Petroleum engineering graduates, regardless of their country or university, are facing tougher competition for jobs this year.
For the students of Tom Engler, the job market was “really bad” this spring. “I’ve seen a significant drop-off in full-time hires and summer internships,” said Engler, professor of petroleum and natural gas engineering and former dean of engineering at New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology.
At the end of May last year, Engler saw nearly 100% of his graduates find full-time employment or pursue another degree. A year later, the number has dropped to 30%. The remaining 70% of students have not found full-time work. “I have several students who are staying here and getting minors or graduate degrees because there’s just no job market,” he said.Students who started their education during the height of the unconventional oil boom anticipating a strong demand for skills have had to adjust their expectations to fit the economy. Job openings do exist, but they must be diligently tracked down and not all positions are full time. Many graduates will have to be more flexible, working in jobs other than what they had originally planned. Some may have to look outside of the oil and gas industry, even if only temporarily.University of Houston (UH) graduate Jorge Pereida started his job search last fall, at the beginning of his senior year. And his effort paid off when he received a full-time job offer in November to work as a wireline trainee at Schlumberger.
Jorge Pereida, who graduated from UH this spring, worked in a more labor-intensive position when he could not find an internship. |
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Graduates who started their job hunts later are now at the mercy of a less friendly market. “I have friends who waited until the spring and they couldn’t find anything, because the [oil] prices are so low,” he said.
Pereida said his job offer has him scheduled for an August start date. However, he knows classmates in a similar situation who had their start dates delayed.
Demand has also temporarily declined for students of top US petroleum engineering programs with the best industry connections. Jennifer Wisler, president of Texas A&M University’s SPE chapter, said that recruitment on campus was down significantly at the beginning of the year.
To help students who had not received job or internship offers in the fall, the petroleum engineering department held a second job fair in February. “None of the attending companies were even hiring, so it ended up being more of an educational and inspirational event,” said Wisler.
Five Tips for Upperclassmen and Graduates
- Start early. An early start can give you an advantage over your peers, regardless of your grade point average or resume.
- Make connections. Any industry professional you meet is a potential valuable contact in the future.
- Use your career center. It only takes a few minutes to stop in each week and learn about new listings or how you can improve your search.
- Find work. If you cannot find the job you want, aim for the closest attainable position in the meantime.
- Be flexible. Be willing to work in a variety of places and positions to increase your likelihood of being hired.
There was some improvement by the end of the spring semester. Wisler said that many of her classmates were able to find relevant work, even if it was not what they had hoped for. “As far as full-time jobs, I know lots of students have been able to find work as a temp or a contractor at different service companies since then,” she said.
A few universities have managed to keep their rate of graduate hiring steady in the current economic environment. At the Colorado School of Mines, petroleum engineering graduates are being hired at a level close to last year’s, despite the decrease in industry activity.
One way the school’s career center accomplishes this is by tracking the employment status of students up to 2 years after graduation, said Jean Manning-Clark, director of career center and employer relations group. The school also conducts an annual employer survey that is answered by approximately 4,500 companies.
Finding trends in this data allows the school to react to slowdowns in full-time or internship hiring before they have a significant effect. Manning-Clark credited the school’s current success with graduate employment to more extensive meetings with recruiters and employers after its data showed a slight downtick in hiring in March last year.
However, the spring employment numbers come on the heels of what was an average fall recruiting season for most universities. The number of graduates hired this fall should be a clearer indicator for the rest of the year.
The South Dakota School of Mines and Technology is weathering the downturn by producing graduates who can find work inside or outside an oil and gas setting. For decades, the school has supported oil and gas activity in the Williston basin with geological, mechanical, and electrical engineering graduates. Last year, it expanded its program offerings to include a minor in petroleum systems.
While hiring is slow for its graduates looking for exploration and drilling-oriented careers, production and facilities hiring is steady, said Darrell Sawyer, assistant vice president of the school’s student and career development center.
He said that recently students have had the most success being hired by civil and environmental engineering firms such as Braun Intertec, which caters to a wide variety of industries, including oil and gas.
Malaysia
A Malaysian official said in June that Petronas would not cut the size of its workforce, despite a 41% drop in first quarter profits, according to The Star. Deputy Minister Datuk Razali Ibrahim said the company would have to hire additional engineers to maintain its operations, but he did not specify how many.
Norhana Harun, career guidance chairwoman at the SPE Kuala Lumpur Section, said that operating companies working in and around Malaysia have openings for local graduates. “National and international oil companies will continue hiring young petroleum engineers to ensure a balanced mix of junior, senior, and very senior for its succession planning program,” she said.
Service companies in Southeast Asia, however, have severely reduced their recruitment and are trimming their existing workforce, especially in the case of expatriates. Some opportunities exist for local job seekers, but Norhana described the service company sector as “mediocre” for graduate hiring.
Job Seekers Must Stand Out
Despite the rough times that many petroleum engineering graduates are experiencing, companies’ reluctance to hire will eventually be mitigated, regardless of oil prices, by the ongoing mass retirement in the industry, said Texas Tech University professor Lloyd Heinze. As more technical leaders retire, the pressure builds to fill their positions before the experience and skill gaps affect the quality of oil and gas operations.
However, for now, graduates looking to work in major oil and gas hubs such as Houston or Aberdeen are not only competing against large international talent pools, but also their own classmates. The number of US students enrolled in undergraduate petroleum engineering programs reached record highs before oil prices fell last year.
Six years after its introduction, the University of Houston’s petroleum engineering undergraduate degree program has become the school’s largest engineering major. Yolanda Brooks Brown, manager of cooperative education and internship programs, said she has been told by different employers that “we would love to take more of your students, but not all of our new hires can be Cougars [the university’s mascot].”
North Sea
Major oil and gas employers in the North Sea region have reduced their graduate hiring by an average of 10%, according to Anthony Onukwu, former chairman of the SPE Aberdeen Section.
The reduction will be felt most by graduates looking for jobs in well appraisal and well construction engineering. In a recent Ernst & Young report titled “Fueling the Next Generation: A Study of the UK Upstream Oil and Gas Workforce,” less than 2% of the firms surveyed said they were actively recruiting in these areas.
“While oil prices remain low, there are jobs that are still in demand, especially in areas such as operations, maintenance, and mechanical engineering,” said Onukwu. “Jobs that bring already green-lit projects on-stream, as well as running existing platforms as efficiently as possible.”
As operators work to reduce expenses and produce existing assets more economically, they will need engineers with strengths in information technology and knowledge of new enhanced oil recovery methods. A third of North Sea companies said they expected the decommissioning and abandonment area to create new jobs, the report said.
Due mostly to retirement, the number of oil and gas workers in the North Sea is forecast to decline by 10% by 2019. Over the next 5 years, Onukwu said that regional firms will need to hire about 12,000 employees to compensate for the gap left behind by retirees.
Students can increase their visibility by being creative and looking for any potential point of contact with the industry. “That foot in the door doesn’t necessarily mean a job,” said Brooks Brown. “It could be something as simple as working with them on a project, shadowing someone, or meeting them for lunch or coffee.”While networking is helpful to graduates looking for work in a slow market, there is no substitute for early preparation. This is especially true for internships, which are necessary for learning vital skills and attracting the attention of recruiters. “You should start looking as soon as you can. Start looking in your freshman year,” said Kendall Sizemore, who graduated from UH this year and now works as a drilling engineer at Continental Resources.
If no internship openings exist, students should not be afraid to reach out to companies about other kinds of openings. “If you cannot find an internship during your junior year, I highly recommend looking for any opportunity in the industry, including labor,” said UH graduate Pereida. “Because that’s what recruiters like.”
Pereida said he worked as a utility technician at United States Steel Oilwell Services during his junior year, after his search for a petroleum engineering internship was unsuccessful. His job included working with casing connections and accessories.
“Schlumberger liked that [work experience] a lot because it was in the field,” he said. “It boosted my resume and got me new opportunities.”