Getting into FIFO

Mining jobs in Queensland with no experience: what is different from WA

Queensland mining runs differently from WA. What a green applicant needs before they apply, and where to start.

By The Hiring Desk · Senior HR Professional · October 2026

Most FIFO advice is written for Western Australia. Queensland is a big mining state too, but it works differently, and applicants who copy the WA playbook miss things the Queensland screen looks for.

Where the work is

The biggest concentration is coal in the Bowen Basin, around towns like Moranbah, Dysart and Emerald, with Mackay as the main service hub. There is gas in the Surat Basin and metals in the north west around Mount Isa. A lot of Queensland roles are drive-in drive-out or bus-in bus-out from regional towns, not just fly-in fly-out from Brisbane. If you live in or near Mackay, Rockhampton or Townsville, you are often in a better spot than someone in Brisbane.

What Queensland sites expect you to have

A Standard 11 induction. Queensland mine sites generally need you to have completed the Standard 11 generic induction before you can go on site. It is a short course from registered providers, and having it before you apply tells a screener you have done your homework. There is a separate underground version if you are going underground.

A coal board medical, for coal. Coal mine workers in Queensland need a medical under the state’s Coal Mine Workers’ Health Scheme. Employers usually arrange it as part of hiring, but know it is coming.

The usual basics. First aid, a manual driver’s licence, and the tickets the ad names. White Card if the role touches construction.

Requirements change and differ between sites, so always check the ad and ask the employer what they need.

The roles that take green applicants

Labourer and trade assistant roles through contractors and labour hire. Camp and village services. Operator traineeships, which several companies run, often aimed at locals in mining towns. And civil and construction work around the mines, which counts as site experience on your next application.

How to get in

Get your Standard 11 and first aid. Register with labour hire firms in Mackay and the Bowen Basin. Apply direct to contractors as well as the mining companies. Put a Queensland point of hire on your resume if you have one, and say plainly that you can drive in. If you are willing to live in a mining town for a while, say so. It is one of the surest ways in, for the same reasons it is in WA.

The rest of the hiring side is the same in every state: the thirty-second screen, the socials check, the drug and alcohol test. Start with how to get a FIFO job with no experience and the free readiness check.

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.