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Read chapter 2 free: how the FIFO screen really works

Chapter 2 of How to Get Into FIFO, in full. The screen, the socials check, the phone call and the medical, from the hiring side of the desk.

By The Hiring Desk · Senior HR Professional · From How to Get Into FIFO (and get asked back)

This is chapter 2 of How to Get Into FIFO (and get asked back), word for word. No email needed. If it is useful, the other ten chapters are the same: what actually happens on the hiring side, in the order you need it.

Most people never get past the first thirty seconds and never find out why. Here is what happens to your application on the hiring side.

The first thirty seconds

A recruiter with two hundred applications is not reading your CV. They are scanning for five things, and if any one is missing or unclear, you are gone before they reach your work history. Can you legally do the job: the licence, the trade certificate, the tickets the ad named. Are you available for the roster and the point of hire, meaning which airport you can fly from. Are you medically ready, or at least not flagging anything. Have you done any site or industrial work at all, including labour hire, farm, warehouse or trades assisting. And do you look like a safety risk on paper.

That is it. A CV that answers all five in its top third gets read. One that makes the recruiter hunt does not.

Yes, they check your socials

This is the one nobody tells you. Recruiters and hiring managers look at your Facebook, your Instagram and anything else public before they ring you. They are not looking for whether you are fun. They are looking for the things that end up as a site incident: drunk posts, fights, drug references, racist or sexist jokes, bagging out a previous employer, anything that says “this person will be a problem in a camp of eight hundred people”.

A private account with a sensible profile picture costs you nothing. A public one with your mates’ Saturday night on it can cost you the job, and you will never know that was why.

The phone screen

If the CV passes, the next step is usually a short phone call. It is checking three things: that you are who the CV says, that you are genuinely available for the roster and can get to the point of hire, and that you understand what you are signing up for. “Why FIFO?” is not a trick question. “I have a goal, I have talked to my family, I know what a two-and-one does” is the right shape of answer. “The money” on its own is not.

The medical and the drug test

Every serious site requires a pre-employment medical and a drug and alcohol screen, and a good share of first attempts fail. The screen picks up cannabis for weeks after use, amphetamines including some ADHD medications, codeine in over-the-counter painkillers, and benzodiazepines. If you use anything recreationally, stop well before you apply. If you take prescription medication, get the documentation sorted with your doctor before the medical, not after.

The medical also checks hearing, lungs, vision, blood pressure, sometimes weight, and whether your back and joints can handle the role. If you have doubts, see your GP first.

Testing does not stop once you are in. Random testing, pre-swing testing on some sites, and for-cause testing after any incident are all normal. People are caught every week. If you think you can manage it around a roster, you are wrong, and I have seen careers end that way more than once.

Before you move on

✓ My CV answers the five screen questions in its top third
✓ I have gone through my public social media as if I were the recruiter, and fixed it
✓ I am confident I would pass a drug and alcohol screen today, or I know exactly when I will be

What is in the other ten chapters

What FIFO actually is. The ticket budget, with a planner that adds it up as you tick. Your way in by starting point: no tickets, qualified but no callbacks, mature-age apprenticeships, moving to the regions, labour hire, a trade. The CV that gets a call in thirty seconds and where to apply beyond the big operators. The phone screen and interview, and the one safety answer that matters. Your first swing and the mistakes that end people, in the order they end them. The camp rules nobody writes down. Looking after yourself. The twelve-question readiness check and a thirty-day plan. And a chapter of official sources so you can check every claim yourself.

It opens in any browser, works offline, saves your progress as you tick, and comes with a print PDF and the Employer Map: 50 places to apply, by state, with a tracker. A$49, yours to keep.

The full playbook, from the hiring side

How to Get Into FIFO (and get asked back): the recruiter's screen, the ticket budget planner, your way in by starting point, the CV and interview, and the unwritten rules of your first swing. A$49, opens in any browser, yours forever.

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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.