switch to oil&gas - interview tips more than welcome 9

[321GO]

Hi to you all!

Well due to circumstances i'm forced to become a member of the job-seekers club and thinking about jumping the automotive ship in the process altogether(fed up).

I'm hessitant to do a touch&go-restart in the same automotive industry for to be layed off again in the (near)future, no thanks. Meanwhile the oil&gas seems to be booming and seems to be a lot more STABLE employment in general.

Furthermore I've always had a interest in oil&gas industry, i'm not much of a watch maker i like the 'bigger stuff', so that's ok also.(some family members where oil&gas too).

Now, are there certain things that would make me less of a noob during my interview(s) so that i can study on those in the meantime?

- certain regulations?
- frequently used DIN/ANSI norms?
- frequently used / popular drilling rigs?!
- current trends?!

Any help/tips more than welcome! I realy want to land this job badly!!!

 

[moltenmetal]

DannyGlover: my grandfather didn't have much education, but even he knew that you make hay while the sun shines, because when it's raining you won't be making sh*t. Advice to live by-

 

[zdas04]

In 1986 the industry hit its first major bust. 80% of the people in Oil & Gas on January 1, 1986 were not in the industry on December 31, 1986. We went from almost 500,000 people employed in the industry to just over 100,000 during that awful summer. A depression is often defined as 30% unemployment, so we were in a depression until the staffing levels reached 350,000--that happened in 2002. Since the end of the 16 year depression (didn't see anything about that on the news did you?), there have been 5 layoffs that each reduced the industry by more than 10%.

In 2008, I read about a major Oil & Gas company that was reducing its workforce by 12% on the same day that I received an job offer from that company.

Before 1986, there was an expectation that if you had a clue and ANY sense of loyalty, then you could retire from your first professional job. Several hundred engineers started with the company that hired me out of school in the month that I started (June, 1980). By 1990 there were 3 of us left. When I retired in 2003 there was one left (and he has since retired). It is nearly unheard of today for either the companies or the employees to show any loyalty at all. Consequently, the industry's reluctance to laying people off ended for all time in the summer of 1986.

If you're looking for stability you came to the wrong window.

David

 

[patprimmer]

David

Are those numbers for USA or world wide including Arabia and North Sea.

Regards
Pat
See FAQ731-376 for tips on use of eng-tips by professional engineers &

http://eng-tips.com/market.cfm

for site rules

 

[lacajun]

Rig Count Data

 

[IRstuff]

My favorite General Manager, mainly because he was a straightshooter, likewise told us at a lunchtime talk in 1994 that we should no longer expect to work at any company for more than about 5 years.

Everyone thinks some other industry is more "stable" particularly when their own is in turmoil. Most engineers here think that being a doctor is the ticket, while my doctor wife, battling with inept EMR software, thinks engineers have it easy.

Bottom line is to do something that you're willing to jump out of bed to do, and not because it's "stable;" there ain't no such thing.

Egypt and Yemen have recently demonstrated that even "stable" governments that have lasted 30-40 yrs can fall in the blink of the eye of history. Even companies that existed for over 100 yrs and survived the Depression like Montgomery Ward can vanish into the sands of merchandising history.

TTFN

FAQ731-376
Chinese prisoner wins Nobel Peace Prize

 

[zdas04]

Pat,
They are U.S. The impact on the rest of the world was about the same percentage, but I don't know the body counts.

David

 

[ewh]

Like the old saying, the grass is always greener on the other side, until you look down and see the dirt.

"Good to know you got shoes to wear when you find the floor." - [small]Robert Hunter[/small]

 

[321GO]

"Like the old saying, the grass is always greener on the other side, until you look down and see the dirt"

bollocks IMHO, often misused to 'accept' resignation

 

[patprimmer]

Well the figures above indicate that the grass at O&G is not consistently green.

Regards
Pat
See FAQ731-376 for tips on use of eng-tips by professional engineers &

http://eng-tips.com/market.cfm

for site rules

 

[zdas04]

When I started in the industry, there was a progression. A new engineer would start in a field office doing operations stuff. Project work was incidental, most of their time was spent on optimization and troubleshooting. This generally lasted about a year. Then you'd go to a Division office to work on "bigger stuff" (multi-well workovers, input to reserves analysis, etc.). After a couple years of that, you either went back to the field as a District Engineer or went to the Region for a specialist job. After you had ticked all those boxes you would start your career. At every step there was older and wiser heads that had to sign off on your projects before you could screw something up that could have been stopped.

Today, many companies have VERY regimented "Challenger" programs whereby everyone is supposed to get the same training, same exposure to actual work, etc over their first three to five years. Mostly these programs are run by administrative dweebs who don't know the difference between a Challenger being stuck in a position with no other engineers and one who was mentored. Also the population of "older and wiser" heads is getting really thin on the ground.

These kids (average age of Oil & Gas engineers is under 30, which includes the few remaining dinosaurs) come into Oil & Gas companies not knowing much, spend 3-5 years ticking boxes with little real learning and then are turned loose to sink or swim on multi-million dollar projects. On many of these projects the ONLY engineer who sees the details is the teenager who is miles out of his depth. I get called in to fix a lot of these disasters.

This scenario is not good for the young engineers, the companies, or the industry. But as the industry becomes progressively more MBA-driven, the attitude that engineers are interchangeable-cogs becomes more and more prevalent. A few more big spills, big explosions, and big economic failures and the MBA's will crawl back into their holes (hopefully dragging their "supply-chaing management" garbage with them), but right now they are running the show and the show is getting scary.

David

 

[321GO]

moltenmetal (Chemical)
"My suggestion would be to focus on being a good generalist, with transferrable skills- and write your resume accordingly"

Thank you moltenmetal, although it's fairly general and perhaps obvious i do think it's useful

 

[321GO]

zdas04 (Mechanical)

"But as the industry becomes progressively more MBA-driven, the attitude that engineers are interchangeable-cogs becomes more and more prevalent. A few more big spills, big explosions, and big economic failures and the MBA's will crawl back into their holes (hopefully dragging their "supply-chaing management" garbage with them), but right now they are running the show and the show is getting scary"

I have noticed this mindset at local Consulting companies. A lot of them are eager to hire just about every Bachelor/Master. They have the mindset that if you are an engineer you can jump wagon at days notice and shine like a veteran in the job the next month.

When i asked WHO would train me in all those different fields, their answers made me want to crumble up and die.
Where are the days that the new guy would be trained on the job by an old timer to prevent serious cr@p from happening. It really was a WTF moment for me.

So zdas04, thanks for that piece of advice, although i was aware of it somewhat.

 

[ctopher]

321GO,
I hope you find the other 'general' and 'obvious' suggestions/comments above to be useful.

Based on the comments, what have you learned? What are your plans?

Chris
SolidWorks 10 SP4.0
ctopher's home
SolidWorks Legion

 

[jmw]

I hope you noticed the thread further don on resume tips and interview questions.

It was interesting to see Schlumberger featured a few times in the interview questions - field engineer positions.



JMW

http://www.ViscoAnalyser.com

 

[controlsdude]

Use of MBA running companies and no technical skills. I remember my first time this happened to me. It was my first job where I was being directed by an MBA and no other support from engineers. I thought something was wrong with my skills but later came to the conclusion it was his attitude about not giving any useful suggestions or engineering overall guidance. Guy was really useless as far as I was concerned. If you hear this as the only solution from some manager, "Make the problem go away", you know you will never get any real help from that manager.

 

[SNORGY]

Stars for the folks for some great humour to start the morning, and to zdas04 for pretty much nailing it re: MBAs etc.

Where I work (Canada) there is now an almost panic-stricken drive towards "mentorship" by universities, companies, Regulators and even the professional engineering associations in an attempt to compensate for what has been decaying in this business for the past three decades. Smart, young people who are untrained become smart, middle aged people who are equally untrained.

You don't fix this with MBAs. You fix this with engineers - of whom there are fewer and fewer good ones as time goes by.



Regards,

SNORGY.

 

[OneDay11]

I worked in civil (construction and design) up until this year. The engineering job market where I live is totally dominated by O&G. I ended up getting a job planning NDT packages for offshore rigs. I openly admitted that I was a total noob in the O&G side of things during the interview. I have constructed modules and facilities for O&G but a pipe spool is just a pipe spool to me… I only care about how easy it is to weld. Anyhow, the O&G industry here is booming, good luck trying to find anything outside of it around here. I actually know people doing process design that studied environmental engineering. It does suck starting from scratch again. Very little of my technical background carries over in this industry. The one thing I can hold on to is my ability to learn, work with people, and try to do my best no matter what shows up. If at one point you do make the switch to a new industry it won’t take long before your bitter feelings about the old industry dissolve and you are actually left with positive memories. Yep, I can say that about my old job even though I was laid off just like you.

 

[delagina]

i have worked in O&G/Petrochem/Refinery industry all my career life. so whats the question again?

 

[321GO]

Despite my overenthusiasm for O&G i still see it in a failry positive way.

I read a prensation from allseas.com in which they see a fairly stable setting till somewhere around mid-century(at that point demand & production are forecasted to level out they claim). From that moment on oil/gas prices will increase and as an effect renewable sources could leap ahead. Even so, O&G demand will continue from that moment on i'm sure(sorry treehuggers)

Furthermore engineers would be in demand because of the increased difficulties in extraction in general.

They also noted -as zdas04 already pointed out- that young engineers needed long term practical experience before making their way up to managing(just wanted to mention that).

 

[delagina]

it seems you're knowledge of o&g is just drilling.

oil and gas industry is a HUGE industry. there is downstream, upstream, midstream, there's EPC, there's supermajors.

you may want to research which industry within O&G industry you want to work