Human resources worth their weight in oil

High prices for oil and gas enable companies working in this segment of the market to put up significant capital into personnel. High salaries, impressive public and other benefits attract candidates. It would seem, under such conditions oil industry should not have any problems with human resources. However, the demand for qualified professionals is as high as it is for oil itself.

Today the oil-and-gas market is almost organized and its representatives are well-known. The names of the most famous enterprises are: Shell, Schlumberger, Baker Hughes and Petrofac, Lukoil, Gazprom, Sibneft, Tyumen oil company (TOC), Rosneft. The employer searches for professionals are not only experts in norms and rules of opreating (different normative documents), in home market, but also know international standards of designing and construction.

Whom to blame and what to do?

According to recruits, project managers, engineers, designers, experts on geophysics and ecological safety, managers of all levels are in high demand in the sphere of fuel-and-energy complexes. The managers for big projects are also sought for, for example, for construction of Complex Gas Treatment Installation or for maintenance of infrastructure on deposits. “The problem is that such experts are trained nowhere. Even at the institutes close to oil-and-gas field students receive only theoretical knowledge. The necessary staff of the top level are brought up in the company among capable young experts with specialized education and command of foreign languages who quickly absorb new information”, the company “Shevron” HR and administrative questions executive, Eugeniya Stanislavskaja says.

The interest to technical institutes renewed after 1998 together with oil boom. The market needed competent experts almost impossible to find: managers of big projects working in oil companies in the Soviet Union leave, but new personnel has not received experience yet. “Basically, it is the problem of oil-and-gas branch all over the world”, HR-manager of the company Petrofac, Anastasya Titova, remarks.

Not only employers “reject” candidates, but candidates, in their turn, frequently refuse perspective and highly-paid work. The most widespread reason is business trips. What can be done — the specificity of the branch presupposes frequent travels.

The portrait of an ideal expert

Among the professional qualities necessary for successful work technical knowledge is the first. Very few people without professional education reach success in oil business. Even HR manager should have a minimum knowledge of the technical side of projects to understand the difference between a drilling engineer and the expert on well development.

Experience is also important. For example, the geologist even with excellent potential will hardly be advanced to the position of a senior geologist of an oil and gas extraction enterprise within the first 5 years; he simply won’t cope. As experience shows, it usually takes 10-15 years to get practical skills of determination of reserves of minerals and their location!

The more responsibility the position implies, the higher requirements to personal qualities of the employee are. If the candidate pretends to become the project manager or the technical expert at a deposit, i.e. to have the work equal to dangerous manufacture, he should be able to make decisions in the conditions of the lack of information and to possess common sense lest his actions entail serious consequences.

The attentiveness is also a very important quality; in fact, the oil business keeps remainingone of the most “risky” business, because of our flawed legislation. Therefore, to avoid possible troubles, the manager is obliged to study all nuances of the project attentively: legal, financial and ecological ones.

But most important is the skill to work in team as in this branch, to a greater extent than in any other, common result depends on coherent actions of each member of a collective. The slightest mistake in the pipeline’s design may lead to the failure of a multimillion project!

Salaries

The level of salaries in oil-and-gas enterprises varies essentially. As well as the principle of their formation. Special standards are adopted in companies, by which one can define precisely a real market cost of this or that worker. Want to earn more? “Catch hold of specialization” and gradually receive new knowledge. As professional qualification increases your fee will increase too. To have really high income, it is necessary to “grow” (for example, from a chief engineer to a project manager).

No holds barred?

Oil companies differ from others not only by a wage level, but also by a principle of HR selection. In fact, enterprises of this branch are structures closed enough for a person «from the street» to easily penetrate into them. Here the succession and employment by using one's personal connections are accepted. Fortunately, these are not the only criteria for personnel selection. Now for search of interns and novice experts the employers more and more often use vacancies fairs and conclude contracts with professional high schools. However, today both people with technical education (physics, chemists, geologists) and people with humanitarian education (experts in marketing, lawyers, HR-s) are equally welcomed by companies. Though to get a desired post, the candidates should go through a more difficult competition. Selecting medium-level staff employers most often take into account CV education, experience and interview with the line manager. But such methods are not effective enough since the results are influenced by the candidate’s skill to write CVs, answer questions and by the subjective opinion of the line manager. But unfortunately, we live in a very dynamic age when recruiters have not enough time to use more effective selection methods that is why choosing top managers they are mainly ruled by references.

To carry out a complete research of personnel deficiency in oil-and-gas sphere is impossible at the moment since the market “is still not closed” enough. But it is already clear that the quickly developing sphere of fuel-and-energy complexes offers brilliant prospects both for entrants and for professionals.