Oil Rigs Employment The Truth About Interviews For Oil Rig Jobs

Do you feel stressed when looking for oil rigs employment? It’s natural. No matter how experienced you may be, everyone feels anxious when they have to look for a new job. For many people, the most frightening part of finding a job is the interview itself. And yet, by rights, this should be the least worrying part of your job hunt. This article discusses some facts about the oil rig job interview which should help to remove your interview anxieties.

Once you get your interview, you are well on your way to getting a job. Depending on the state of the economy, for every 5 interviews you attend, you could get up to 3 or even 4 job offers. The simple fact is that conducting interviews is expensive. Employers don’t like it because it takes away productive working time from their senior staff. That’s why most HR departments aggressively examine job applicants prior to shortlisting them for interviews.

In a booming economy, experienced oil rig workers can get job offers from their very first interview. But even in a weak economy, even the most inexperienced candidate for offshore oil rig jobs should receive at least 1 or 2 offers from for every 10 interviews he attends. If you are being rejected for every interview, you may need to consider whether or not you are suffering from self-sabotaging behavior. It is probably a good idea to take time out from your job hunt to seek professional counseling to fix this problem.

Sometimes you can see many advertisements for oil rig roustabout jobs and other offshore drilling jobs, especially in the free-to-use job boards like Monster. So you think you should have a good chance of getting an interview. But when you don’t get any calls, you start to lose confidence in yourself and your resume. Before giving up on working in the oil industry, you should know that many employers sometimes put out fake advertisements of vacancies to find out how easily they can hire new workers. If they find many unemployed workers, they will take the opportunity to pressure their existing workers to accept pay cuts or risk losing their jobs to someone who will work cheaper.

Clearing your interview is the last step to getting hired. So make sure you show the right attitude to your interviewer. You need to that you are tough, independent, have initiative, and are a team-worker. You also need to show the interviewer that you have at least some of the skills needed to work on an oil rig. Even though you have already stated your relevant skills in your resume, the interview is where you convince your future boss that you have some of the needed skills and are able to pick up more of what’s needed.

Interviews for oil rigs employment are stressful. But if you keep the facts above in mind, you should find some of your worries melting away. It is all a numbers game – attend enough interviews and you will definitely get a job.

Offshore Drilling Employment Are You Looking For A Sample Cover Letter For Offshore Oil Rig Jobs

If you are looking for offshore drilling employment, you need HR to read both your cover letter as well as your resume. First, you need to attract their attention. Then you need make them interested enough to read your cover letter. Your cover letter must make them desire to read your resume, and finally, your resume must get them to shortlist you for an interview.

Forget the perfect cover letter. There is no such thing. What turns on a particular HR officer will just bore a different officer. What formats they like best largely depends on which university they got their degree from. However, what can be definitely said is that the first half-page of your cover letter is the most important. It must contain at least one of these three powerful elements.

1. What Is Your Most Relevant Job Experience?

This is one of the major criterion HR uses to decide whether or not to trash your job application. When competition for an oil rig job is stiff, you need to immediately show that you are qualified for the vacancy. You have to put forward your most relevant prior job experiences and tie them to the job scope and qualifications listed in the job advertisement. Keep it clear, short and simple, and direct HR to your resume for more details.

Nothing beats qualified practical on-the-job experience, but if you don’t even have any relevant training then your chances are practically nil. The oil industry is of strategic importance to most industrialized nations, so there are often relevant courses offered by technical colleges. In the US, the Department of Labor’s JobCorps program offers some form of subsidy for disadvantaged youths. Some local state governments may also offer further subsidies. The UK is no different. In addition, ex-servicement also receive subsidies to train for the oil industry.

Training doesn’t come cheap, but it beats submitting a blank resume with no experience. When you go through regular channels, you won’t beat rivals who have relevant real job experience. On the other hand, every chance you grab to put Lady Luck on your side is a step closer to getting offshore drilling employment.

2. What Are Your Outstanding Points

Now that you have persuaded the HR personnel that you are qualified for the job, you need to tell them what makes you special and why they should open your resume. To do this, you need to show either more breadth in your experience, or more depth.

An example of showing more depth is having more years of experience than everyone else. For example, an offshore roustabout position may specify 2 years of relevant experience. If you have 5 years of experience, you’ll clearly beat out quite a lot of your rivals for the vacancy.

Another example would be rig welding jobs. Do you have a “6 GR” certification from CITB (UK) or certification from AWS (US)? Can you provide examples of welding particularly tricky joints that can be found on an oil platform?

How about more breadth? Let’s say you are looking for work in the motor room. Do you also have some experience or training in electrical work? Can you offer a two-in-one deal to HR? If the company hires you to be a mechanic, can you sometimes help out the oil rig electrician?

3. Start Work Immediately

No company likes to wait for a job candidate to become available. Just like you want a job now, they want a worker now! That means if you can start work immediately, you can sometimes trump a rival with better experience.

This isn’t the only point. Working of an offshore oil rig involves a lot of red tape. If you can show HR that you’ve already cleared all the red tape needed to hire you, they are more likely to put your resume in the “Call For Interview” pile. After all, it means you are saving them a lot of work.

So what kind of red tape do you need to wade through? That depends on where you are going to work and who you are going to work for, but here is a sample:

Firefighting
First aid
Helicopter underwater escape training
Offshore survival
Vaccinations
Passport
Visa
Relevant local union membership

You’ll note that some of these hurdles don’t make sense. That’s fine – government rules don’t always make sense, and things only get more complicated when you mix in the unions and trade associations.

Cover letters for offshore drilling employment must highlight your most important points and persuade HR to read your resume. Unless you are getting a job through the back door, your cover letter together with your resume can make or break your job application.