hi all,
has anyone worked or know someone who has for the siemans group i havent seen any posts about them(good or bad) there recruiting at the moment and if the work situation doesent pick up i might have to leave europe.
If you read through some of the posts here you will see some stuff about Siemens, In my opinion I’d give them a wide berth, that’s if they even bother getting back to you, they run under a few different names & none of them have particularly good motors, the money is average & you’ll be living in Saskatchewan, it is the worlds most boring place 
thanks for the heads up newmercman i tried to google the siemans group & had a look on this forum didnt get any info though i suspose there the equivalent of nolan&o leary transport here in ireland.(they pay crap and mojarity of drivers are foreign).
although if i was to go and get sponsored with the pnp program could i leave the company and go work for the likes of fedex(who pay good) according to the siemens website you can get a residency in around 6 months.
ra dar:
thanks for the heads up newmercman i tried to google the siemans group & had a look on this forum didnt get any info though i suspose there the equivalent of nolan&o leary transport here in ireland.(they pay crap and mojarity of drivers are foreign).
although if i was to go and get sponsored with the pnp program could i leave the company and go work for the likes of fedex(who pay good) according to the siemens website you can get a residency in around 6 months.
If you go on the PNP you can have residency from 6 months in any province, you can even do it before you leave the UK. I wouldn’t say Siemens were a bad company, they run under a number of guises, Kindersley & Edge are two & there’s a Herb Winklestein Trucking or something like that anyway, Kindersley run box vans, they don’t go that far, a lot of Manitoba to Alberta runs with the odd BC or run down into the US, never seen one past Chicago, though that’s not to say they don’t go further. Edge do flatdecks, that can go anyway, they do a lot up north in the oil fields & a few of their trucks have Alaska plates so of the two I think I’d pick Edge, but even then you still have to live in Saskatchewan where the provincial sports are watching the grass grow & watching paint dry 
Oh & the reason the Canadians are looking for foreigners is because they don’t have enough people to do the work, especially Saskatchewan which has a population of about 350
thanks for the info newmercman i wont be heading over till my mate gets married(im the best man) thats in the summer im hoping things pick up here in ireland by then.
newmercman:
Oh & the reason the Canadians are looking for foreigners is because they don’t have enough people to do the work, especially Saskatchewan which has a population of about 350
The criteria must have changed again,when I came here from the U.K.on the PNP system,had to work for a set company for 6 months and then get nominated by the province for permanent residency.Newmercman seems keen to gob off about Saskatchewan,each to their own I suppose,but if Canada was to get an enema it would be through Manitoba !!!
Kindersley/HWT don’t seem too bad ,have a few mates working for them as O/O and company drivers,typical Canadian van operation.The reason Canada is trying to attract foreign drivers is purely because the Canadians don’t want to do the job.Think about it long and hard before committing.
Sask is like the Belgium of North America. Not so bad to pass through to get somewhere else. In that, Mark is entirely right. And taking the mick out of Sask is nearly as much a national sport as is taking the mick out of the Newfies.
The general info about the Siemens group is that they rarely get back to you when you have contacted them and they did have a bad time with driver loss a while ago. They also had reliability issues with the trucks and it caused them trouble with drivers leaving.
flat to the mat:
newmercman:
Oh & the reason the Canadians are looking for foreigners is because they don’t have enough people to do the work, especially Saskatchewan which has a population of about 350The criteria must have changed again,when I came here from the U.K.on the PNP system,had to work for a set company for 6 months and then get nominated by the province for permanent residency.Newmercman seems keen to gob off about Saskatchewan,each to their own I suppose,but if Canada was to get an enema it would be through Manitoba !!!
Kindersley/HWT don’t seem too bad ,have a few mates working for them as O/O and company drivers,typical Canadian van operation.The reason Canada is trying to attract foreign drivers is purely because the Canadians don’t want to do the job.Think about it long and hard before committing.
The criteria has changed pal, I know of a few people who gained PR while still in the UK, Nianiamh of this very forum being one of them.
Gobbing off about SK? Er not exactly, maybe a tongue in cheek remark, but I have been there many times & the place is empty apart from Regina & Saskatoon, the city of Winnipeg has more people in it than the whole of the province of Saskatchewan.
I spoke to Siemens when I decided to come to Canada, they were a nightmare to deal with, full of empty promises & I gave up in the end, I’m not the only one on this forum who had that experience, they run crap trucks & their work is nothing special, the money is average, you say it’s a typical van operation, well so is Trans X & I wouldn’t work there either.
You seem to have your knickers in a twist about Manitoba, as you say each to their own, but from a driver’s point of view I think it’s the place to be in Canada, we gat paid by the mile & so the more miles you can do in a week, the more money in the bank, I can get to Nova Scotia, Vancouver, Miami, San Diego (the four corners of North America) & back within my 70hrs from Winnipeg, start out in Alberta or Sask & Miami & Nova Scotia need a reset, start from Ontario & Vancouver & San Diego need a reset. Then there is the cost of living, Sask is cheap admittedly, but not by much compared to Manitoba, Alberta however is an expensive place to be, yeah you may earn a little more, but it’s gone on housing costs before it gets to sit in the bank.
After lots of unreturned calls and unanswered emails I eventually had an interview set up in Saskatoon with Connie whatever her name is of Siemens and she didn’t even have the courtesy to show up at the pre arranged date and time.
They are not called ■■■■■ for nothing 
thanks for all the replies lads might just stear clear of them when i filled out the application form they sent am e-mail back saying that i met their job spec and invited me for an interview in SK.
so there is more to them than their slick website i also read about big freight systems and chose to stay away from them.
ra dar:
thanks for all the replies lads might just stear clear of them when i filled out the application form they sent am e-mail back saying that i met their job spec and invited me for an interview in SK.
so there is more to them than their slick website i also read about big freight systems and chose to stay away from them.
Yeah but like newmercman says you could have pr before arriving in Canada
I can get to Nova Scotia, Vancouver, Miami, San Diego (the four corners of North America) & back within my 70hrs from Winnipeg, start out in Alberta or Sask & Miami & Nova Scotia need a reset, start from Ontario & Vancouver & San Diego need a reset
Flippin eck! I thought i could stroll on.
Last time i went to southern Florida i needed a reset at La salle IL by the time i had got my collections on around the Fort Lauderdale/Miami. I run San Diego quite a lot but i have never unloaded, reloaded and got back in 70hrs of driving. Lol. 
Basically, any company that needs to recruit from the uk is most probably not going to be a particularly desirable place to make a career out of. (Maybe with the exception of Bisons). Wherever you work it will be harder graft than any job in the UK, hard fact.
The prairie provinces are very similar wether you were to live in MB or SK, and by that i mean very low population densities, huge open space and very low property costs. For example Manitoba is has a landmass over twice the size of the entire UK yet a population of just 1.1 million people. (West yorkshire has 2.2 million).
Saskatchewan is even less populated than this. Most people consider these facts as positive when thinking about living over here. Especially after living in overcrowded Britian.
dave_lol66:
ra dar:
thanks for all the replies lads might just stear clear of them when i filled out the application form they sent am e-mail back saying that i met their job spec and invited me for an interview in SK.
so there is more to them than their slick website i also read about big freight systems and chose to stay away from them.Yeah but like newmercman says you could have pr before arriving in Canada
The thing about moving to Canada is that PR or no PR you will need a job, Siemens, Big Freight etc will give anybody a job, they put you through the test & if you can endure the crap (on BFS at least) then you have a bit of experience, this will allow you to move on to a proper job, you have to look at the bigger picture, the whole BFS or Siemens misery is part of the price you pay to move to Canada, that may be a mercenary way of looking at it, but they (the companies) can do it, so what’s wrong with the drivers doing it too and let’s face it, if BFS & Siemens were good jobs they wouldn’t need to look 5000miles away for drivers 
Dave works for a company a mile down the road from BFS, they have no problems finding local drivers & more to the point, keeping them, my firm is the same, as are BTD’s, Wire’s & Nianiamh’s, so it isn’t all Canadian firms that are having recruiting problems, just the bad ones 
I would still recommend using BFS to get over, get your licence & a bit of experience, if it suits you, then stay, if not get another job, I wouldn’t go with Siemens personally, but the same applies there too, if you like it, stay, if not get out, I reckon Manitoba is the best bet, there are lots of trucking jobs, so the firms have to keep the money up, run decent motors & look after their drivers or they vote with their feet, just as we all did with BFS 
Wire you spend too much time at the buffet
My examples were the extremes, but they can all be done legally, not much time to mess around, but they can be done.
You say it’s hard work & it is, but it’s a different kind of hard work, I did a couple of weeks driving back in the UK during my 2months & counting holiday 
I felt a lot more tired & miserable at the end of the day than I ever do back home (that’s Canada now)
There are far less people around & the open spaces are, well, more open, but you can, as I do, live in the middle of Winnipeg, there’s plenty of people there too, but not that many that it’s a constant traffic jam.
Sorry guys but trying to say that Manitoba is better the SK is just a joke !!! You’ve got Winnipeg,whoopee,will be ready to flood again in the next few weeks,maybe flush some of the natives/criminals away,that’ll increase the property prices for you.
Saskatchewan is booming,Potash,Diamonds,Uranium,and an untapped oilfield(top grade) which is larger than Saudi Arabia.Then you have to good cities in Regina and Saskatoon ,both with airports and universities and loads more besides.Manitoba doesn’t even have a half decent rugby team,need I say more.
Can’t take the p#ss anymore,want to watch Doc Martin and re-live some childhood memories of Port Quinn.Enjoy your night in the truck,my fire is blazing nicely in our sitting room.
Tongue in cheek ?
Since it is filmed in Port Isaac and Port Gaverne, along with Stannon Moor, why would you want to relive memories of Portquin?
Of the three I’d take Winnipeg over Regina or Saskatoon anyday, for the moment at least, as you say the SK economy is booming & there’s all that oil, unfortunately that could be a wolf in sheeps clothing as it has been for the locals around the Alberta oil sands, yeah they made have made a ton of money from it & their property values have increased tenfold, but the whole place is like a building site & everything is now very expensive, the town centers at night are full of single blokes with pockets full of money getting ■■■■■■ up, in the winter time the snow up there is not just yellow, it has carrots in it
Winnipeg does have it’s problems, there are parts that you don’t want to go to, but the rest of it is a nice place, there are lots of parks & you have the two rivers running through the middle of the city, then there’s Grand Beach not too far away, that’s really nice in the summer. The criminals (drunken Indians) stick to their own area for the most part, you may see a few on the scrounge in the city center, but that’s about it, Saskatoon & Regina are no different in that respect.
My main reason for living in Winnipeg is, as I said before, the amount of trucking jobs there & the fact that it’s location means I can get anywhere in Canada & the lower 48 & back within my hours, Manitoba isn’t my favourite province by far, BC is number one, I’ve been all over the Western World & never seen anything as breathtakingly stunning, Quebec would come second, that may be a shocker, but I like the ‘oldness’ of the place, they also have the best crumpet in North America third would be on the Atlantic Coast in New Brunswick & then Manitoba, I’m not a lover of Alberta, I don’t get the whole ‘you gotta live in Calgary thing’ & I think Edmonton is a dump, Ontario comes in last though, I absolutely cannot stand Toronto, it would come top of my list of ‘cities in need of a good earthquake’ though
bobthedog:
Since it is filmed in Port Isaac and Port Gaverne, along with Stannon Moor, why would you want to relive memories of Portquin?
Absolutely 100% knew you’d bite on that one !!!
newmercman:
Of the three I’d take Winnipeg over Regina or Saskatoon anyday, for the moment at least, as you say the SK economy is booming & there’s all that oil, unfortunately that could be a wolf in sheeps clothing as it has been for the locals around the Alberta oil sands, yeah they made have made a ton of money from it & their property values have increased tenfold, but the whole place is like a building site & everything is now very expensive, the town centers at night are full of single blokes with pockets full of money getting ■■■■■■ up, in the winter time the snow up there is not just yellow, it has carrots in itWinnipeg does have it’s problems, there are parts that you don’t want to go to, but the rest of it is a nice place, there are lots of parks & you have the two rivers running through the middle of the city, then there’s Grand Beach not too far away, that’s really nice in the summer. The criminals (drunken Indians) stick to their own area for the most part, you may see a few on the scrounge in the city center, but that’s about it, Saskatoon & Regina are no different in that respect.
My main reason for living in Winnipeg is, as I said before, the amount of trucking jobs there & the fact that it’s location means I can get anywhere in Canada & the lower 48 & back within my hours, Manitoba isn’t my favourite province by far, BC is number one, I’ve been all over the Western World & never seen anything as breathtakingly stunning, Quebec would come second, that may be a shocker, but I like the ‘oldness’ of the place, they also have the best crumpet in North America
We agree on B.C.being the best province,it is a stunning place,unfortunately there is not too much work there unless you want to live around Vancouver,which I don’t.We still have children going through high-school and after the move from England we’ll be staying put for another couple of years,When they’ve finished their education who knows ? Off the road nowadays,got laid off middle of Jan,started the following week driving a loader/winch truck/scrap trailer at the steel mill in Regina.7am until 3.30pm Monday to Friday ,home every night and earning similar coin to before.Roll on spring.