Job Search Tips for Oil Rig Jobs

Find job on oil rigs

Regardless of upsurges and recessions, petroleum industry is growing at a bigger rate than ever, while the employment forecasts as for the number of the new vacancies in both offshore and land based oil and gas drilling in major oil producing countries like Brazil, the USA, Australia and Saudi Arabia will keep increasing, offering more career opportunities for both young and older job seekers.

Variety of oil rig jobs are there for the taking for both experienced and inexperienced candidates, and there's a room for more. Oil industry has been acknowledged one of the biggest job providers for electricians, mechanical engineers, helicopter pilots, ship captains, radio operators, medics, stewards, painters, rig safety and training coordinators, welders, crane operators, truck drivers etc. as well as for inexperienced men and women without college degree or any practical work at all. Below job seekers with oil companies are going to find some useful tips for a successful oil rig jobs search. Hopefully, they will be helpful in the terms of helping greenhand candidates to land a job in the oil industry to meet their earning potential. Start right away and get employed on the oil rigs tomorrow.

Introduction to oil rig job search

Before a complete novice to oil rigs and jobs that they can offer will start the search for their very first or entry-level oil rig job, it is important to do a little of your own research on the Internet in order to come to understand what specific jobs are available on the oil rigs. It's recommended first to find out which types of jobs are available on the oil drilling platforms and make up your mind on the country or locality (for example, Norway, offshore Aberdeen in the UK, Malaysia, Iraq, UAE, Russia, the North Sea etc.) you'd like to get your oil rig job at. Quite often the employment would involve good deal of travelling.

Requirements

Don't get discouraged, if you don't even have a college degree, to say nothing of prior experience of working on oil rigs - the opportunities are there. Rather often the recruiters don't even ask about your education, because oil companies require good, hard working people to fill the vacancies, not their diploma. You have to be healthy and capable to lift from time to time at least 50 lbs on a daily basis and be able to pass drug test to qualify. Of course, as a potentially successful candidate, you also need to be ambitious and motivated for professional growth. The latter is desirable, yet not obligatory. Yet being orderly and having a responsible attitude is crucial.

Oil rig jobs that don't require experience

The jobs on the oil rigs are plentiful, and many of them don't require experience at all. The jobs belonging to that category are: roustabout, roughneck, steward, galley hand, storeman, painter, scaffolder, electrician, motorman, medic, let's stop here, for the list may go on and on. Once you've been lucky to enter the oil industry, there are lots of opportunities for advancement. Having started as an ordinary maintenance roustabout, with the due attitude you may well climb up the career ladder and grow professionally until you become toolpusher or rig installation supervisor. The limit is the sky.

Recruiters

Oil drilling industry relies heavily upon professional recruiters to find and hire people for both entry level oil rig jobs and the professional people for filling the positions that require education. The candidates with University diploma are in demand for high end vacancies like project manager, offshore installation managers, chief electricians, IT specialists, chief engineers, specialists in directional drilling and others. If you are professional, it doers make sense to ask recruiter about your options on offshore oil rigs.

Oil rig vacancies directories

There are very handy oil rig job search websites on the Internet that post the vacancies with details and maintain the databases of the jobs available. They are mostly websites that require small membership fees to maintain themselves. From one side they represent accredited recruiters, while from the other offer the job seekers to create their own profiles and post their resumés so the recruiters could browse them and contact the candidates they find suitable. They help HR people and individuals looking for employment in offshore oil drilling industry meet each other. On such websites the candidates will predominantly find the oil rig openings for people with experience on oil rigs. For entry level no-experience candidates they could be of little use. In any case, they are a valuable source of information about what is happening in the upstream oil industry and what the life on oil rigs looks like.

Websites of the oil companies

For the most part the companies engaged in drilling oil rely on the third party recruiters to hire personnel for projects they have contracted to complete. Big players like Shell or BP don't post job openings on their websites, only occasionally and for the top positions. Some smaller companies do hire. It never hurts, though, to try to contact their employees, charged with hiring. If they agree to speak with you, make it your habit to follow up by calling them at least once per week or two. Thus you will either be told directly not to bother any more, or will be shortlisted for preliminary interview.

Resumé forwarding services

One of such online services is Rigworker. For a reasonable one time fee Rigworker will e-mail your resumé to oil drilling companies on their database. Some useful advice on their website is intended to educate greenhand oil rig job candidates on issues dealing with the right policy you should follow to get your desired job on oil rigs. Through this website you could market your self better than via any other channel.

Salary in oil & gas, low end and high end

Average salaries for non-skilled workforce in offshore oil drilling resides somewhere at $US 300 per day for the lowest paid manual work laborers, known within the industry as roustabouts (general laborers without experience of handling mechanisms) and roughnecks (the same, but with experience), which translates approx. to $US 47,000 per year. Administrative, supervisory, and highly competent engineering positions are compensated by thousands of dollars in annual wages. Most entry level positions on oil rigs don't require university degree or college. In fact, the only entry level position on oil rigs that requires university degree in Mud Engineer. High salaries in oil & gas industry can be explained by the fact that one week of operating an offshore oil rig may involve cost around $US 10 million, hence the need in highly skilled or very well educated employees - the cost of the mistake could be enormous, just remember the disaster on British Petroleum offshore oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico.

Being Persistent Is important

It is characteristic for oil drilling industry that most workers and engineers are provided jobs on contract basis rather than being hired for permanent positions. The HR management people recruit the team that will exist only for the span of time needed to complete a project, and once the development is over, the contracts for individual oil rig workers are over too.

As soon as project is announced, recruiting starts immediately. But the team manager can't always have the crew manned quickly and all positions filled to meet the schedule, while the time is pressing. Now just think. The same way as candidates seek oil rig vacancies, employers seek the right candidates that would hopefully be able to deliver the result: project managers, rig administrator, electricians, subsea engineers, toolpushers, drillers, derrickhands, stewards, cooks, camp boss, and, of course, roustabouts and roughnecks. As you may understand, it's not unusual to occur that finding the right person becomes matter of urgency.

So, instead of looking for someone with prior experience to fill this or that entry level vacancy requiring just physical force and great desire to work on offshore rig, the oil company HR ends up by giving chance to that annoying guy who was so much persistent never getting tired to call several times a week - he must be truly interested in that position! That's the real meaning of appearing in the right time at the right place. Getting your very first job on the offshore oil drilling rig normally happens exactly like this, because persistence is the sign of character, which has been always appreciated in oil exploration industry.

tags: Oil rig Steward CV tips. Catering Jobs on offshore oil rigs