An Irish backpacker has had her dreams shattered after a big mining company deemed her TikTok skills insufficient to carry out the entry level job on the mines.
To help combat the negative aspects of the job, mining companies have largely relied on backpackers glamorising the industry on TikTok and thus luring more people to work the gruelling hours for frankly insufficient pay.
An industry insider told The Times that the candidate was given ample opportunity to show the hiring panel that she was able to cut a video about her daily routine and pair it with a trending track to gain traction on the platform. Adding,
“People often ask us why we like to hire people with no mining or construction experience and NO it’s not just so we can pay them as little as we can, it’s also so they can run positive PR for us. Let’s face it, many people find the long hours and lack of personal freedom that comes with working in FIFO to be a slog, so we get these backpackers to make it look awesome for clout and we leech off that good will”
In the mining companies defence, they did direct the young backpacker to one of their “Glorify the Industry” training modules and urged her to reapply once she got a following of around 5000 people.
We spoke to the candidate who was left feeling a little deflated by it all. Adding,
“They let some meathead in because his awful nutrition and alpha male TikToks had netted him a few thousand followers. They said he’d be a good fit to trick people into thinking access to a gym is worth missing all of life’s moments being stuck in the middle of the desert”
Better luck next time!
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