📋 Questions to Ask a Trucking Recruiter Before You Sign Anything
A recruiter's job is to get you to orientation. Your job is to find out what your settlement will look like in week six, when the welcome is over and the truck is just a truck. The answers you need fit on one page, and a company with nothing to hide gives them in twenty minutes. Here are the questions to ask a trucking recruiter, what a good answer sounds like, and where the red flags are. 🚛
🧮 How does the company count miles — and which miles get paid?
Every recruiter leads with cents per mile. Almost none volunteer what a "mile" is — and that one word is where the biggest gap between the ad and the paycheck hides.
Practical, household-goods or ZIP-to-ZIP?
- Practical miles (PC*MILER Practical) follow roads a truck can legally and sensibly drive. This is the closest to the odometer of any standard.
- Household-goods (HHG) miles — sometimes called "short miles" — come from old tariff tables built for movers. Carriers that still pay HHG typically pay 5–8% fewer miles than practical routing for the same trip, and drivers report a bigger gap on some lanes.
- ZIP-to-ZIP vs. address-to-address. ZIP-to-ZIP measures from the center of the pickup ZIP code to the center of the delivery ZIP; address-to-address measures the actual doors. On runs ending at a DC on the far edge of a big city it adds up.
Also ask: "What's the tolerance between paid miles and my odometer?" At ASTEL, miles are calculated PC*MILER ZIP-to-ZIP and the accepted gap to the odometer is up to 5% — a number you're welcome to check on your own trips.
Are deadhead miles paid — and at the same rate?
Deadhead (empty) miles are the ones you drive from a delivery to the next pickup. Companies handle them three ways: all miles at one rate; deadhead at a lower rate; or "the first X empty miles are free." The last two shave real money off a reefer week, where a grocery DC and the next produce shipper can be 150 miles apart. The clean answer is the short one: all miles, loaded and empty, at the same rate.
💵 What's behind the weekly number?
"Our drivers average $2,500 a week" is a sentence, not a pay plan. Turn it into arithmetic: rate × paid miles, minus what comes off the check.
Is there a weekly minimum, and what does it depend on?
Some carriers offer a minimum weekly pay. Ask what turns it off: refusing a load, a late delivery, home time that week, a breakdown. A minimum that disappears the moment you take a day off protects the company, not you.
Is there an escrow or deposit, and when do I get it back?
Deposits exist in this industry for a reason: new drivers walk away from trucks. What matters is whether the terms are clear. Ask for the amount, how it's collected (lump sum or weekly installments), what it can be applied to, and — the part recruiters skip — how many days after you leave it comes back. For leased owner-operators, federal Truth-in-Leasing rules (49 CFR 376.12(k)) require escrow to be returned no later than 45 days after termination, with an accounting of every deduction. For company drivers there's no federal clock; the contract is the only rule, so if it doesn't name a return date, ask them to add one. ASTEL's policy is simple: a deposit applies only to drivers with less than three months of OTR experience.
What deductions and penalties exist — by name?
Ask for the whole list, not "just the usual": insurance, ELD or tablet fees, escrow installments, cash-advance and fuel-card fees, physical damage, service-failure penalties, cleaning fees on truck return. A real settlement read line by line is the fastest lie detector in trucking — our guide on how to read a trucking settlement shows what every line should look like.
When is pay day, and what does the settlement show?
Weekly pay is the standard; ask what the cutoff is (loads delivered by Sunday paid Friday, for example) and whether a load delivered after cutoff waits a full week. Ask to see a settlement with the driver's name blacked out: paid miles per load, rate, deadhead, accessorials, every deduction. A company that pays honestly is usually proud to show it.
🏠 What does home time look like on a real calendar?
"Great home time" is the most stretched phrase in recruiting. Replace it with numbers:
- How many days out per day home? The usual OTR arithmetic is roughly a day at home for every week on the road. ASTEL runs a 4+1 rhythm — four or more weeks out, about a week at home — and says so up front, because a driver who wants to be home every weekend should hear "no" on the phone, not in month two.
- Does home time start when I park at home, or when I deliver the last load? Ask how far ahead you request it and how often requests get bumped.
- Are home days counted in 24-hour blocks? "Two days home" from Saturday 9 p.m. to Monday 5 a.m. is one day.
- What lanes and what freight? Regional, dedicated or OTR; dry van, reefer, flatbed; which states; whether the company has freight in the slow months. Our guide to truck driver home time covers how to weigh this against pay.
- How many night runs? Reefer means 2 a.m. grocery docks; ask how often and how the dispatcher plans your hours around them.
🚛 What truck will you get — and what happens when it breaks?
The truck is your office, bed and profit margin. Ask specifically:
- Make, model year and mileage of the truck I'll actually be assigned — not the fleet average. Starter trucks for new hires are common; ask how long you'll be in one.
- Automatic or manual, and governed at what speed? A truck set to 62 mph runs noticeably fewer miles a week than one at 68–70 — a pay question disguised as a truck question.
- Who does maintenance and where? Company shop, dealer network or "wherever you break down." Own mechanics fix small things before they become road calls.
- What happens when the truck breaks down on the road? Is there breakdown pay, and after how many hours? Is there a replacement truck, and how fast? "We'll get you a hotel" is a different answer from "we'll get you a truck." ASTEL keeps replacement trucks at the Chicago yard next to its own shop for exactly this, so a breakdown costs a day, not a week.
If you're weighing a lease-purchase or an owner-operator offer instead, the questions multiply — see company driver vs. owner-operator before you get on that call.
🧾 Who pays for lumpers, tolls, scales and permits?
These are small line items that turn into big ones by December. Ask about each separately.
- Lumpers. Federal law (49 U.S.C. 14103) puts the cost of loading and unloading help on the shipper or receiver, not the driver — in practice the company pays the lumper through a fuel-card check or app and bills the broker. Ask how lumpers are paid, whether you'll ever be asked to front the cash, and how long reimbursement takes. Never pay a lumper from your own pocket without a receipt showing the amount, date, facility and load number.
- Tolls. Company transponder or reimbursement against receipts? A 30-day reimbursement lag is a weekly loan to the company.
- Scales and permits. CAT scales are a few bucks each, but a reefer driver weighs after every heavy load — company card or reimbursed? Permits, plates and IFTA should be invisible to a company driver; if they show up as deductions, ask why.
- Detention and layover. Ask after how many hours detention starts, whether it depends on the broker paying, and whether the driver gets it when the company gets it. Our guide to detention and layover pay explains the mechanics without the marketing.
🎓 What happens at orientation — and what does a referral pay?
Ask how long orientation is, whether it's paid, who covers travel and hotel, and whether the first load leaves from orientation or you wait for a truck. Ask what disqualifies a candidate on day one, so you don't fly to a yard for nothing. Our article on trucking orientation and your first load walks through a good first week. Then ask about referrals: how much, and when it's paid — after the referred driver's 30, 60 or 90 days?
📊 Question, good answer, red flag — the cheat sheet
| Question | Good answer | Red flag |
|---|---|---|
| How are miles calculated? | "PC*MILER Practical, ZIP-to-ZIP; we expect it within a few percent of your odometer." | "Household goods," "our own system," or a recruiter who doesn't know |
| Are deadhead miles paid? | "All miles, loaded and empty, same rate." | "First 100 empty miles unpaid," or a lower deadhead rate |
| Is there a deposit or escrow? | Amount, how it's collected, what it covers and the return date — in the contract | "Don't worry about it" or no written return terms |
| What deductions will I see? | A complete list, shown on a sample settlement | "Just the standard ones" |
| What does home time look like? | A schedule in days: "4+ weeks out, about a week home" | "Flexible," "as needed," "we work with you" |
| What truck will I get? | Make, year, automatic, governed speed — for your truck | "Late-model fleet" with no specifics; a starter truck with no end date |
| What if the truck breaks down? | Company shop, replacement truck, breakdown pay after X hours | "It doesn't happen often" |
| Who pays lumpers, tolls, scales? | Company pays directly or via card; receipts reimbursed on the next settlement | Driver fronts cash; reimbursement "within 30–45 days" |
| Can I see a sample settlement? | "Sure, here's last week's with the name removed." | "That's confidential" |
| Can I talk to a current driver? | "Here's a number; call anyone at the yard." | Only a handpicked driver on the recruiter's phone |
🤫 What a recruiter won't tell you unless you ask
None of this is secret. It's just not in the script.
- "Average miles" is the fleet average, not yours. Ask what a driver typically runs in his first 90 days. In reefer the honest answer also depends on the month — ASTEL's peak is August through March, when strong drivers run 3,500–3,700 miles a week, and the recruiter should say what the slow months look like too.
- Forced dispatch has a polite name. "We expect drivers to take the loads they're given" means the same thing. Ask what happens when you decline a load, and how many drivers each dispatcher handles — our guide to how truck dispatch works explains why that ratio matters.
- They will check you thoroughly — so check them back. Under 49 CFR 391.23 the carrier must investigate your last three years of safety performance history with previous employers within 30 days of hire and run a pre-employment query in the FMCSA Drug and Alcohol Clearinghouse; most also pull your PSP (three years of inspections, five of crashes) and DAC employment report. Pull your own first: a DAC report from HireRight is free once every 12 months under the FCRA, and a PSP costs $10. Then look the company up on FMCSA SAFER and its CSA scores — our piece on CSA scores, PSP and MVR shows what to read there.
- Turnover is a number, and it's known. Ask how many of last year's drivers are still there. "We don't track that" means the number is high.
- Who you'll actually talk to when it goes wrong. Ask whether drivers can reach anyone above the dispatcher. At ASTEL the owner is a former driver and drivers have his direct line — easy to check.
✅ How to run the call: a 10-step checklist
- Pull your own MVR, PSP and DAC a week before you start calling; fix errors first.
- Write down your non-negotiables: home time, freight type, transmission, minimum weekly gross.
- Ask the mile-calculation and deadhead questions first; a bad answer ends the call early.
- Ask for the full deduction list and a sample settlement.
- Ask for home time in days, plus the freight and lanes you'll actually run.
- Ask about your truck: year, transmission, governed speed, shop, replacement on breakdown.
- Ask who pays lumpers, tolls and scales.
- Ask about orientation: length, pay, travel, first load.
- Ask for a current driver's number — and call.
- Get everything in writing and compare offers on net weekly income, not cents per mile. Our drivers page is a good place to start — the numbers are already written down.
❓ FAQ: questions to ask a trucking recruiter
What is the most important question to ask a trucking recruiter?
How miles are calculated and which miles are paid. A rate per mile means nothing until you know whether it applies to practical, household-goods or ZIP-to-ZIP miles and whether deadhead is paid at the same rate. That one answer moves a weekly check more than any bonus.
Should I ask a recruiter for a sample settlement?
Yes, always. A settlement with the driver's name removed shows paid miles per load, the rate, deadhead, accessorials and every deduction by name. A carrier that pays honestly can usually send one the same day; refusing is a red flag on its own.
Is a deposit or escrow normal for a company driver?
Some carriers require one, especially for drivers with little OTR experience, and that alone is not a red flag. What matters is that the amount, what it covers and the return date after you leave are written in the contract. For leased owner-operators, federal rules require escrow to be returned within 45 days; for company drivers only the contract applies.
How do I verify what a trucking recruiter tells me?
Ask for the pay plan in writing, request a sample settlement, look the carrier up on FMCSA SAFER and its CSA scores, read recent driver reviews, and call a current driver the recruiter did not pick for you. If two of those four do not match the pitch, keep looking.
What questions should I ask about home time?
Ask for a number of days out per day home, whether home time starts when you park at home or when you deliver, whether home days are counted in 24-hour blocks, how far ahead you must request it, and how often requests get bumped by freight. Flexible is not an answer.
🚛 Ask us all of it — the answers are already written down
ASTEL is a family-owned carrier out of Chicago running refrigerated freight year-round on late-model Volvo trucks, with our own repair shop and mechanics, 24/7 dispatch and a direct line to the owner. Drivers earn $90,000–$110,000 a year — $2,400–2,700+ a week gross, a flat $0.80 per mile for drivers with 1+ year of experience, all miles paid ZIP-to-ZIP, weekly pay, plus $50/$200/$500 bonuses for clean DOT inspections.
Apply in 2 minutes →Regulatory references as of September 2026: escrow accounting and 45-day return for leased equipment — 49 CFR 376.12(k); loading and unloading assistance costs — 49 U.S.C. 14103; safety performance history investigations — 49 CFR 391.23; FMCSA Drug and Alcohol Clearinghouse and Pre-Employment Screening Program (PSP); Fair Credit Reporting Act free annual report from HireRight. Practical vs. household-goods mileage differences are typical industry figures, not a legal standard. Rules and fees may change. Pay and mileage figures describe ASTEL driver ranges, not guarantees. This article is general information, not legal or financial advice.
