It is unfortunate that so many graduates find difficulty acquiring jobs in their fields of study due to lack of experience, those specifically who had no internship or on-the-job training options or who could not participate in such programs for whatever reasons. I did not have this problem as a business clerical trainee at the Atlanta Job Corps because OJT was offered for my cluster at the center where I trained...
After completing my studies, which included learning to type, data entry, writing business letters, answering business phones, and subsequently graduating from Atlanta Metropolitan College* via Job Corps's Advanced Career Training program, I interned as a receptionist answering the center switchboard for a specified number of weeks. And I had no problem at all getting my first full-time job as a receptionist...
Some form of on-the-job-training was offered for most if not all trades at the AJCC, which facilitated job placement for graduates (*My degree from Atlanta Metropolitan College is an AA in Philosophy, which substantially helped to develop my critical thinking skills and my Microsoft skills via a computer science course).
I am four classes away from graduating with a Bachelors degree in English/Composition and Rhetoric from Georgia State University, which expounds upon my Philosophy degree from a critical thinking standpoint (when and if I can ever complete said classes).
Graded and/or paid internships at real companies provide real experience that real employers can appreciate, and they should be available for all educational/training programs.
...On the job training for certain professions like CDL Class A trucker jobs, including those that require flatbed and/or over the road (OTR) experience should be scheduled around students' employment work schedules to enable them to earn sufficient income during said experiential training. Let's say, for example, that a driving student works for four days and has three days off. Training could be scheduled for 1 to 2 of their off days...
This would additionally give said students the opportunity to see if flatbed and/or OTR or driving significant distances out of state would be something that they would actually enjoy, and it would give them the required experience to acquire employment within the industry after completion of the training without need of any additional experience.
CDL Class A truckers who are interested in local driving jobs could optionally only train locally or they could additionally train for OTR in the event that this would interest them in the future, or if they would be interested in periodically driving OTR (depending upon the location, weather, and/or other circumstances) in a local driving position.
Completed internships or apprenticeships for specific programs should suffice for experience to acquire entry-level jobs and reasonable starting pay in the industry. An internship lasts on average from about three months to a year while trucking apprenticeships would last from six months to two years.
...Another even better option would be for more trucking companies to provide post educational experiential training for local, regional, and OTR jobs. This would help to readily meet the staffing needs of many trucking companies that are "urgently hiring" while providing desired and needed employment to recent graduates in the industry. It is essentially impossible otherwise to acquire experience where no opportunity is provided without it...
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