve enjoyed certain manual Volvos and Scanias over the years that l would take over any auto,hands down.I took one, 3 over3 scanny, over the Blanc years ago,twin-turbos, that blew my mind with it’s capabilities,in fact so enamoured by it that l suggested l would’ve been willing to even take a pay shave for it’s future stewardship rather than see it returned to the dealers (demonstrator) and go back to the nails that Archbolds were then utilising.Outside of the Magnum l previously used over the water (glorious side-slap-stick arrangment) I never have enjoyed so majestic a steed as that griffon.I don’t like autos at all but would take one over the older DAF’s I’ve thankfully avoided over the years. 
I like that involved element that silky gear-sticks provide for sure.