When I was researching this move to truck driving, I had a lot of questions. I wanted to know things like what companies out there were highly regarded to work for, and why. How much I would be paid for my work. What kind of health care, time off, 401k and other benefits there were. What kind of trucks did each company use, and how well did they maintain them. And so on.
I made a spreadsheet, though you could just as easily use a piece of lined paper I suppose. During my research when I would run across something good, bad or merely informative I would mark it down next to that company and over time patterns started to emerge. For instance, some trucking companies provide their own training (or pay for you to attend a third-party school, or have tuition reimbursement) while others require a certain amount of experience just to apply with them. Most companies prefer to use one or two models of truck in their fleets, so when I found out which ones I marked those down as well.
I quickly discovered that most truckers are paid by the mile at a certain rate. This CPM (cents per mile) ranged from about .25 (25 cents) to .40 (40 cents) depending on experience and the type of trucking you're hired for. The lowest paid type is also the most common: Dry Van. Vans are those big boxy trucks that everyone is familiar with, which get loaded with just about every commodity imaginable that is in some sort of package or resting on a pallet, or both. Other kinds of trucking include flatbed, tanker and refrigerated. Flatbed work involves a lot of tarping (covering loads to prevent them from getting wet) and securing. Tankers usually involve either chemicals or food grade product (like milk), and are difficult to drive due to the constantly shifting load. Reefer trucks haul all types of frozen stuff, food mostly, and their trailers have their own dedicated cooling equipment which, unfortunately, runs pretty noisily which can suck when you are trying to get a restful sleep.
After I accumulated a lot of information I started weeding out companies that didn't match up well with my goals. When I got down to about a dozen candidates on my short list I started asking questions on message boards and in chats with drivers and whittled down the list a bit more.
You probably won't go to this extreme before you enter the industry but I highly encourage you to take a long look at a number of different companies before you choose one to invest your time and effort with.
