The good news is it sounds as if you have the desire and motivation now it will just take hard work and time. I am going to give you a few suggestions below and feel free to apply as many of them as you can or see fit.
1. This doesnt concern the auto loan directly but could help. The two credit card collections need to be handled. What you need to do is try to get the collection agencies to work with you in a pay for delete. In a pay for delete you offer ABC collections company $xxx.xx in exchange for them to consider the account satisfied in full AND agree to remove the account from all three of your credit bureaus. It is very important to get this in writing so you have proof in case something happens. For example. If you owe ABC collections $500.00 what you need to do is write them a letter agreeing to pay them a percentage I suggest starting with half but everone has their own way. So say I agree to pay your company $250.00 in excahnge for you to consider this account satisfied in full and that you will delete all records of the account from all three credit bureaus. They may accept, they may decline, or they may counter-offer. If they accept one you have it in writing pay them. If they decline try another pay for delete but raise the offer price. If they counter-offer see if you can agree with their offer. Once you have the agreement in writing and pay it then it should come off of your credit reports within 2 months. If you can do this with both in Jan you could feasibly have both off of your reports by March. Your score would see a great increase with the removal of all collection accounts.
2. Out of your 12 active accounts how many are installment loans and how many are revolving trade lines? The installment loans wont factor much but the revolving will. Your credit utilization plays a big factor in your score. Lets say you have $10000 in available credit limits and have a $9000 balance you are using 90% of your available credit. They dont like this. The lower you get the balances the better. Ideally you want to be between 1-9%. So on $10000 you want betwen $1-$1000 reporting. So if you have high utilization pay as much of this down as you can and you will see a score increase.
As it stands with your score and no down payment you can probably forget getting an auto loan. With this economic climate lenders are wanting alot down especially people with low credit scores. For example I recently made a used car purchase. I had a 623 at the time of the auto loan. I applied for a $9995 car and offered $2500 down. The dealership ran my stuff and had no lenders approve me. There is one local bank they work with on a special credit program. They allow them to get people with credit issues approvals that couldnt get them otherwise. So the finance manager went and talked to them and came back. He said they would work with me if I could put $3000 down. I agreed and got the loan with $3000 down at 14.9%. My payments are $260.35 a month. So you will be hard pressed to find someone to approve you. It will take a lender with a special financing arrangement like this one to get you approved as stands. Now if you get both collections removed, lower your utilization, and get a down payment you should be able to get a loan.
I know this may sound impossible but it can happen. Do you have a car now that you can use? Even if its not great or has some problems can you make it last a little longer? If not is there any public transportation you can use like a bus? Do you by chance live close enough you could ride a bike to work? If not maybe even someone that works the same place and lives close you could carpool with? You could offer them some gas money each week which will save them money and get you a ride to work?
If you can get rid of the collections, lower your utilization, and get a down payment you should be able to get a $10-$15K car in that range.
And another challenge is being new on your job. Most places like 1 year on the job but you can get financed with less. If you can get your transportation worked out for 3-6 months while you take care of the 3 things above your employment wont be as much of an issue.
Not trying to shoot you down but it is highly unlikely you willk get an auto loan in your situation until you get some things fixed. The other option would be if you had a cosigner but that is a dangerous road I dont like to travel.
I hope this helps a little and keep your head high and your eye on the prize and you will get there.
is it possible to go from something low to 700+ in a year?