The 10 Most Asked Questions on r/mining, Answered

Spend any time on reddit.com/r/mining and you might just notice a pattern that shows up fast: it's not really a community of people already deep in the industry, swapping trade talk.

It's mostly people standing just outside it, trying to figure out how to get in, whether they're too late, whether their unrelated degree is actually a dead end, and what the work is really like once the recruitment-brochure version is stripped away.

That makes it a genuinely useful place to read if you're asking the same questions yourself, so here's what actually comes up again and again, with straight answers to each.

1. How do I break into mining with zero experience?

This is the single most common question on the subreddit, in every shape: haul truck operator threads, "what opportunities exist for someone with no experience," and people asking whether a background in carpentry or site supervision on other kinds of projects can transfer into mining.

The honest answer is yes, and the door in is wider than most people assume. Entry-level operator roles, particularly haul truck positions, exist specifically because mining companies run structured trainee programs to keep a pipeline of new operators coming through. You don't need prior machinery experience. You need a clean licence, the ability to pass a medical and drug and alcohol screening, and a willingness to start in a support role rather than expecting to walk straight into the machine you want to run.

People coming from an adjacent trade or supervisory background, particularly in construction, are usually underselling themselves rather than lacking relevant experience. Site safety discipline, reading a schedule and managing a crew all map onto mining more directly than people give them credit for.

2. Is a mining engineering degree the right move, and am I too late to start one?

A cluster of questions all circle this: whether to do mining engineering at all, whether 32 is too old to graduate into it, and how to actually use the final stretch of a master's to land a vacation (internship-style) role before graduating.

The short version: mining engineering remains a genuinely in-demand, well-compensated path, and age at graduation matters far less than people fear. Employers hiring new mining engineering graduates are hiring for the degree and vacation-role experience, not for how many years you've had since high school. If anything, someone starting later often brings work discipline that a straight-from-school 22-year-old hasn't developed yet.

The vacation-role question deserves its own note: with roughly 18 months left, the move is to start applying now, not closer to graduation. Vacation roles are typically filled 6–12 months ahead of the placement, specifically because companies use them as an extended interview for graduate roles.

3. My degree isn't in mining. Where do I actually fit?

Physics graduates, geophysicists and people from other technical-but-not-mining backgrounds ask a version of this constantly: does my degree even matter here, and what does the day-to-day work of a role like geophysicist in a mining company actually look like?

The answer is that mining runs on far more technical specialisms than the job titles "miner" or "engineer" suggest. Geophysics is core to exploration, a physics background is directly relevant to instrumentation, modelling and increasingly automation, and mining companies actively recruit outside a narrow "mining engineering only" pipeline because ore bodies, equipment and processing all involve genuine physical science.

The honest caveat: you'll likely be doing something adjacent to core operations rather than running a mine from day one, and it's worth being specific in applications about which part of the operation your background actually maps to, rather than applying broadly and hoping it's obvious.

4. How do I land a FIFO job in Australia as a foreigner?

This comes up from people in London, from Canadians weighing a 2–3 year move, and generally from anyone outside Australia trying to work out if a FIFO career here is realistic.

It is, but visa and roster logistics matter more than people expect going in. You'll need a valid work visa before you can be considered for most roles. Australian mining companies fly workers out of specific regional hubs, and rosters are built around candidates who can reliably get to those hubs, so where you'll actually be based inside Australia matters as much as the decision to move at all.

The Canada comparison specifically comes up a lot because Canadian and Australian FIFO cultures are genuinely similar in structure, which makes the move easier to picture, but not necessarily easier to execute logistically.

5. What's mining actually like day to day? Is it worth it?

One of the more pointed threads on the subreddit pushes back directly on the idea of mining as a "lifestyle" people romanticise, insisting instead that it's real, demanding work. That pushback is worth taking seriously rather than reading as pessimism.

The roster premium and the money are real, but so are the physical and mental demands of the job, the adjustment to shift patterns and camp life, and the fact that a rewarding roster for one person is genuinely unsustainable for another. Anyone weighing whether it's "worth it" gets a more honest answer from people already doing the work than from a recruitment pitch, which is exactly why this kind of thread performs well.

6. What does mining actually pay?

Salary and pay threads are a recurring category, and for good reason: published pay figures move constantly with commodity prices, region and experience level, and generic "average salary" numbers found through a quick search are often stale or not specific enough to be useful.

The most reliable way to answer this for yourself is to compare figures for the specific role, region and company type you're targeting, rather than trusting a single number pulled from an old thread or a general list.

7. Is mining dangerous? What actually causes accidents?

A direct, unromantic question: what causes accidents in a modern mine?

It's a fair one, and the honest answer is that modern, well-run operations have made real, measurable progress through structured induction, verification-of-competency processes for new starters, fatigue management and radio discipline around heavy vehicle traffic. But the underlying hazards, including heavy machinery, ground conditions and remote and isolated sites, haven't gone away just because procedures have improved.

Most serious incidents trace back to a breakdown in one of those systems, whether that's a shortcut on procedure, fatigue or unclear communication, rather than the raw danger of the environment itself.

That's a genuinely useful thing to understand going in, because it means safety on site is something you actively participate in maintaining, not something that's simply handled for you.

8. What gear do I actually need?

Practical, unglamorous questions like "what gloves are good" show up more often than you'd expect, and they matter more than their size suggests. New starters are usually so focused on getting the job that they don't think through the day-to-day physical kit until they're already on site.

The general answer across this kind of question is simple: buy once, buy properly rated for the specific hazard, whether that's cut resistance, heat or chemical exposure depending on the role, and ask people already doing the exact job rather than guessing. Requirements vary considerably by role and site.

9. How do I find a mentor or community in the industry?

A quieter but genuine theme is people explicitly looking for a mentor or someone experienced to talk to, not just information.

This reflects something real about mining specifically: a lot of the industry's practical knowledge isn't written down anywhere findable. It lives with people who've done the work.

The most reliable way in isn't a cold ask for mentorship. It's showing up consistently in the same spaces, whether that's on site, in industry forums, through trade associations or even in threads like the ones on this subreddit, and letting a relationship develop naturally out of genuine, specific questions rather than a broad "will you mentor me?"

10. Where's the industry actually heading, and where else can you go with it?

The catch-all curiosity questions round out the list: what it's like mining somewhere specific like Alaska, what niche to focus on for the future, how to land an internship, and how new suppliers actually break into selling to mining companies.

These are less about getting a first job and more about people already thinking a few steps ahead, whether that's about specialisation, geography or the business side of the industry rather than the operational side.

There's no single answer here, but the pattern itself is worth noting: mining is a genuinely broad industry, and people who move beyond "how do I get any job in mining?" towards "where specifically do I want to end up?" tend to make better decisions about which roles and regions to chase.

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If any of this sounds like where you're at, whether that's your first move into an entry-level role, a FIFO application from overseas, or you're just trying to work out what a mining career could actually look like for you, have a browse of what's currently open on FiFoDiDo.