How to drive a truck or front end loader is what most people think the employers want. This couldn’t be further from the truth. The experience the employers are looking for is mining, they want someone who knows how a mine works and knows all the relevant terms. As an underground shift boss teaching someone to operate a truck is easy, what is hard is teaching someone about mining and operating a truck at the same time. This is the information you are looking for in order to impress the interviewer. You will make the employer more comfortable in employing you if you can show them that you have spent your time researching the job you want.
Knowing how an underground mine works is a valuable commodity these days and if you can answer these questions then you have something to sell the mining employers.
- What do you need to do if you smell stench gas?
- When scaling what should you do if a rock slides down the scaling bar?
- What are the duties of employees?
- Why is it important to water down correctly?
- Secondary ventilation needs what to be effective?
- If I move my cap lamp in a circular motion what do I want you to do?
- How should you park an LV underground?
- Discuss safety and how the candidate is going to improve their safety once on site?
- What are the steps involved in taking a cut?
- What four things make a heading serviceable?
- When scaling, where should you never scale?
- When watering down the stope what are you looking for?
- When extending the services what needs to be done before re-installing the headers?
- When hanging services where is the smartest place to stand in the basket and perform the work?
- Why is pooled water so dangerous in an underground mine?
If you want to learn this stuff the best way is the do the Underground Training online courses. If you are not sure that underground is for you have a look at our seminar Australian Mining, not only does it contain how to write a mining friendly resume it covers what to do if you want to apply for a surface job.