Don’t feel pressured to become a scientist or doctor; there are more options out there
Growing up, Richard fancied himself a future pharmacist, but his career path took a completely different turn when he joined forces with CMV Group. What’s more, he couldn’t be happier with how it all panned out!
After starting in the company as a diesel mechanic apprentice, Richard’s career truly took off, and he now works as a technical trainer at CMV Group’s training facility. His years with the company have included some incredible highlights, such as multiple trips to Sweden and watching his trainees forge rewarding careers. If you ask us, it sounds like a pretty sweet gig, and we can’t wait to see where he goes next!
To discover how you, too, can follow in Richard’s footsteps and launch an incredible training career, tune in to our latest interview. It’s jam-packed with exciting industry secrets and titbits about:
- All the best bits about a career spent training others
- Tonnes of incredible technical innovations that technicians implement
- How the role of a mechanic/technician has changed over the years, and what it involves nowadays
- The many exciting opportunities for CMV Group employees to travel.
- How CMV Group sent Richard to Sweden (not once, but multiple times)!
Find Out More
Since the CMV Group’s debut in 1934 (back when the business consisted of 5 employees), it has undergone incredible growth and now stands as one of South Australia’s and Victoria’s longest privately owned businesses. Did we mention they now have over 1900 employees, too? Talk about being on a rollercoaster that only goes up!
Over the years, CMV Group have demonstrated a consistent prioritisation of their people and to helping them reach their full potential! Offering a variety of exciting, fast-paced careers, there’s a role for everyone at CMV Group, regardless of what you’re into.
To kickstart a career in the fast lane, head over to CMV Group’s employer profile today. Who knows, it might just inspire an incredible career journey!
Interview Transcript
So hey everyone, my name’s Richard Lim. I work as a technical trainer in CMV Group’s training facility.
So my standard day can vary a little bit. Some days I’m training apprentices or technicians about a truck, how to fix a certain part of the truck or about a system, and that can go for a full day, a full week.
How I started in this position probably back in 2011, I started as a diesel mechanic apprentice and kind of worked my way through the workshop all the way to being a trainer. I was offered a job as a trainer, and I saw it as an opportunity to pass my knowledge on to the younger people or even existing qualifiers in the field.
We’ve got heaps of branches to all career progression pathways to go towards, whether it’s management you’re looking at or a leading hand position or even a higher qualified mechanic like a master technician. We’ve got programmes to get you there.
I particularly enjoy training; I really enjoy passing knowledge on to the younger people, and I think that moment when they understand something or comprehend something or answer my life questions really shows me why I’m doing this job. It is rewarding when you see people understand something you’ve taught them and not just that, but utilise that on the job and then watch them progress in the future.
Being a mechanic in 2024 is totally different from being a mechanic in the 1990s or even 20 years ago in the early 2000s. Nowadays we’re known as technicians. Our technology is more advanced. It’s almost on par with a light vehicle, Mercedes Benz or BMW, or European cars.
We’ve got radar technology, cameras, adaptive cruise control. We’ve got the whole meal deal. So it’s not just grease and oil, and that’s the biggest misconception that we’re still hearing from the general public.
Yeah, from early on as an apprentice, that first rebuild you get to do on a 16-litre engine is just out of this world, you know, the size of the piston, removing a cylinder head which is over 100 kilos. It’s just mind-boggling.
Not just that, but I think in the workshop when you’re teaching apprentices, it’s a responsibility. But as soon as I stepped into the training position as a trainer, it’s a totally different level. Like the responsibility is astronomical.
I guess another highlight would be I got sent to Sweden a couple of times for a couple of trips. One was actually when I was on the shop floor as a mechanic, and I got told I’m going to Sweden to have a look at what they do there. That was the main purpose, just to do a bit of work there.
I think for me to see where Volvo came from was incredible. You know, if you asked me when I started my apprenticeship if I would have the opportunity to be sent to Sweden, I would say no way, but with CMV Group and the big company they are and having that relationship with the manufacturer.
We’ve sent heaps of people, a number of staff, I’m talking in the hundreds now, to our Brisbane factory, the Volvo Group Australia, Brisbane factory, assembly plant. We’ve also sent a lot of staff members overseas to the Sweden headquarters to have a look at how they operate there as well.
If I could go back in time and tell the younger me something, it’s not to be pressured so much. Don’t feel too pressured to be the scientist or doctor or whatever you think your advice is the option.
There are more options out there that I don’t even, I’m not even aware of today, and I’ve been in the workforce for 14-15 years, and there are jobs out there or industries that I’m not even aware of.
But for me coming up from high school, I did subjects leading to pharmacy to become a chemist or pharmacist, and life took me down a different pathway at university. I did electrical engineering, which was totally different from pharmacy.
But guess what? There was more to life than electrical engineering for me. So I took a couple of gap years, and then I decided to start an apprenticeship, and I wouldn’t go back. My biggest advice is probably to the young people out there: don’t be pressured by anyone to push you to do something that you don’t want to do.
