Why Choose A Career In Heavy Equipment?

Many people look at heavy equipment operations as a job and not as a career. This is a mistake when, in reality, every job can be a career – it is just a matter of perception and whether you plan and working in a position ‘just for now’, or to make it a life long job. It’s funny how for many who make it a ‘just for now’ job are still doing it 20-30 years later!

So why choose a career as a heavy equipment operator? What will it offer you and is the work going to last your lifetime? Let’s start with the last question first – will it last. As long as we build houses, factories, shopping centers and other buildings, or construct roads or have mines for resources, there will be work for heavy equipment operators.

What does a career in heavy equipment offer you? Let’s look a couple of key points:

Lifestyle: yes, working as a heavy equipment operator can also be a lifestyle decision. You can choose to follow the work, for example construction and road building trends; work in isolation in the mining industry; or perhaps become self employed.

Variety: you can decide to specialize on one piece of equipment or you can be a general operator with experience on a wide range of machines. The broader your experience, the more varied your work will become. That is not to say that most specialist operator don’t have variety as well.

Environment: if you’re an outdoors type person then the roll of heavy equipment operator will suit you to a tee. You get to work outdoors, however, in most modern machines you can close off the cab to keep excessive heat or cold out – the best of both worlds.

Income: heavy equipment operators are well paid workers when you compare them to many others in the construction industry.

Portability: an experienced and well trained heavy equipment operator can work in many parts of the world. They can certainly work every where within the country. The only proviso is that some states (and countries) may require special operator licenses.

The key to being a successful heavy equipment operator is in the training and the initial experience on the job. ATS Heavy Equipment Operator Schools can help you get both. We provide top quality accredited training on a wide variety of heavy equipment. Once your training is finished, we can also help you to find the right job for your circumstances. A job where you can put your training to good use and start to develop the experience that is necessary to be successful as a heavy equipment operator.