Is becoming a CDL trainer right for you?

If you’re an experienced driver looking to advance your career, consider becoming a CDL trainer. It’s a great way to earn additional income while sharing your professional driving knowledge with new drivers.

At Halvor Lines, our Halvor Gold CDL trainers earn an additional 27 cents per dispatched mile for training. While pay is a factor in any job, most Halvor Gold trainers say there are other important things to consider before becoming a driver trainer:

• Is safety your passion? Safety should be job #1 for every driver. If you never miss a pre-trip inspection and pride yourself on your clean driving record, driver trainer could be the job for you. “I take this job seriously,” says Halvor Gold Trainer Stacey P. “I try to instill good habits and stress that being safe and being on time are job #1.”
  
  If joining a trucking company with a strong safety culture is important to you, our Halvor Gold CDL Training program may be a good fit for you as a trainer.
  
• Do you like helping people? “The best part of this job is helping someone learn the ins and outs of trucking,” says Halvor Gold driver trainer Chuck M. “I like being there to help them as they learn there’s a lot more to trucking than holding a steering wheel and moving down a road.” If helping is in your nature, keep reading.

• Are you a good communicator? You’ll be coaching trainees about every aspect of trucking, from DOT regulations to communicating with dispatchers and customers. You’ll need to explain things clearly.
  
  On the flip side, you also need to be a good listener. The best trainees will have a lot of questions for you!
  
• Are you patient? When you’re training someone, patience isn’t just a virtue. It’s a job requirement, according to our trainers. New drivers have a lot to learn – and will often make mistakes. Being able to take it all in stride is essential for success.
  
• Do you enjoy meeting new people? As a driver trainer, you’ll be sharing a truck with your trainee for four to six weeks at a time (on average). So it’s important that you’re someone who enjoys being around new people. “I’ve made a lot of good friends being a trainer,” says Chuck. “It’s fun keeping in touch with my trainees and knowing they are happy and it’s working out.”

If the list made this career sound right for you, check out the driver and CDL trainer pages in the Career section of our website. Or contact a Halvor Lines recruiter today.