Your first swing

Why new FIFO starters don't get asked back: the first-swing mistakes

Getting the job is the easy half. Whether you get a second swing is decided by things that never make it into a performance review.

By The Hiring Desk · Senior HR Professional · September 2026

Between my husband and me there is a FIFO household of my own, on and offshore, and twenty years in HR on the hiring side of the desk watching who came back for a second swing and who quietly did not. It is almost never about the work. Here is what actually ends people, in the order I have seen it happen.

Getting caught up in the drama

Every camp has gossip, grudges and someone who wants an audience. The new starter who joins in gets remembered as part of the problem. Keep your head down, be pleasant, be considerate, and let things play out. Take a step back before you take a side. You will have plenty of time to have opinions once you have been asked back.

Thinking you know it all

Even with twenty years in a workshop, this site does it their way and there is a reason, usually written in someone's incident report. Watch first. Ask second. Suggest improvements on your third swing, not your first.

Sick days

Absenteeism on a roster is noticed fast and remembered for a long time, because your absence lands on your crew. If you are genuinely crook, use the absenteeism line and call it in properly, so people know where you are and nobody has to do a welfare check on your room. A no-show is a duty-of-care event, not a day off.

Drugs, and what you leave in your room

You will be tested, and for-cause testing after any incident is automatic. That much everyone knows. What they do not think about is the room. A lot of people are into peptides and similar at the moment; leaving those, or anything else questionable, lying around your donga is a mistake, because the cleaner comes in every day and your room is a workplace. Anything out that is unsafe or could offend someone is a health and safety matter and it gets reported before smoko. Treat your donga like a desk in an open-plan office, not your bedroom at home.

The camp bar, and security

Getting too drunk and saying things you regret, to the wrong person, in front of the wrong people. Starting on security. Both happen every week on every camp and both end swings. Whatever the limit is, drink under it. Set your own limit lower than the camp's before you get there.

Harassment, and where "work" starts

Sexual harassment ends careers, and it should. And understand that the charter flight, the airport terminal at the point of hire and the bus to camp are all treated as your workplace. Harass someone at the airport and it is dealt with exactly as if it happened on site. Do not date someone's missus. Do not date someone's cousin's missus. Do not cheat on your partner up there and assume it stays up there. Camps are small towns with long memories.

The small stuff that isn't small

In the crib room, watch where everyone sets up before you sit. People have their spots and their routines, and the new starter who plonks himself in the wrong seat on day one has made an enemy for nothing. Laundry is sacred: never touch anyone else's, never pull it out of a machine, never leave yours in the dryer while the queue builds. Quiet hours are real, because half the camp is on nights and asleep while you are awake.

The paperwork side. Read your agreement before you sign it, and know two things from it: how you raise a pay query and how you raise a grievance. Both have a channel, and using the channel is how you get taken seriously; going to Facebook is how you get marked as difficult. If you hit a genuine employment problem, a union membership can be worth having.

The whole secret

Say good morning. Learn names. Eat with your crew. Ask the older hands how things are done and then do them that way. Be the person who is easy to have around. It sounds soft, and it is the single most reliable predictor I know of who gets a second swing. The rest, the rosters, the money, the getting in, is in the six doors and in the guide.

The full playbook, from the hiring side

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About the author. The Hiring Desk is a senior HR professional with twenty years in HR across Australian mining and construction, most of it on the hiring side, who still works in the industry, which is why there is a pen name and no surname. Nothing published here is about any one employer; it is how the industry screens, hires and runs sites, from someone still inside it. A FIFO household of her own, onshore and offshore. Author of the The Hiring Desk guides.