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Lisa, if you don't like your job you don't strike. You just go in every day and do it really half-assed. That's the American way.

                                    ---Homer Simpson

Homer doesn't give good professional advice to commercial drivers. The Federal Motor Carrier Regulations require a potential employer to contact your past employers. There's certain information that past employers must provide such as DOT accident and drug and alcohol testing information. But this information that is required to be investigated and provided by past employers is a minimum-not a limitation what can be asked and what can be provided.

Section 291.23 of the Federal Motor Carrier Regulations states "The investigation may consist of personal interviews, telephone interviews, letters, or any other method for investigating that the carrier deems appropriate. Each motor carrier must make a written record with respect to each previous employer contacted, or good faith efforts to do so. The record must include the previous employer's name and address, the date the previous employer was contacted, or the attempts made, and the information received about the driver from the previous employer."

Almost all potential employers are going to ask, and most past employers will provide more information about your performance than required by regulation. And this information can be negative and keep you from getting the job.

There are New Considerations for Choosing (and Staying) with a Company.

But there's more to it now than just your own performance. You need to evaluate potential employers too. CSA is more closely tracking the safety performance of companies and drivers. And as a commercial driver, it is important that you choose a company to work for that is safety conscious. Their training, policies and even attitudes and culture will affect your ability to get a job in the future.

Does the company for which you thinking about working for have good equipment? Are the vehicles well maintained? Are all the tools made available so that you can properly secure your load? When you have a roadside inspection, these items will be examined.

What is the company culture? If a customer is screaming for a load, you get close to the receiver but run out of hours, what are you encouraged (officially and unofficially) to do? When dangerous weather conditions exist an you feel it necessary to park it, are you encouraged to take the load just a little farther?

Your employer should be your partner in safety. If you violate the safety regulations it will affect their safety score-but be aware that their actions can affect your CSA PSP report for many violations. The PSP report will show the past 5 years of crash data and results from the past 3 years of roadside inspections. Many employers are obtaining your PSP report prior to hiring you and if you have too many violations, they may assume that you will continue to get violations when employed by them and hurt their safety score.

How Can you Check out the Company and Compare to Others?

Go to this website: http://safer.fmcsa.dot.gov/CompanySnapshot.aspx .

From this page, you may type in the company's DOT or MC number or their name. That page will take you to a company snapshot, giving information about the company, and at the bottom, it will give that company's comparison on inspection results with the national averages.

If you want more detailed information, look in the top right-hand box of the page for "Other Information For this Carrier." Choose "SMS Results." From this page, you can detail down to a BASIC. For example, you may click the "Vehicle Maintenance" heading and see a detailed report on what has been found, when it was found and how the carrier ranks in this category compared to others.

To sum up, you should check out companies to protect yourself. It is easy to do, it's free and it could affect your future livelihood.

Derek Hinton is the CEO of TIES, LLC, better known as www.DOTJobHistory.com . DOTJobHistory allows drivers to obtain and verify their employment (DAC), driving and criminal records. They may then make this information available over the web to employers who can access the information instantly.

Derek has over 20 years experience in the areas of employment screening, the Fair Credit Reporting Act and Motor Carrier Safety regulations. He began his career at DAC Services in 1984 and is the author of The Criminal Records Manual, a book that details criminal records in the hiring process.

Contact information for Derek can be found at www.dotjobhistory.com