50 Trucking Companies That Hire Felons with Convictions 5, 7, 10 years

There Are Many Trucking Companies That Hire Felons

One of the biggest go to jobs for felons is Trucking. It is something that most felons can do as long as sufficient time has passed since your conviction date. If you are a felon who has spent quite a few years behind bars you may be in luck. Most of these companies will not ask how long you have been out of prison for, however you will have to explain your lack of employment.

Applying For A Job

Trucking companies are required to do a background check on all applicants. This background check will go deep into your past and will pull up your driving record. Do not try to hide anything, this can disqualify you for the position. Just make sure you are as honest as possible. If you have any felony traffic violations or drug trafficking violations you may be disqualified.

Also check out:

Tow Truck Driver Jobs – Many towing companies are small owner-operated outfits, and do not perform background checks. In fact, they would prefer someone with “experience” in dealing with unpleasant situations. You do need a CDL class A to drive a tow truck.
Lyft Jobs for Felons – can felons get ride-sharing jobs at Lyft (and possibly Uber) … Hint – yes with limitations!

Getting CDL License

While many truck companies provide on the job training, it’s recommended to have a CDL license when you apply. Having a license makes you much more valuable to the company, especially in light of you felony conviction.

Since there is a serious shortage of truck drivers in US, you can still find work, even without CDL, but will be paid less. So – if you can, go get a Truck Driver’s training from an approved school in your state, and start applying for CDL.

Here are two courses on how to become a trucker (Getting CDL, Finding Jobs, Choosing the Right company to work for, Trucker-Family advice, etc)
Trucking Success 101 – taught by Hervy Christmas, a Truck Driver of 13 years and Career / Life Coach.
Jump Start Trucking – taught by James Davis, who drove trucks over 1,000,000 without single preventable accident!

How Much Trucking Jobs Pay

Truck driving jobs pay different depending on you CDL license class, experience, type of driving you do and cargo that you carry, company you work for and where you live (local trucking jobs).

There are basically two types of pay structures – Local and OTR (over the road):
OTR means long hauls, cross many states .. you get the picture – you go on the trip for 2-3 weeks at a time.
Local is self explanatory – you come home every night. Good example of local trucking jobs is driving for UPS or FedEx

OTR jobs pay per mile – anywhere from $0.40 to $0.60 … sometimes a little less – sometimes a little more. Average around $0.45-0.50 per mile. Most OTR trucker put in 2500 mile per week – do the math. This is if you work for a company, and not a s owner-operator or OO (meaning you have your own truck). Owner-Operator truckers make a lot more per mile, but often EARN LESS, after all the costs (fuel, maintenance, insurance/bonding, other overheads).

Local jobs pay per hour – typical hourly rates in US are between $12 and $29 per hour. Huge difference there, but the average is around $19/hr (50th percentile so to say).

As a felon without experience, you can start at around $12-14/hr locally or $0.38-0.40 per mile OTR.

Here is more info on local and OTR pay for truckers.

List Of Trucking Companies That Hire Felons

Most of these companies require little to no experience and some are even willing to pay for your training cost. If you would like to contact any of them you may click on their link and it will take your directly to their website.

Trucking companies that hire felons with convictions that are 10 years old or more:

1. Swift Transportation (offers driver training)
2. J.B. Hunt
3. Shaffer Trucking
4. TMC Transport
5. Crete Carrier
6. Dick Lavy Trucking
7. CR England
8. Celadon (offers truck driver training)
9. Dutch Maid Logistics
10. Hunt Transportation (12 months experience required)
11. JBS Carriers (12 months experience required)

Trucking companies that hire felons with convictions that are 7 years old or more:

1. Roehl Transport (offers truck driver training)
2. Melton Truck Lines
3. Stevens Transport
4. PGT Trucking
5. Falcon Transport (6 months experience required)
6. Knight Transportation
7. Tango Transport
8. Barr-Nunn Transportation (12 months experience required)
9. Groendyke Transport (TX, OK, LA Only)
10. Interstate Distributor Co.

Trucking companies that hire felons with convictions that are 5 years old or more:

1. Boyd Brothers
2. Western express
3. Transway Inc.
4. TransAm Trucking
5. Paschall Truck Lines
6. Carolina Cargo
7. DeBoer Trucking Company
8. Florilli Transportation (12 months experience required)

Trucking companies that hire felons on a case by case basis:

1. Werner Enterprises
2. Navajo Express (No felonies in past 10 years)
3. Millis Transfer (offers truck driver training)
4. Conway (XPO) – (Local and OTR – some jobs don’t require BG check)
5. FFE (offers training)
6. Carolina Cargo
7. Schneider National (offers truck driver training)
8. E.W Wylie
9. Prime Inc. (offers truck driver training)
10. USA Truck (offers truck driver training)
11. Maverick Transportation
12. US Express
13. Tyson Foods (offers truck driver training)
14. Covenant Transport
15. Cardinal Logistics
16. Freymiller (6 months experience required)
17. Hirschbach (6 months experience required)
18. J & R Schugel
19. LCT Transportation

Additional information:

Lets pretend for a moment, its the week before you got caught for whatever it was you did wrong. Suppose you had filled out an application for a job and was asked on the application if you had ever been convicted of a felony, and you honestly answered that as truthfully NO ! Such an answer would have been 100% honest, because indeed, at that point in time, when the question was asked, had not been caught, or convicted of a felony. Even though felonious activity had occurred by you, your application would have appeared as clean as fresh snow…Innocent of conviction. “Innocence of conviction” is not the same as innocent of wrong doing. But on an application, it flies. Employers are oh so quick to misjudge and mislead themselves to believing that a persons character based on LACK of conviction some how makes that person more trustworthy than an ex-con , when indeed most times it doesn’t. An employer will lend a never convicted person a “Benefit of Clearance”, when indeed they could very well be sitting in the presence of a non-caught-non-convicted, ax-murderer, and not have any inkling of it, because after all, “they have a clean record”! At least as employers are concerned, an ex-felon knows…the employer knows… their background… and the felon knows they will be the first suspected in any fowl play regardless of who’s involved (even “without evidence”- connecting them ) so the felon from the get-go holds himself to a higher more transparent-standard of behavior than that of his peers because one aspect, “MIGHT,…just might,… be the one thing that saves him from suspicion when things get ugly. He knows how easy its going to be to blame him, even if he’s innocent. So the felon is more likely to do everything exactly by the book because he knows that end the end, that’s what will save him. Where as the ax-murder realizes he’s fling under the radar of suspicion and hence can get away with murder because he has a clean record ( so far ) after all.

There are a lot of opportunities for people who have felonies especially if they are more than 5 years old another key piece of information that may help with getting a driving job in smaller companies is that the federal government gives tax breaks to companies who hire a person with a conviction in the last 10 years so it might help if you let employers know this ( any industry. Manufacturing, clerical, construction ect.) another thing is never give up you will eventually find the right job as long as you put forth your absolute best effort. I have a felony from 7 years ago and I understand first hand how discouraging and hard it can be to find the best fit for you. You may even go through a couple jobs before finding the best one. I work for a small manufacturing company in southern ohio who decided to give me a chance 3 years ago and it payed off. They payed for my CDL and I got promoted to supervisor a year ago. with that being said when the opportunity does present itself work and try your absolute hardest and know that small efforts only get you small results and being honest upfront and remorseful for your actions in the past shows employers that they can possibly help you on your road to success because that’s the way I look at the people I interview who have convictions

I have to see first hand the battle my better half deals with when trying to get a trucking job. Let me give you a little background, he’s prior military and was wounded in war. He ended up beating the shit out of a guy who hit a woman in front of him and let’s just say, he went to prison and a felony. This is just shy of 7 years old now and gets doors shut on him all the time. He’s stronger, more capable and has more honesty and integrity than any man I’ve ever known. He’s busted his ass to survive in life and I’m fed up with it being nothing but small companies that will hire him and since they are on paper logs, the drivers end up playing with their books just to make delivery, backhaul or picking up the next load. Just because a felony is over 10 years, which is the policy for many major companies that actually have to abide by DOT rules and regulations, doesn’t mean those individuals are better or more rehabilitated. Some convictions aren’t forgivable, but for the most part, I’d rather have felons working for me then the average Joe. This is simply because felons work harder than most as they always have to show they’re worthy or better than a damn conviction. This shouldn’t have to dictate who someone is or their level of integrity and commitment nor should they have to bare discrimination or be branded with a Scarlett letter so to speak. Felony or not, you deserve the same opportunity to get excellent pay and benefits too! This has to change…. companies are missing out on dedicated, hard working individuals just because of a label.

From what I have researched, any violent crime will restrict any chance of finding work anywhere. I believe that it isn’t impossible to find work, you just may not find your dream job. I have a felony conviction going on 15 years. I went back to school and earned an associates degree. Worked for three years, then took another job. They did a background check on me and rescinded their offer. This happened three times with three different employers within a 4 week period. Looking into trucking because I used to drive years ago but after reading these posts, doesn’t look too promising.