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Making yourself an easy win for Mining Employers
Making yourself an easy win for Mining Employers
The quickest way to get a mining production job in Australia, is by making yourself an easy win for mining employers. It really is that simple. So how can you make yourself an easy win? To do this you need to understand the problems mining production employers have with their Green (no mining knowledge) new starters. Unfortunately, every time we go through a great big boom (like we are in Gold and Copper) all the employer’s end up turning over more than 50% of their new starters.
It’s not anyone’s fault, the employers have spent millions on training rooms and simulators over the last 5 years without getting an improvement. Typically, it takes 2-3 months to get a green new starter up to speed and be a productive safe member (can be left alone to get on with the job) of the crew. However, only 2 in 5 new starters make it past the first six months and only 2 in 10 make it past 2years. This has been a long-term problem, that goes back decades.
You see all the employers all have the same problem, teaching someone to drive the truck is the easy part. For an underground truck it only takes a couple of weeks, they are all point and shoot automatics, very few people fail to learn how to do this. The problem is teaching the new starter enough about how the mine works, so they can be left alone to drive the truck on their own and be a productive safe member of crew. With most of the supervisor roles around the country being statutory positions, no supervisor will send a new starter on their own until they are 100% sure they aren’t going to hurt themselves or anyone else (this applies to all the new starter jobs).
The longer a new starter needs the buddy/babysitter in with them, making sure they are doing the right things, the more the pressure is ramped up on them. This means the longer it takes a new starter to get up to speed, the more uncomfortable it gets, the more people don’t what to be there and that’s where most of the turnover comes from. People that can’t get their head around how the mine works and where they fit into that process. Knowing how the employers mine works is a skill all employers need their employees to have, which most new starters overlook.
So, if you can show the employers that you know how their mine works and what’s going to be expected of on site, then you have something to offer them. This is where Underground Training has created an online training course to teach a new starter how the Hardrock underground mine works and the exact jobs the will have to do as a new starter (including what the buddy/babysitter should be showing them).
The idea for employers, is to supply them with a new starter that has all the theoretical knowledge of how the mine works, so they just need to onboarded like normal (which becomes revision), spend the two weeks teaching them the job (like they do with the Nipper or Truck jobs). Then a short time after that they should get a productive member of crew. As long as the employers make sure that the new starter has studied (people that have learned the information really standout) in the interview. Then they will get a good result, someone that will be up to speed in 3-4 weeks instead of the 2-3 months it normally takes. We have had a number of employers already taking advantage of people that have completed the training. This has seen the failure rate reduced to around 10%, we still get people fail but that’s got more to do with people blowing up breathalysers and drug tests than anything else.
Underground training has 3 different packages that a new starter can do. The DIY Introduction to Underground Mining training package includes all the online training and full instructions on how to redo your own resume (it takes about 2 hours to do yourself) and interview prep questions. If they want their resume done for them, then our 3 Step Plan package includes the full online training and a resume redo by an industry based resume writer.
If they want more hands on help, we also have our Workready package. This is where you get a ticketed WA shift boss to mentor you. They will make sure the new starter has studied and can hold a mining conversation with the foreman in the interview. The shift boss helps you with the mining information, gets your resume redone in house, does interview prep including a mock interview and comes up with a plan of where and how to get a start. This is Underground Trainings full service package.
If you’ve got any questions or if you’d like to talk to someone, leave your details in this link.
Hope that info helps
The Mining Coach
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