Whatever the recruiter promises you should be taken with a grain of salt. They will have ads saying you could make $70,000 or 80,000 per year but even for a guy like me who hustles, I still was only grossing about 900 to 1200 per week. But you are only out for 3 weeks at a time, then you get to go home for a week. That was one of the great things about intermodal, but the pay does not line up with what they say in the ads. Even if you net $1000 per week for 3 weeks and then have the 4th week off, that comes out to $3000 per month that you are bringing home. If you say something about this to your driver manager, they will tell you to just stay out longer and don't go home after every 3 weeks, but that was one of the major selling points of taking this position, being able to go home after every 3 weeks for a full week off (2 days of travel and 5 days of actual home time). But lets say you didn't ever go home and lets say your average gross pay was $1000 per week. That still only comes out to $52,000. Throw a $10,000 bonus on top of that (if that is offered in your area) and you still only get to $62,000. At least that gets you closer to $70,000 ...just not close enough...especially since that means you don't ever go home, so it's not even realistic. So, realistically, expect to gross between $36,000 to $43000 per year (not including any hire-on bonus).
