Manager Trainee – Fleet Operations Management

Job Description

Manager Trainee Spring 2027 Start | J.B. Hunt Transport Services, Inc.

The Tone:
This is a full-time management trainee position at J.B. Hunt Transport Services, Inc., a large transportation and logistics organization. This role focuses on learning foundational management skills required for fleet operations and operational oversight. The Manager Trainee will be crucial in developing the expertise to ensure the safe and timely movement of freight, provide best-in-class customer service, and ensure compliance with critical Department of Transportation (DOT) regulations. This position is vital for cultivating future operational leaders within the company.

The TL;DR
• Role: Trainee / Entry-Level Management
• Type: Full-time
• Location: Regionally relocatable, with travel to account, customer, and company event locations
• Mission: To learn and ensure the safe, timely, and compliant movement of freight while providing excellent customer service.

What You’ll Actually Do
• Driver and Carrier Relations: Learn to build and maintain positive professional relationships with drivers and outside carriers, ensuring seamless new carrier setup, minimizing turnover, and maximizing ongoing productivity.
• Operational Efficiency: Become proficient in maximizing the efficiency and profitability of fleet operations, including making recommendations for continuous improvement and measuring key performance indicators.
• Administrative Management: Gain knowledge and practice in performing administrative duties such as payroll, managing net-revenue budgets, driver counseling, accident reviews, and analyzing P&L statements.
• Safety and Compliance: Learn to maintain the Company’s safety culture through daily messages, briefings, and training, enforcing company policies to ensure DOT compliance and safety requirements are met.
• Freight Planning and Monitoring: Learn to assign loads, plan, route, and monitor freight movement to provide safe, on-time service, meet customer requirements, and manage freight exceptions and driver ETA adjustments.

The Must-Haves
• Background: Bachelor’s degree in Business Administration, Transportation/Logistics, Supply Chain, or a related field. Alternatively, a High School Diploma/GED combined with 1 year of experience in management, transportation/logistics, business administration, or account management, or equivalent military experience.
• Experience: Willingness to travel to account, customer, and company event locations when applicable, and the ability to work across multiple shifts, including nights and/or weekends if needed. Willingness to regionally relocate based on account assignment.
• Skills: Ability to accurately analyze situations and make productive decisions, adapt to changing environments, establish and maintain healthy working relationships with various stakeholders, and effectively transmit and interpret ideas through communication.
• Bonus: Experience managing a team; ability to anticipate, recognize, and effectively deal with existing or potential conflicts at individual, group, or situational levels; ability to meet or exceed team/driver needs and expectations; and ability to recognize, anticipate, and resolve organizational, operational, or process problems.