Top 12 Rigger Skills to Put on Your Resume

Crafting a compelling resume as a rigger means showing the sharp blend of technical know-how and steady safety habits that keep heavy moves predictable and clean. The right skills leap off the page and reassure hiring managers you can plan the lift, read the loads, and bring everyone home safe.

Rigger Skills

1. Crane Operation
2. Signal Communication
3. Load Calculation
4. Knot Tying
5. Slinging Techniques
6. Safety Compliance
7. Rigging Gear Inspection
8. Heavy Lifting
9. Fall Protection
10. CAD Software
11. Project Management
12. Emergency Response

1. Crane Operation

Crane operation, from a rigger’s seat, is the choreography of safe lifting: preparing the load, confirming limits, guiding the operator, and steering the path so nothing surprises you midair.

Why It's Important

Precise crane operation keeps heavy lifts safe, on schedule, and controlled. It protects people, gear, and the job’s timeline.

How to Improve Crane Operation Skills

1. Get trained and certified: Formal instruction and recognized certifications build the shared language between rigger and operator.

2. Do pre-op checks, every time: Inspect crane, rigging hardware, slings, ground conditions, and weather. Fix what’s off before the lift, not during it.

3. Plan the lift: Weight, center of gravity, rigging points, sling angles, travel path, swing radius, ground bearing pressure, and wind limits—write it down and brief it.

4. Use clear communication: One designated signal person, standardized hand signals, and radios with repeat-backs if line-of-sight is lost.

5. Respect limits: Know the crane’s load chart, configuration, radius, and boom restrictions. No guesswork.

6. Control the space: Establish exclusion zones, spot pinch points, and post a watch for blind spots.

7. Debrief and refine: After the lift, review what worked and what wobbled. Fold lessons into the next plan.

How to Display Crane Operation Skills on Your Resume

2. Signal Communication

Signal communication is the tight, unambiguous channel between the signal person and the operator—hand signals, radios, eye contact—so the machine moves only how and when it should.

Why It's Important

Noise, distance, and blind corners distort voices. Clean signals cut through all of it, reducing errors and keeping the lift honest.

How to Improve Signal Communication Skills

1. Master the standards: Use recognized hand signals; don’t improvise.

2. Designate one voice: A single signal person in charge, with a clear backup if line-of-sight fails.

3. Ensure visibility: High-visibility gear, good positioning, and lighting that favors the signaler.

4. Radio discipline: Simple phrases, repeat-backs, and clear channel assignments. No chatter.

5. Pre-lift brief: Review signals, hazards, and emergency stop. Everyone nods before you roll.

6. Practice under stress: Low light, wind, and noise drills build muscle memory.

How to Display Signal Communication Skills on Your Resume

3. Load Calculation

Load calculation is the arithmetic behind safe lifting: weight, center of gravity, sling angles, hardware limits, dynamic factors—everything the gear will feel when the hook takes strain.

Why It's Important

Numbers tell you what’s safe. Wrong numbers lie, and things fail. Accurate calculations protect people and equipment.

How to Improve Load Calculation Skills

1. Nail the weight: Use documentation, scales, or measured estimates. Don’t assume.

2. Find the center of gravity: Sketch, measure, or test-lift lightly to confirm balance before committing.

3. Compute sling angles: Lower angles raise tension. Calculate leg loads and keep within rated capacities.

4. Check hardware ratings: WLLs, D/d ratios for wire rope, and deratings for shackles, hooks, and below-the-hook devices.

5. Account for dynamics: Wind, acceleration, shock loads, lift speed, load shape, and potential snags.

6. Use the crane load chart correctly: Configuration, radius, boom length, counterweights, and required parts of line.

7. Peer review critical lifts: Have another qualified person or engineer verify calculations.

8. Document it: Keep calculation sheets with the lift plan. Traceability matters.

How to Display Load Calculation Skills on Your Resume

4. Knot Tying

Knot tying for riggers means choosing and dressing knots that hold true without mangling the rope or the plan. Often you lean on hardware and slings, but when rope matters, the knot must be right.

Why It's Important

Good knots secure loads, manage lines, and keep control. Bad knots slip, bind, or weaken rope unexpectedly. That’s a gamble you don’t take.

How to Improve Knot Tying Skills

1. Focus on essentials: Bowline, clove hitch, figure-eight variants, double fisherman’s, rolling hitch—practice until they’re second nature.

2. Mind rope strength: Knots can derate rope. Choose the right line and knot for the job.

3. Train with real conditions: Gloves on, wet rope, low light. Speed comes after consistency.

4. Inspect and dress: Every knot neat, snug, and backed up when required.

5. Know when not to use knots: For many lifts, certified slings and hardware are the safer path.

How to Display Knot Tying Skills on Your Resume

5. Slinging Techniques

Slinging techniques cover how you choose, protect, and apply slings—chain, wire rope, synthetic—plus the hitch type and angles that keep a load balanced and obedient.

Why It's Important

Right sling, right hitch, right angle. That trio prevents swinging, slipping, and damage, and it keeps the lift inside safe limits.

How to Improve Slinging Techniques Skills

1. Match sling to load and conditions: Heat, edges, weight, shape—select chain, wire rope, or synthetic accordingly.

2. Inspect before use: Tags present, no cuts, kinks, birdcaging, heat damage, or stretched links. Reject what’s suspect.

3. Choose the proper hitch: Vertical, basket, choker. Confirm the hitch suits the load geometry and contact surfaces.

4. Calculate angle factors: Lower angles magnify leg loads—do the math and stay within capacity.

5. Protect contact points: Use edge guards, softeners, and padding to prevent sling damage and load marring.

6. Balance and test: Tag lines for control, slow take-up to verify stability, then lift.

7. No shortcuts: Never tie knots in web slings. Never ignore a missing or unreadable tag.

How to Display Slinging Techniques Skills on Your Resume

6. Safety Compliance

Safety compliance means working to recognized standards and site rules—OSHA requirements, ASME B30 series, and other applicable regulations—so the job stays lawful and safe.

Why It's Important

Compliance isn’t paperwork; it’s prevention. It trims risk, avoids damage, and protects the crew while keeping projects moving.

How to Improve Safety Compliance Skills

1. Know the rules: Understand applicable regulations for cranes, rigging, fall protection, and lifting operations in your region.

2. Plan the work: Job safety analyses, lift plans, and toolbox talks before the first shackle is picked.

3. Inspect relentlessly: Gear, cranes, anchor points, and work areas—document findings and pull anything questionable.

4. Empower stop-work: Everyone holds authority to halt unsafe actions. No penalties for speaking up.

5. Keep skills current: Ongoing training, refreshers, and practice drills so procedures stick when it’s loud and busy.

How to Display Safety Compliance Skills on Your Resume

7. Rigging Gear Inspection

Rigging gear inspection is the disciplined check of hooks, shackles, slings, blocks, and below-the-hook devices to ensure they’re fit for service and properly rated.

Why It's Important

Tired gear fails when you lean on it most. Inspections spot the trouble early, before it turns into an incident.

How to Improve Rigging Gear Inspection Skills

1. Follow criteria by component: Hooks (throat opening, twist, latch), shackles (pin fit, threads, markings), blocks (sheaves, bearings), and beams (labels, welds).

2. Assess slings precisely: Wire rope (broken wires, kinks, birdcaging), chain (stretch, bent links, wear), synthetic (cuts, abrasion, UV or heat damage).

3. Verify identification: Tags, WLLs, and manufacturer marks must be present and legible.

4. Apply remove-from-service rules: If it meets a reject criterion, it’s done. No “just this once.”

5. Document and segregate: Record inspections and isolate condemned gear immediately.

6. Use advanced methods as needed: Non-destructive testing for critical components when visual checks aren’t enough.

7. Calibrate your eyes: Periodic refresher training and cross-checks with experienced inspectors sharpen judgment.

How to Display Rigging Gear Inspection Skills on Your Resume

8. Heavy Lifting

Heavy lifting in rigging means planning and executing high-consequence lifts with cranes and specialized equipment—where loads are big, clearances are tight, and margins are thin.

Why It's Important

These are the lifts that define a job. Done right, they save days. Done wrong, they risk everything.

How to Improve Heavy Lifting Skills

1. Write a critical lift plan: Criteria, calculations, rigging diagrams, exclusion zones, roles, and contingency steps.

2. Know the ground: Ground bearing pressure, mats, outrigger pads, and crane setup tolerances—verify, don’t hope.

3. Sequence the move: Pick points, turns, handoffs, and set locations mapped out and briefed to the crew.

4. Watch the weather: Wind limits, gusting patterns, visibility, and temperature impacts on gear.

5. Drill the team: Walkthroughs and signal checks before the lift; slow test pick to validate assumptions.

6. Guard the perimeter: Hard barricades, spotters, and a clean, enforced exclusion zone.

7. Protect people physically: Use mechanical aids for manual handling, proper ergonomics, and team lifts for smaller but awkward loads.

How to Display Heavy Lifting Skills on Your Resume

9. Fall Protection

Fall protection covers systems and habits that stop falls or stop the hurt from a fall—guardrails, restraint, arrest systems, anchors, and the rescue plans behind them.

Why It's Important

Riggers work at edges, on steel, near openings. A slip is unforgiving. Fall protection keeps a mistake from becoming a tragedy.

How to Improve Fall Protection Skills

1. Use the hierarchy: Eliminate the hazard first; then guardrails; then restraint; fall arrest only as a last line.

2. Fit the PPE: Correctly sized harness, inspected lanyards or SRLs, and compatible connectors—adjusted to you.

3. Select solid anchors: Engineered points or those rated appropriately; verify structure and location.

4. Calculate clearance: Total fall distance, swing fall, and rescue time considered before tie-off.

5. Plan rescue: A written, practiced method to retrieve a suspended worker quickly.

6. Train and refresh: Regular drills and equipment inspections so habits stick.

How to Display Fall Protection Skills on Your Resume

10. CAD Software

CAD software helps riggers turn plans into clear drawings and models—lift paths, rigging layouts, and clash checks that make complex work predictable.

Why It's Important

Good CAD work clarifies intent: where the crane sits, how the load turns, what the slings see, and whether anything collides on the way.

How to Improve CAD Software Skills

1. Start with 2D lift plans: Layers, blocks, title sheets, and scaled site layouts that show cranes, radii, and exclusion zones.

2. Build simple 3D studies: Model the load, rigging, and nearby structures to check clearances and swing paths.

3. Standardize templates: Create reusable details for rigging symbols, sling angle tables, and notes to speed consistency.

4. Reference real data: Import surveys, floor loads, and crane charts; keep everything to scale and documented.

5. Practice parametrics: Make lifting beams, spreader bars, and hardware adjustable to match changing scenarios.

6. Tell the story: Clear annotations, step-by-step sheets, and isometrics so crews can execute without guesswork.

How to Display CAD Software Skills on Your Resume

11. Project Management

Project management is the planning, coordination, and control that shepherds a rigging job from idea to demobilization—on time, on budget, and without surprises.

Why It's Important

Rigging is logistics-heavy. The right plan aligns people, cranes, permits, and parts so the lift happens once and happens right.

How to Improve Project Management Skills

1. Define the scope: Objectives, constraints, and acceptance criteria—no foggy edges.

2. Break down the work: A workable schedule (Gantt or similar), with critical path and contingencies.

3. Resource smartly: Crane size, rigging gear, lift directors, transport, and site access—all booked and confirmed.

4. Manage risk: A living risk register with owners, mitigations, and triggers.

5. Communicate daily: Briefs, check-ins, and change control so updates don’t get lost in the noise.

6. Close and learn: Capture lessons, update procedures, and archive lift plans for the next one.

How to Display Project Management Skills on Your Resume

12. Emergency Response

Emergency response is the practiced, immediate action that steadies the scene when things go wrong—dropped loads, equipment faults, medical events—so chaos doesn’t multiply.

Why It's Important

Minutes matter. A prepared crew can stop escalation, treat injuries, and return the site to safe control.

How to Improve Emergency Response Skills

1. Write a site-specific plan: Roles, contacts, routes, equipment, and decision trees tailored to the work and location.

2. Drill realistic scenarios: Radios down, line-of-sight loss, suspended load, first aid. Practice until responses feel automatic.

3. Train the basics: First aid, CPR, bleeding control, and equipment isolation procedures.

4. Maintain rescue gear: Inspect and stage it where it can be reached fast; assign ownership for checks.

5. Communicate redundantly: Primary and backup channels, with a universal emergency stop that everyone recognizes.

6. Debrief after incidents and drills: Capture gaps and fix them—documents, gear, training, or layout.

How to Display Emergency Response Skills on Your Resume