In the previous blog, we understood that without experimenting opportunities nothing comes easy in the oil and gas industry. From baby boomers to Generation X, the industry has been fluffing with plenty of opportunities, filling the pool of talent. This blog holds tricks of embracing opportunities concerning the Oil and Gas Jobs post-recession and COVID era, let’s make informed decisions by understanding if you are an ideal fit for the strategic hub, shall we?
1.Self-Introspection: It is significant to coin your likings to strike off the stemmed idea of stagnation and dwell on learnings to find out if you are made for the resilient Oil and Gas Industry. In no small measure, the oil and gas industry needs a team of professionals on the radar who is flexible with soft skills. Let’s dig deeper with self-introspection shooting questions at self to confirm if you fit the Oil and Gas Industry. You need to bombard yourself with a plethora of questions, however, ensure that you are honestly answering these questions otherwise the whole point of exercise will be lost.
a) Whom am I as a professional and what do I want?
b) What are my personal and professional goals?
c) What is it I really want to be doing after 5, 10,15 years?
d) Do I want to keep working on rigs? If yes, then how many years? If no, then do what? Do I want to run a business after 10 years?
e) Do I want a peaceful life my loving family at some remote location?
f) Do I want a job in the city? Do I want to keep working full time in the Oil and Gas industry or get a flexible career in which I can either build a business or work on gaining new skills and expertise?
Now that you know what you want from your life in 5,10,15 years, think about what you are good at.
a) What are my current abilities and what I am not good at?
b) Am I the person on the rig who has an eye for details? Am I that guy who can be friends with any nationality on the rig within a few minutes of a friendly conversation?
c) Am I someone whose paperwork is the best? Am I someone who always experiments new and innovative ideas?
d) Am I someone who cannot bear the sight of a dirty rig floor and want everything to be in its place, spick and span?
e) Am I someone who can speak multiple languages with the utmost ease? Am I someone who can do mathematics in the head?
f) Am I someone who really likes to mentor and teach new freshers who have just begun their careers in the industry?
g) Am I someone who keeps his cool in the most stressful situations?
h) At last, am I someone who has a mixture of all the above qualities?
2.Thorough Research: Once you have answers to your life goals and your own qualities, you then can research (use google, network, friends etc) to fill those gaps. Search for points such as:
a) How do I open a new business?
b) How do I gain more technical skills in Oil and Gas industry?
c) How do I improve my English-speaking skills?
d) How do I learn to work on MS Excel?
e) How do I become a mentor or a trainer?
f) Are there online courses that can provide me a diploma, engineering, a safety course, etc?
3. Adapting To Technology: In today’s times, you really don’t need to physically go to a classroom to study and learn, we have an entire world on our laptops and mobiles, merely a screen away. It’s just that we need to learn how to use them. You can get hands-on a few websites:
a) The website landing page of CREW App (GET’s mobile App to find short- and long-term jobs in Oil and Gas upstream market)
b) https://www.udemy.com/ (Free + Paid)
c) https://www.coursera.org/courses?query=oil%20and%20gas (Free + Paid)
d) https://online-learning.harvard.edu/ (Free + Paid)
e) https://www.petroskills.com/upstream (Paid)
4. Networking With People and Knitting Relationships: It is time that you realize the importance of networking. Networking makes you visible out there in the market and people tend to remember you for your expertise. Oil and Gas Sector. When they remember your name, they may extend an opportunity to you that you wouldn’t have expected. The best strategy for networking is “Give before you ask” and in no time you will see how your network grows exponentially. Sticking to social media handles including, LinkedIn, Glassdoor, Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook, you can very easily reach out to the people and create your brand. You can always read more about how to learn the art of networking, here.
5. Ask Questions for Detailed Evaluation: “No question is a bad question”, if you live by this thought your life will get simple. It is just that we have to learn to accept that we do not know everything and take every information as a stepping stone towards building the castle of learning. Asking simple questions will help you to break the ice. Next time, you chat with someone in the professional circle, ask them how is the world outside oil and gas and how do they go about learning new things and much more.
Now, let’s summarize what we have learnt so far. To battle the long-term shifts in the Oil and Gas Industry, we must open ourselves to new ways of working and learn to adapt to change. To do so, we need to take a step back and:
a) Introspect to know what we really want and what are we really good at
b) Research online or learn from friends about what is best for us
c) Leverage Technology / Internet to grow, rooted from learnings
d) Network online and in real-world to gain access to significant information
e) Ask questions to find what we don’t know
In the next blog, we will talk about training yourself, drafting a strong resume, getting ready to take scores of risks and believing in yourself.
