If you’re looking at a heavy equipment career you have a number of options available to you. These include the area you may wish to specialize in and how you can enter that area of choice. Despite, or perhaps because of, the recent economic downturn, heavy equipment operators are in demand and some employers feel that this spring and summer will see shortages of suitably skilled people in many heavy equipment areas. How do you get your start then?

You have a number of options and they all start with training. If you’re not professionally trained to operate heavy equipment these days, most employers won’t look at you. There are plenty of training options available. We suggest you select only those training organizations that are accredited to deliver nationally recognized training. This means any credentials you receive should be recognized nationwide.

ATS Heavy Equipment Operator Schools are one option. You can start by undertaking our free online training program, or you can contact us for information about course details. We can even post out information on training programs available. We have training centers in almost a dozen locations – there is sure to be one reasonably close to you.

If you wish to specialize in one particular piece of equipment, you can. Our training covers a range of machinery depending, the range will depend on which of our training facilities you attend. It is often a wiser move to wait until you have completed your training before deciding on which piece of heavy equipment you want to specialize in. In our experience, students soon develop a natural affinity with one or more pieces of equipment and that is then where they tend to specialize. Heavy equipment careers – they are in demand and the demand is growing. Contact us for more information on heavy equipment training choices.

If I was to pick one season that was best for commencing a heavy equipment career it would probably be winter. Demand for heavy equipment operators is at its peak during spring and summer. In the Fall, demand starts to drop off a little as projects begin to wrap up for the winter months. Winter, of course, can be reasonably quiet when it comes to demand. But then, you are not looking for employment yet – you are looking for training.

Therefore, the best time to start a career as a heavy equipment operator is during the winter months. During this period you can undertake your training and, if possible, follow it up gaining hands on experience. It may be just pushing snow around a heavy equipment yard – but it is still experience. Once winter has come and gone and construction companies are starting to gear up again, you will be training and experienced and ready to start the ‘real’ work.

Timing is important. If you start the process now, you could probably have everything in place to start training around mid-January. If you undertook your training through ATS Heavy Equipment Operator Schools, you would complete your heavy equipment training in early to mid-February (depending on when you commenced). A couple of weeks of experience with a willing employer and come March, when employers start to look for operators, you’re there ready and waiting.

Changing careers always takes a lot of thought and a lot of forward planning. In winter, things are generally quiet so this is the perfect time to go through that planning process. Get your timing right and you will be ready for that heavy equipment career just as employers start looking for operators.

It may sound strange, but soil type knowledge is one of the most important skills an excavator operator can acquire. Soils are not the same – that’s fairly obvious, but what I mean by that statement is that soils react very differently when being excavated. Knowing how they are going to act is an essential skill for an excavator operator.

Digging a trench in sandy soil is very different to digging in clay-based soils. Most clay-based soils tend to stick so it is fairly easy to dig trenches with walls. Sandy soils don’t stick so the walls will tend to fall back into the trench. This often means the trench needs to be wider thus creating more work.

You have the many soil types in between, each reacting slightly different to each other. And that’s not the end of the story. Soil can be made in layers and can include rock, which, in itself, is another set of knowledge. You can learn a lot about soil when you first undertake excavator training. However, it is experience that fine tunes that initial knowledge.

The next time you look at any heavy equipment operator, look beyond the basic skill of working levers and pedals. There is a set of skills based on understanding soils, rock types and often a variety of attachments for their equipment to deal with differing soils. Add to that the knowledge of safety and heavy equipment maintenance and you have highly skilled operators.

Excavators are only one type of heavy equipment, but they have become essential tools to our construction industry. As tools, they require highly skilled operators that have received their excavator training through a professional and accredited training provider.

Over the years crane operator training has consisted of anything from by-the-seat-of-your-pants training to in depth classroom training. What had been missing was some form of recognition of the skills of the operators. How you do your training is not as important as being able to demonstrate that you can safely use that equipment.

By-the-seat-of-your-pants training has always been interesting and sometimes fun to watch. However, it can also be extremely dangerous. Let’s face it, you are letting a complete novice get behind a powerful piece of equipment and teach themselves by trial and error. If they get it wrong, they get it wrong big time. What is an even bigger problem is that this type of training leads to poor work habits. Safety and machine maintenance lose their importance in the big picture.

In depth classroom based training is probably the exact opposite. You finish up with individuals who can tell you everything there is to know about operating a crane. The problem is, they have no actual experience at operating a crane.

Somewhere in between these two extremes (and trust me, they do exist) is a training program that provides both the in depth in classroom theory and the hands on controlled use of a crane. This combination, when implemented properly, can produce operators that are skilled at operating a crane whilst also having the theoretical knowledge about how a crane works, the safety skills required as well as experience using a crane.

You can add to this a standardized assessment instrument that can measure whether or not the student is actually competent in all areas of crane operations. Students that meet the minimum requirements to become a crane operator are issued with papers that make them Certified Crane Operators.

Certification not only recognizes the skills of the operator, they help to set a standard that all employers can relate to. Many states are now insisting that all crane operators are certified before commencing work on any project. If you are a crane operator that hasn’t been certified, perhaps now is the time to do something about it before you are left behind.

If you are an employer and you are not quite getting the best out of your workforce, you may want to consider engaging a custom training organization. There are few businesses that have the resources or skills required to intensively train their workforce although many try with less than satisfactory results.

Professional training organizations that have custom training programs available have a host of real advantages. One of the biggest often comes as a surprise to employers yet a careful study will reveal how true it is. Custom training is generally speaking far cheaper than trying to do it yourself.

Think about the costs associated with training just one member of your workforce. Someone has to do the training which means taking them out of the production cycle and placing them into a low producing position is one hefty cost. Other costs include developing a training program that can deliver the required skills immediately.

If you are not employing skilled training staff then there is a good chance that the training delivered could be ineffective – or worse. It could lead to the development of poor work habits. Cost is a huge factor and is a part of many of the other reasons that employers undertake custom training. These reasons include:

• qualifications and skills of training staff
• flexibility of delivery
• on/off site delivery of training
• assessment and awarding of certificates
• tailoring of training to meet specific goals

You may feel that as an employer you can handle some or all of these areas. The last point is a good example. You know what goals you want to achieve and how the equipment should be used to achieve those goals. That, however, does not mean you have the skills to develop a training program to achieve those goals, at least not without help. Custom training – is it right for you? Almost always – yes!

The construction industry is not everyone’s preferred area of work, however, the work itself is steady and readily available for heavy equipment operators. The work is varied; one day you may be clearing rubble from a housing development, the next you may be working in the city demolishing an old warehouse. The working conditions may not suit you either, particularly working outdoors in all weathers.

If you decide you do want to be a heavy equipment operator then you can rest in the knowledge that people employed in this area still enjoy regular, rewarding pay even while the job changes; there is simply more demand than there are qualified employees, and thus there always exist job opportunities.

ATS Heavy Equipment Training School can help prepare you for a job in the construction industry. Our short, comprehensive, training programs are accredited and recognized nationwide. The training covers a wide variety of heavy equipment, including modern bulldozers and excavators, all under the watchful eyes of qualified instructors.

If you are reading this post then the chances you are interested in a career as a heavy equipment operator. If that is right, you are almost there.

A career has a heavy equipment operator is not that difficult to achieve. One of your first steps should be to undertake our free online training program. Everything is done online and once completed you will be able to print out your certificate. If your happy with your results then it is a simple process to inquire about a hands on training program.

Training programs are conducted through a combination of in class and hands on the equipment style lessons. All training is broken down into easy to digest components which helps to make the learning experience less stressful.

ATS Heavy Equipment Training Schools can help make your ambitions come true. Your half there now – take the next step and realize your dreams.

There are many individuals to whom a career as a heavy equipment operator sounds appealing. The big problem for many, or the fear, is that after training they wont find a job to use the skills learned. For these individuals, a job placement service may be just what they need to get started.

The job placement service developed at ATS Heavy Equipment Training Schools has an excellent success rate with both employers and former students happy with the results. The school’s placement database contains thousands of employers who hire graduates on completion of training. In some cases, graduates are find employment before even completing their training.

Once you start your training the job placement service starts working with you helping you to locate potential employers. With thousands of employers in the database, finding the right one for you is not going to be all that difficult. In fact, you may have trouble selecting which employer you want to work for.

If you are employed through the job placement service they will continue to follow up to ensure that both you and the employer are satisfied and that the position is working well for you both. If employment is holding you back from undertaking training then speak to a representative from ATS Heavy Equipment Training Schools to see what assistance is available to get your career started.

Where bulldozers rely on brute strength to push dirt around, motor graders rely in finesse to finely ‘grade’ as surface. Motor graders truly are the fine artists in the heavy equipment family.

Bulldozers are short stout muscle men. Motor graders are long and narrow. Bulldozers are often sitting on tracks which make them slow and cumbersome. Motor graders are on wheels which make them fast and nimble. The bulldozer has a blade at the front, the motor grader a blade hanging from the middle of the vehicle. I could go on with these comparisons, after all, they are both heavy equipment that has been designed to push dirt around.

The biggest difference is that bulldozers push huge quantities of dirt over short distances. Motor graders make long passes gently taking the top surface and trimming and smoothing it until it has the right angle or the right slope.

Road making is a prime example of a graders work. All roads have a slight angle to them, carefully designed to influence the run off of water. On corners, these angles (or camber as it is known) is designed to keep the car on the right line going around the corner, particularly when going through mountainous or hilly areas.

Believe it or not, the bulldozer can do some of the work that a motor graders does. However it takes far longer and is not precise like a true grader. A grader would have difficulty doing the work of a bulldozer.

If you’re somewhat of an artist and would like to work in the heavy equipment field, then check out ATS Heavy Equipment Training Schools to see if we have the right training program for you.

There are many different types of equipment that come under the classification of heavy equipment. Some of these machines are specialized and training is generally undertaken on the job. A prerequisite to gaining employment and subsequent training for many companies is some form of heavy equipment training and experience.

One specialized machine that you wont see every day is the bucket-wheel excavator. These machines are used in surface mining and civil engineering. The bucket-wheel gets its name from the design – a large rotating wheel mounted on an arm or boom with a series of scoops or buckets on the outer edge of the wheel. As the wheel turns, the buckets remove soil or rock and carry it around to the backside of the wheel where it falls onto a conveyor.

Some bucket-wheel excavators truly fit the classification of heavy equipment. The can be over 200 meters long and up to 100 meters in height.

The largest machines are used in German strip-mining operations. They cost over $100 million, take 5 years to assemble, require 5 people to operate and weigh more than 13,000 tons. The MAN Takraf is recognised by the Guinness Book of World Records as the largest land vehicle.

Of course they are the giants. There are smaller bucket-wheel excavators in use. To operate on of those machines requires specialized training. This training is based on your knowledge and experience in using excavators or other heavy equipment such as bulldozers or motor graders.

You can receive training in heavy equipment such as bulldozers, motor graders and excavators through ATS Heavy Equipment Training Schools.