Welding course suitable for a job in heavy equipment company.

Hello! A friend of my father offered me a job in his heavy equipment manufacturing company. He told me I should learn welding as soon as I can and then they could train me and recruit me. I found an institute which offers some welding training courses, but I am confused about which of these courses should I learn. They offers a variety of courses like SMAW, GMAW, FCAW, MCAW, GTAW and some testing courses. I don't know the difference between these. How different are all these courses? Can anyone help me to choose a course to join?

How about taking a general welding course at a community college? This would acquaint you with what all these processes are. Manufacturers use advanced welding processes, mostly GMAW, FCAW, submerged arc and often robots to do these processes. SMAW and GTAW would be used rarely manufacturing heavy equipment.

As for what all this lingo means you need to read some books, take a course or go to weldingweb.com and other welding related websites and start reading the posts there

Greetings Taylor. nd Welcome!
Reading your post made me think of a factory millwright written and hands on skills test
which was given at a local school.
They had name brand newer welding machines that were
(Small in size ) beat! run past their Duty Cycle.... ( burned out )
Machines like these will weld ok and vertical. ....
but Good lucktrying to Stick weld over head with them.
......

a local school.

A burned out portable machine will a t the Same way.
Suppose your post was written as you posted. ....or some of these ways. ...
I need a Crash Course in Stick welding Overhead with a Portable machine in the Field
....in the elements. wind rain snow. ...
Look for someone in your area that has an F250 etc size truck with a Full Size Welding machine
( usually a 3 or 4 cylinder ).....

....I tried moving from typing on my phone to a PC
tech problem I'll add more of this thought or scenerio later. ..

I would talk to him about what welding process you'd be using. Just being able to weld may not be enough. Will you have to read prints? Understand all the various symbols? Or will you be tacking parts together in a jig so a robot or experienced welder can finish it out. In a day with a machine you could learn enough to tack stuff up if you have good hand eye coordination. Funny thing about welding is there is tons to learn and many different directions to go. What you'd learn in a field/pipeline course is one thing and a shop course is an entirely different thing. Get some more info if you can and report back. What's he willing to pay? No sense spending a big chunk for school if it's a entry level lower paying job. Find a small shop or somebody you can grind and clean up for that will teach you. If you weren't all the way up north I'd put you to work! Y'all would melt here right now! Haha

Junkyard.