It kind of makes sense that the outfits that are good payers and are unionised will be popular amongst applicants. Let’s take it the o/p isn’t making applications to the 50p more than the minimum wage outfits that exist all over the country. It sounds like the o/p wants something better.
If the ultimate aim is to go to one of the better employers, then a solid employment history staying at a place for a while has to be good. Jumping ship onto agency probably doesn’t look that great on the CV.
Further to a previous post I omitted something. Whoops!
Is there less work about for drivers to do? So do we need fewer drivers?
Seems that 2023 saw a 5% fall in ton/km of goods moved compared with 2022.
I applied to one of the water companies last year, had an email to say thanks but no thanks. A week or so later they phoned me to invite me to an interview, at which point I queried why they were interested after already rejecting me. Reply was that they had so many applications they shortlisted the applications received the soonest after listing the job and disregarded the rest thinking (wrongly it would seem) that would suffice to fill the vacancies.
As it turned out if I wasn’t free for an interview the following Thursday (which I would have needed to book a day off for) then they wern’t interested in looking at other options.
Thats just lazy on their part but I get it they have us by ■■■■■■■■■ right now.
My freaking luck that. I have always stayed with company for minimum of two years to see where its heading then I made move to on paper good company and it ■■■■ ass 
now I am stuck in it with no way forward. I don’t want to go to agency just yet as even they seem to have either badly paid job or job I don’t fancy do at the moment.
Hopefully it will get better soon!
Question is would you of gone had you been free
Friend of mine went for a caretakers job same as you was told no thanks then fortnight later they called him up and invited him to an interview got turned down a second time. another fortnight goes by they offered him the job each time offering bs excuses why turns out the other two quit after two weeks when they got their pay cheque and found out half the work they did was unpaid
I was still open minded to the vacancy, but it was tanks with at least a share on dirty, so I would have needed some convincing that it was a move I wanted to make.
I think some hypothetical but brutal realism is required:
Dave the TM is a busy guy, he has lots of trucks and lots of drivers to deal with. He only wants ONE new driver, he puts out an advert and is inundated. Dave’s response to this would be unacceptable to the TN auto-censor. He and his work colleagues are far too busy with the manifold demands of running a successful business to have any inclination to read someone’s life story.
Dave is not responsible for any applicant losing their previous job. He doesn’t care that someone says on paper they “love driving”, it is worth the same as them saying they like “long walks on the beach” or “cosy country pubs with a log fire”. Dave is a realist and not interested in touchy-feely-woke-self-indulgent-BS.
EDIT: to be clear, Dave is a working-class northerner, not one of yer southern shandy-drinking ponces 
Job-hoppers will be identified IF they make it into the “look at pile” which is probably significantly larger than the “offer interview pile”, which is definitely limited to single digits
Dave wants a driver asap, someone with experience, someone who in person (i) passes the all important attitude test, and (ii) has the only kind of “references” that Dave cares about: valid DL, DQC, and tacho card. Anyone who makes it that far can have a theory and driving assessment this afternoon, he’s only prepared to take his Driver Assessor off his regular shift for a few hours later today.
Then comes the most crucial of all “references” : Any job offer from Dave is conditional upon a satisfactory card download of the applicant’s last 28 days of work, to see if he can be trusted not to harm the company by getting infringements, especially those things that guarantee Dave an unwanted trip to see the TC ie the Most Serious Infringements aka the Seven Deadly Sins.
The above scenario is already stretching Dave’s allocation of “effort” to near maximal levels, he’s got a major transport operation to run and simply wants The New Guy squared away “soon as”.
It takes no extra to note whether the 10 short listed was found after looking at about 20 or 50 from the heap…
Of course.
Dave isn’t interested, the sifting task was delegated to the 15 year old work-experience placement kid because none of the adults CBA to do it their self, and no one cares if she messes it up, it’s safer than letting her loose on the photocopier
might not be as interesting though
this always makes me smile we don’t need marbles in out bottles of ale in case we put em down and knock em over if the bottle is put down its empty:grin:
For those who don’t know, you’re describing a codd-neck bottle (the origin of the phrase “codswallop”). It would be cool if they were still in use, but they are antiques or “collectors items” now.
The shandy-drinking jibe is just for fun, if we want to make a southerner really upset, we just show them the cost of buying a northern, 3-bed semi with garden and garage 
i was jesting too sorry if i caused offence
I would say dodged a bullet there
No offence assumed nor taken. I’m more accustomed to being the one accused of causing offence to those sensitive souls I encounter in the industry who can’t handle a bit of political incorrectness and industry-standard extraction of urine.
A mate of mine became TM at a company whose drivers were (and still are) regular ADR candidates of mine. My mate “complained” I was severely upsetting some of his drivers when delivering a piece about memorizing the inter-relationships of the primary and subsidiary hazards of the various classes.
I’d taught it to my (then) eight year old daughter in the space of less than 15 minutes and she still remembers it clearly five years later (in fact I was going over this with her again last night); his drivers were still struggling with it after three whole days of repetition, and “got a lip-on” when I told them my kids learned this at one sitting 
Did they make any mention that these kind of jobs are usually WTD exempt so you’ll be worked like a dog?
There’s a Co. Durham company that have a pretty much permanent advert for drivers doing this kind of work, wages are moderate, but they don’t mention that you need to have zero commitments outside of work and that they expect gigantic weekly work hours. Hence no one lasts and the advert is always to be seen
I think it crossed my mind that may be a possibility. You might like to think the better firms wouldn’t milk the oppertunity to work their drivers hard but that may be me being naive!!
Yesterday, 17th March, was the second anniversary of hundreds of workers being sacked by P&O Ferries.
It was widely condemned at the time including by the Gov, who have since brought in new laws, taken steps against P&O, and safeguarded all our employment rights.
Warning!
The last paragraph contains one truth and three lies.
To paraphrase Joe Stalin: Replace one person illegally and its a tragedy, replace them all and it’s a statistic.
As an update…£4-87 per hour!
Even less than P&O admitted to earlier. P&O Ferries has paid some crew less than half UK minimum wage | P&O Ferries | The Guardian