Oil and Gas Opportunities for Graduates

While numerous employment opportunities are available on rigs for candidates who are mechanically or technically inclined, these applicants are more likely to get hired at best for an entry level oil rig position like roustabout or galley hand in catering. It's low end, tedious, often dirty work, who no one else wants to do and where the monetary compensation and promises of the promotion are the only happy facets.

From the other hand, a yesterday's student with a degree in engineering or science has every reason to expect to be admitted to the oil drilling industry at higher level of the entrance and with a bigger salary. Here are the listings posted by recruiters headhunting for graduates to work in upstream and midstream sectors of Louisiana's petroleum industry found on another site connecting American employers and oil rig job seekers:

• Oil And Gas Process Engineering Manager for the Gowan Group in Louisiana - North of Seattle, WA, full time position, $150k - $175k salary per year
• Oil and Gas Accountant - Bachelor's degree is preferred, though not required
• Dynamic Positioning Operator trained in technical calculations required to ensure safe operation positionning of offshore oil rigging facilities (drillship, semi-submersible etc.), strong communication skills
• Subsea IMR Engineer holding Engineering Degree with understanding of diverless intervention / ROV., to ensure the inspection, maintenance, repair and surveillance works for subsea infrastructure including pipelines
• Project Engineer w/Bachelors Degree to run installation engineering tasks in a project environment, responsible for preparation of offshore procedures and performing simple rigging calculations to asses oil rig lifting equipment
• Entry level Mechanical Engineer, BD, internship experience preferred
• Supply Chain Analyst I/II needed for oil job in Minnesota, Minneapolis - recent offer by Xcel Energy
• Directional drilling rig operator, must be college graduate with vocational course certificate
• Oil Rig Clerk wanted with educational background in offshore oil and gas drilling procedures allowing to efficiently support routine daily operations at every stage of project development, at least BD required

As one can conclude, it's evident that many Oil and Gas companies require quite a number of professionals to ensure smoothness and safety of the operations on their worldwide oil drilling installations from Alaska and Canad to Australia, Brazil and South Africa.

Availability of higher level oil production jobs with generous salary to match the bigger scope of responsibilities keeps growing, but it becomes really hard to meet requirements of such technical jobs brought to life by advent of the new generation of the sofisticated oil search and drilling equipment. For many positions the deficiency or incompleteness of oil & gas specific education can't be duly compensated by the hands-on experience only, since knowledge of the theory at times is crucial for managing some unavoidable emergencies that are inherent in oil exploration and extraction process, especially in offshore sector. It does have sense to make one's way to offshore oil drilling industry through going to college first. These days you've got high extent of probability your could get employed after your graduation.

By starting from acquiring the robust professional education that targets upstream oil industry you get invaluable opportunity to experience a genuine professional growth. Considering oil companies continuously run industry specific programs, seminars, and courses, you can shift specialties easily, taken you've got a solid foundation while in college or university.

The situation on the market of oil rig workforce is generally for the advantage of the graduates, so they at least could choose upon the size of the company to get hired by: big, average, or small.

Small companies are definitely what we would recommend, if you are ambitious and career oriented. Less competition, better chances for advancement. Being a graduate in the field increases your chances to get promoted to one of the managerial positions rather quickly.

Salary

The wages in oil drilling industry, especially it offshore sector, are exceptionally high. On average someone working in upstream earns nearly $US 100,000 per year. Anyway, this is like an average patient body temperature in a hospital: the figure is received from all the salaries across oil industry put together and then divided by the number of the people that oil rig employ nationwide. In other words, it includes both high paying drilling consultant with median yerly income of $US 235,586 and greenhand roustabout, whose job requires no formal education at all and whose entry level salary starts somewhere at $US 35,000.

Now, considering oil & gas career, at which of these ends would you like to find yourself?

Graduates Recruiting

Meanwhile, oil companies turned their eyes on colleges and univarsities in attempt to find good fits for many vacancies that require professional education, says JobMonkey. Students of the geoscience have been blessed to fall under special attention of recruiters looking for new hands and heads to be employed on oil rigs shortly as full time workers or as interns for summertime.

After quite a prolonged slowdown in the oil production industry associated with standstill on the oil workforce market, new wave of hiring came like a shock on students about to graduate. Oil companies found themselves in the situation when aging workforce can't continue waiting further for starting being replaced by the new generation of professionals needed to implement new technologies that would make exploration of the oil and gas deposit more efficient and even more lucrative. Young workers educated in the domain of crude oil exploration are needed badly already today, because the oil drilling in the world has started to increase dramatically. The good news is that the oil companies are more than willing to spend on salaries to be paid to intelligent young men and women who could use achievements of the science and technology to increase the oil production to satisfy the ever growing demand for oil.

Who can remember the last time when college graduates were offered entry level salary of the impressive 50-60K if not more? Now they are. Will you believe that average salary offer to a gradute petroleum engineer currently fluctuates at around $US 63,000? That's what another inustry specific survey revealed recently. Moreover, petroleum companies don't mind contracting even undergraduates and train them on site, never waiting until colleges and universities adjust their own educational programs for students studying petroleum engineering and geology.

The University of Texas, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Colorado School of Mines are knoen to have their geoscience programs in place.

You also may be interested in learning about:

Oilfield Training Program

Over 50 students became graduates of the Oilfield Training Program that was launched resulting the joint effort of the US oil & gas industry and the Job Corps Academy in Carville, LA. The enrollees learn different aspects of oil & gas exploration and get prepared to work in different entry-level positions available in different sectors of the American petroleum industry in general and on offshore oil rigs in part. The learning process is comprised of around 150 hrs of classroom training that cover:

• power systems and instrumentation
• rig types
• blowout prevention
• oil well logging
• pipe handling
• drilling fluids,
• casing and cementing
• HS&E

Paid and free of charge internships are available for students as a part the work-based learning course. The program offers opportunities for graduates to get entry-level work in the oil drilling in Louisiana. More information is available from the Oilfield Training Program coordinator Mr. John Taylor at (225) 642-3015. The program is available for US students only.