Careers

Mining Companies need well educated and trained engineers and scientists.  The SAIMM Career Guidance and Education Committee has assumed much of the work previously carried out by the Chamber of Mines in the area of Career Guidance and Education promotion, in the disciplines of Mining Engineering, Mine Surveying, Geology and Metallurgy.

The goal of the Career Guidance and Education Committee is the promotion of the mining industry through the dissemination of information to attract quality candidates for engineering careers. Furthermore, in light of the current acute engineering shortage, focus is placed on the retention and further development of good engineering talent in the industry.

The Career Guidance and Education Committee has developed an interactive CD to transfer mining industry information to scholars. A CD is included containing the program. The program transfers general information about different mining industry disciplines, career paths, and tertiary institutions which present these courses.  In addition, information about financing studies is provided to scholars.  A list of companies affiliated with the SAIMM is also provided.

The program and interactive CD can serve as a platform to transfer additional information about companies.  This could include videos, brochures and documents amongst others.

The objective of this initiative is to distribute the CD to grade 10 to 12 Science and Career Guidance teachers.  In addition, the program will be available on the SAIMM Career Guidance web page.

As mentioned, the mining industry is a major contributor to the gross domestic product (GDP) of South Africa. It offers job opportunities in a wide spectrum directly and indirectly involved. In the last decade the major mining companies has become international role players with operations on all continents (except Antarctica). This created opportunities for their employees to join these operations and experience foreign cultures. The companies have different employment levels which provide their employees to advance their careers in the company.

The industry also provides opportunities for professionals to set up consultancy businesses that provide companies with their expertise. Other opportunities include agencies for equipment manufactures.

Most learners aren’t sure how they want to earn a living, but if you get to know yourself and research different career paths that interest you; you could find yourself being paid to do something that you really like.

Planning your career is much like planning a journey with several stopping-off points along the way. You need to decide on your destination (career choice), what to pack in your suitcase (skills, qualifications, etc) and what route to take. Your career route is unlikely to be a straight line between where you are now and where you want to be in the future. Unexpected things do happen so you may have to change your plans before reaching your job destination. There is also the possibility that if you have not done enough initial planning, when you reach your destination, it may not be what you expected it to be. So, START THINKING AHEAD IN GRADE 11 (eleven).

Studying at a tertiary institution is an expensive endeavour which should be carefully planned. This planning should start early in Grade 12 to ensure success.

A number of options are available for the payment of your studies at a tertiary institution. These include the following
(i) Own funds
(ii) Bursary
(iii) Loans

(i) Own funds
You or your parents should make provision for your studies.

(ii) Bursaries
A number of role players provide bursaries to prospective students. These include companies, tertiary institutions, and government. Make sure that you apply early as the closing date in most cases is in the middle of the year. See their websites for more information.

Since the dawn of civilisation, the development of the human race has depended on the discovery, processing, development and use of materials. So significant were certain materials that stages in technological progress are marked by the Stone, Bronze, and Iron Ages.

When gold was first discovered on the Witwatersrand in 1886, few people, even in their wildest dreams, believed that reserves could last over a hundred years and become the mainstay of South Africa’s mineral industry. It has been the anchor of these value-adding activities which also produce coal, steel, platinum, chromium, ferrochrome, manganese, vanadium, titanium, diamonds and other minerals. The minerals industry continues to dominate South Africa’s foreign exchange earnings.

The successful development of an ore body requires the expertise from different disciplines to work closely together. The Geologist usually identifies a potential mine site and through scientific investigation determines if the identified ore body will be economical to mine. He / she determines the type of mineral present in the ore body as well as the levels of the mineral. This information is critical in the method applied to recover the desired mineral.

Chemical engineering is a set of disciplines equipping a person to address the development needs of processes. A person graduates with skills to design and install systems which can process a wide range of items including food, oil, and petroleum, various materials and minerals, the latter to intermediate materials and salts and eventually to metals; and much else. The chemical engineering qualification is well suited to metallurgical processing in the Mining & Metallurgy industry.

In a broad sense geology is the study of the rocks, minerals and structure of the Earth as well as the movement and changes occurring during the Earth’s history. As a result of the processes that took place on the surface and in depth, certain minerals and elements have been concentrated in specific areas to form mineral deposits. It is the geologist’s responsibility, in co-operation with the mining engineer and other professionals, to locate and evaluate such deposits and to determine whether they can be exploited economically.

Metallurgy is the discipline where ores are processed to valuable and usable products and metals. Extractive metallurgy is the combination of processes (hydrometallurgy, base processes, and sometimes pyrometallurgy, and eventually physical or materials processing) to remove valuable elements from ores, and process them into valuable salts or metals.

Mining engineering involves economically removing ore from the earth and delivering it in a manageable form to the Extraction Metallurgist for processing. The Mining Engineer is skilled in the knowledge of mining processes and must, through knowledge and experience:

Rock engineering is the discipline of designing and supporting stable excavations in rock. By understanding the properties of the rock quantitatively as well as qualitatively the design of stable excavations in mines is made possible.

Mine surveyors are responsible for maintaining an accurate plan of the mine as a whole and will update maps of the surface layout to account for new buildings and other structures, as well as surveying the underground mine workings in order to keep a record of the mining operation.

The Safety, Health and Environment (SHE) professional is concerned with developing and co-ordinating systems for the creation and preservation of measures for the safety and health of employees and visitors. This involves compliance with all safety and health legislation pertaining to the use of plant, machinery, equipment and all workplace activities. It also involves assisting in the supervision of investigation of accidents and unsafe working conditions and training management and staff in regard to safety and health practices and legislation. It also involves the establishment and co-ordination of emergency procedures, fire fighting and first aid and reporting periodically to management as to the status of safety and health measures.

The Safety, Health and Environment (SHE) professional is therefore one of the key contributors to the welfare of the mining industry.