FlightWay / Careers / Surgical Technologists

Healthcare

Surgical Technologists

Assist in operations, under the supervision of surgeons, registered nurses, or other surgical personnel.

Sector: Healthcare
Preparation: Zone 3 — medium preparation needed
O*NET code: 29-2055.00

What you'll actually do

The activities O*NET rates highest for this occupation, most important first. Numbers are out of 100.

Getting Information

central to the job — rated 88/100 for importance.
Assisting and Caring for Others

central to the job — rated 87/100 for importance.
Handling and Moving Objects

central to the job — rated 86/100 for importance.
Evaluating Information to Determine Compliance with Standards

central to the job — rated 86/100 for importance.
Inspecting Equipment, Structures, or Materials

central to the job — rated 85/100 for importance.
Identifying Objects, Actions, and Events

a major part of the work — rated 84/100 for importance.

Assist in operations, under the supervision of surgeons, registered nurses, or other surgical personnel. May help set up operating room, prepare and transport patients for surgery, adjust lights and equipment, pass instruments and other supplies to surgeons and surgeons' assistants, hold retractors, cut sutures, and help count sponges, needles, supplies, and instruments.

What it takes

Two numbers per line: the level the work expects, and how important it is to doing the job well. Both are O*NET ratings, already on a 0–100 scale.

Skills

Monitoring

Needed at a solid working level (50/100), and rated 69/100 for importance.
Active Listening

Needed at a solid working level (55/100), and rated 60/100 for importance.
Operations Monitoring

Needed at a basic working level (43/100), and rated 56/100 for importance.
Coordination

Needed at a solid working level (50/100), and rated 53/100 for importance.
Critical Thinking

Needed at a basic working level (45/100), and rated 53/100 for importance.

Knowledge

Customer and Personal Service

Needed at a high level (70/100), and rated 68/100 for importance.
Medicine and Dentistry

Needed at a high level (66/100), and rated 68/100 for importance.
English Language

Needed at a solid working level (50/100), and rated 61/100 for importance.
Education and Training

Needed at a solid working level (51/100), and rated 53/100 for importance.

Abilities

Oral Comprehension

Needed at a solid working level (57/100), and rated 75/100 for importance.
Near Vision

Needed at a solid working level (57/100), and rated 69/100 for importance.
Problem Sensitivity

Needed at a solid working level (54/100), and rated 69/100 for importance.
Speech Recognition

Needed at a solid working level (50/100), and rated 66/100 for importance.

How people get in

O*NET places this occupation in Zone 3 — medium preparation needed. That is a statement about what employers typically require, not a rule about you.

Education

Vocational training, an associate degree, or equivalent on-the-job experience.

Experience

One to two years of related experience is typical.

Training

Employers expect you to arrive with the core skill already.

What it pays

These are typical healthcare compensation bands by employer tier — sector-level figures, not a measured salary for Surgical Technologists specifically. Treat them as the shape of the market, then check a real posting for the number.

Mayo Clinic · Johns Hopkins

$130k – $300k

Regional Health Systems

$100k – $180k

Clinics & Private Practice

$80k – $130k

How the work tends to run

Each line below is read off a single O*NET activity rating for this occupation — named, so you can disagree with it.

The work is physical — you are on your feet and handling things, not sitting still.From “Performing General Physical Activities”
Long-running relationships carry the work; the same people come back.From “Establishing and Maintaining Interpersonal Relationships”
Rules and standards are checkable and someone checks them.From “Evaluating Information to Determine Compliance with Standards”
People depend on you directly, and that is the point of the role.From “Assisting and Caring for Others”

How FlightWay scores your fit against this

No black box. Here is the whole method, factor by factor.

1. You answer a short quiz: Your answers build a profile across the same 161 O*NET dimensions this page is describing — skills, knowledge, abilities and work activities. Same axes, so the comparison is like-for-like.
2. We correlate the two profiles: Fit is a mean-centered cosine — a correlation between the SHAPE of your profile and the shape of Surgical Technologists. Centering matters: raw similarity between any two occupations sits at 0.70–0.85 because all work shares a common profile, so without it every career would look like a match.
3. The number you see is personality fit only: "Would I want this work" and "am I ready for this work" are different questions, and averaging them answers neither. So readiness — what your résumé, coursework and projects prove — is scored separately and shown next to fit, never blended into it.
4. Every factor is visible: You can open any match and see which dimensions pushed it up and which pulled it down. If you disagree with the number, you can see exactly where it came from.

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Occupational data on this page comes from the O*NET 30.3 Database, published by the U.S. Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration (USDOL/ETA). O*NET is a registered trademark of USDOL/ETA. FlightWay is not endorsed by, and USDOL/ETA is not responsible for, anything built on that data — see our terms. What is ours is the comparison, the score and the plan.