Water and Wastewater Treatment Plant Operators
Skills & Knowledge
Most Important Skills for Water and Wastewater Treatment Plant Operators
- Monitoring Equipment—Watching gauges, dials, or other indicators to make sure a machine is working properly.
- Monitoring Performance—Monitoring/Assessing performance of yourself, other individuals, or organizations to make improvements or take corrective action.
- Controlling Quality—Conducting tests and inspections of products, services, or processes to evaluate quality or performance.
- Maintaining Equipment—Performing routine maintenance on equipment and determining when and what kind of maintenance is needed.
- Operating Equipment—Controlling operations of equipment or systems.
- Reading—Understanding written sentences and paragraphs in work related documents.
- Repairing—Repairing machines or systems using the needed tools.
- Thinking Critically—Using logic and reasoning to identify the strengths and weaknesses of alternative solutions, conclusions or approaches to problems.
- Troubleshooting—Determining causes of operating errors and deciding what to do about it.
- Coordinating with Others—Adjusting actions in relation to others' actions.
Most Important Knowledge Areas for Water and Wastewater Treatment Plant Operators
- Chemistry—Knowledge of the chemical composition, structure, and properties of substances and of the chemical processes and transformations that they undergo. This includes uses of chemicals and their interactions, danger signs, production techniques, and disposal m
- Mechanical—Knowledge of machines and tools, including their designs, uses, repair, and maintenance.
- Education and Training—Knowledge of principles and methods for curriculum and training design, teaching and instruction for individuals and groups, and the measurement of training effects.
- Mathematics—Knowledge of arithmetic, algebra, geometry, calculus, statistics, and their applications.
- Biology—Knowledge of plant and animal organisms, their tissues, cells, functions, interdependencies, and interactions with each other and the environment.
- Public Safety and Security—Knowledge of relevant equipment, policies, procedures, and strategies to promote effective local, state, or national security operations for the protection of people, data, property, and institutions.
- Computers and Electronics—Knowledge of circuit boards, processors, chips, electronic equipment, and computer hardware and software, including applications and programming.
- Production and Processing—Knowledge of raw materials, production processes, quality control, costs, and other techniques for maximizing the effective manufacture and distribution of goods.
- Physics—Knowledge and prediction of physical principles, laws, their interrelationships, and applications to understanding fluid, material, and atmospheric dynamics, and mechanical, electrical, atomic and sub- atomic structures and processes.
- Customer and Personal Service—Knowledge of principles and processes for providing customer and personal services. This includes customer needs assessment, meeting quality standards for services, and evaluation of customer satisfaction.
Interests
Different careers may be a good fit for your personality or interests. This career is:
- Realistic—Realistic occupations frequently involve work activities that include practical, hands-on problems and solutions. They often deal with plants, animals, and real-world materials like wood, tools, and machinery. Many of the occupations require working outside, and do not involve a lot of paperwork or working closely with others.
- Conventional—Conventional occupations frequently involve following set procedures and routines. These occupations can include working with data and details more than with ideas. Usually there is a clear line of authority to follow.
Learn more about your interests. Take the MnCareers Interest Assessment.
Describe Your Skills
People who have worked in this career typically perform the following tasks.
These statements can help a prospective employer understand what you can do, on a resume or during an interview.
- Evaluating information to determine compliance with standards.
- Controlling machines and processes.
- Monitoring information from a variety of sources to find problems.
- Compiling, calculating, tabulating, or otherwise processing information.
- Making decisions or solving problems.
- Identifying information by categorizing, comparing, or detecting changes in circumstances or events.
- Inspecting equipment, structures, or materials to find or fix problems.
- Communicating with supervisors, co-workers, or people that work under you.
Careers that Use Similar Skills
The following careers use skills, knowledge, and abilities that are similar to those used for Water and Wastewater Treatment Plant Operators.
View more careers in the Agriculture, Food, and Natural Resources cluster
View more careers in the Environmental Service Systems pathway
This page includes information from the O*NET 24.2 Database by the U.S. Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration (USDOL/ETA). Used under the CC BY 4.0 license. O*NET® is a trademark of USDOL/ETA.
Source: You can learn about our data sources in the About Us section.
