OilCareers.com will be exhibiting at the Offshore Technology Conference from the 6-9 May 2013 at the Reliant Centre in Houston, Texas.

OilCareers.com is giving one lucky visitor the chance to win VIP deluxe weekend tickets to the NASCAR AAA Texas 500 – so it could be more than just your career gathering speed thanks to OilCareers.com!  Don’t miss your chance to win a NASCAR experience of a lifetime by visiting us on Booth #2241-H at OTC 2013.

The Offshore Technology Conference was founded in 1969, the event is held annually at the Reliant Centre in Houston.  OTC is one of the world’s biggest oil and gas conference’s held for the development of offshore resources in the fields of drilling, exploration, production, and environmental protection.

OTC attracts over 80,000 attendees from over 100 countries and has over 2,500 exhibiting companies every year.

We look forward to meeting you.

OilCareers.com recently participated at the Australasian Oil and Gas Exhibition and Conference (AOG) in Perth, Western Australia as a sponsor and exhibitor. The conference attracted over 10,000 delegates from both Australia and worldwide, all in attendance to see the latest in oil and gas technology, practices and trends.

With the opportunity to win an iPad mini, the OilCareers.com booth was a popular stop for delegates, who each had 15 seconds within a glass booth to grab as many tickets as possible; the highest score each day awarded an iPad mini and well-deserved bragging rights.  With 900 participants the competition proved tough, and over the three day conference a total of five iPad minis were awarded (following two score draws).

OilCareers.com also sponsored the Graduate Careers Day, which allowed OilCareers.com to meet with more than 850 tertiary students and new graduates from many of Perth’s universities. During an address to the congregation, Country Manager for Australia Jackie Kirk outlined some key tips for graduates entering the workforce:

• Identify companies you would like to work for and call them
• Research possible graduate schemes
• Participate in summer internship programs
• Attend career fairs, networking events & seek information from your careers advisors
• Register with recruitment agencies
• Network and utilise online job boards

We hope you enjoyed the conference as much as we did!

At OilCareers.com, the world’s largest online dedicated oil and gas jobs board, our objective is to provide our candidates with access to a variety of positions spanning the entire oil and gas supply chain and in turn provide recruiters and organisations with the highest quality skills to meet their needs.

That’s why, with the oil and gas forecast for the North Sea predicting a jobs boom of up to 50,000 new vacancies in light of recent prospects and developments, but the industry still feeling pressure from the lingering overcast of the global skills gap, our job has never been more important.

In line with supporting employers in their search, OilCareers.com in association with Forces Employment Fairs, an organisation with 26 years of experience in running events for the Armed Forces, recently introduced the Armed Forces Employment Fair to Aberdeen’s Exhibition and Conference Centre for the first time. This introduction aimed to attract fresh talent to the sector by means of transferable skills.

The fair saw 34 major multinational oil and gas organisations exhibiting and over 400 armed forces personnel turning out in search of new career opportunities and was open to all individuals regardless of whether they were in resettlement phase or just thinking of leaving.

The event not only offered sought after opportunities to employers, but in light of The Ministry of Defence announcing that a third round of 5,300 Army redundancies are to be made in June, the transferable needs of the energy sector also present a sustainable and secure outlook to families who face an otherwise uncertain future.

The Armed Forces Employment fair created a crucial shared value platform for all parties and with such a high level of turn out and positive feedback, it can be said that the event was a resounding success and just one of the on-going commitments that OilCareers.com continue to make in order to meet the growing recruitment needs of the oil and gas industry going forward.

OilCareers.com is a sponsor and exhibitor at the Australasian Oil and Gas Exhibition and Conference, known as AOG on 20-22 February 2013 in Perth, Western Australia. AOG is Australia’s largest oil & gas exhibition, with over 450 exhibitors from 16 countries and is a must-attend event for the oil & gas industry.

As part of the exhibition, OilCareers.com will be hosting an exciting prize draw centre, where delegates will be invited to participate in a “ticket grab booth” game, putting them in the running to win an iPad mini.   Visit us at booth 9 to be in with a chance to win!

OilCareers.com is also the naming rights sponsors for the Graduate Careers Day which is run in conjunction with the AOG conference on 22 February.  Now in its third year, Graduate Careers is an integral meeting point for employers and graduates and will attract more than 1000 delegates. The program gives tertiary students a better understanding of oil & gas career opportunities presented by the growing oil & gas industry, including graduate programs & vacation work.  OilCareers.com will be exhibiting at the Careers Day event to meet graduates and help them kick start their careers by registering on our site.

For more information about AOG, visit www.aogexpo.com.au

At OilCareers.com, the leading online jobs board for the global oil and gas industry, our objective is to provide recruiters and organisations with the best quality candidates for a variety of positions spanning the entire oil and gas supply chain.

That’s why at the Offshore Technology Conference (OTC) in Houston earlier this year (the world’s foremost event in the oil industry calendar and the chance to target the best talent across the sector) the OilCareers.com team decided it was a perfect opportunity to show off our creative side.

We were determined to find a way to make our booth stand out from the crowd of almost 2,000 exhibitors and reach out to the 90,000 visitors attending.

After much brainstorming we decided upon a traffic lights party concept. Popular in US youth culture and extending to UK campuses, it’s a dating game where the colour you wear or the cup you drink from, signals your intentions:

Red – not available

Yellow – could be tempted

Green – open to offers

So close is the relationship between employee and job, the traffic lights concept was entirely relevant, capturing the spirit of youth and creating something that attendees would want to get involved in.

Therefore we adapted the concept and did it the OilCareers.com way:

Red – happy in your job

Yellow – could be tempted to move – make an offer

Green – actively looking

Free soft drinks and cup sleeves (or ‘koozies’) were offered in red, amber or green reusable cups, backed up by a survey and disruptive media including three interpretive dancers dressed in red, green and amber morph suits which caused quite a stir, creating an enormous amount of attention and interest from those in attendance.

It achieved a level of engagement that was beyond even our expectations.

Not only did dwell time on the stand increase ten-fold with all members of staff having fruitful conversations with delegates, but over the course of the four days 1,500 cups were issued and the global overall traffic to OilCareers.com increased by 55% from 162,946 visits during the same week in 2011 to 251,776 in 2012 with 30,000 US visitors, up from 19,000 the previous year.

It is with this success in mind that we enter the Onrec awards, the awards ceremony for the UK online recruitment industry, in the category for The Creative Online Marketing Award By a Niche.

Wish us luck!

The OilCareers.com team are making their way back from exhibiting at Adipec, in Abu Dhabi, which is organised by dmg :: events. This year’s show has been the busiest and most successful ever. Our stand featured an innovative Traffic Lights Party design, which asked if you were Red – I love my job, Amber – Excite me and I’ll consider it, or Green – I could be just what you’re looking for. This was a real talking point. It was a pleasure to meet hundreds of new candidates, as well as candidates who have already used OilCareers.com successfully to find roles within oil and gas companies.

On the final day, a delighted lady came over to thank us. She had spoken to us on day one of the show, registered on OilCareers.com and within hours she had been contacted by a recruiter, invited for an interview during Adipec – and landed her first job. It’s so gratifying to meet candidates and share their experiences. Congratulations!

Our Managing Director, Mark Guest, sat on the panel at the Society of Petroleum Engineer Conference addressing The Importance of Human Capital. He joined distinguished speakers from BP, Schlumberger and Saudi Aramco.  He shared unique market insight into job seeker behaviour, recruitment trends and the future of mobile technology.  Did you know that more people in the world own a mobile phone than a tooth brush?

The Adipec Awards recognised the companies who go the extra mile in terms of innovation, strategy, technology and corporate social responsibility. People are at the core of their success. We experienced some amazing culture thanks to the dmg :: events team, who put on a fantastic display for a global audience.

We appeared on Dubai City 7 TV and Dubai Eye radio. To watch Dubai City 7′s special Adipec show featuring Mark Guest, click here. Thanks to everyone who helped make our time at Adipec a pleasure and a success.

The OilCareers.com team will be exhibiting on stand CN012A at the Abu Dhabi International Petroleum Exhibition and Conference (Adipec), which takes place between 11-14 November in the Abu Dhabi National Exhibition Center (ADNEC), Abu Dhabi, UAE.

The President of the UAE, His Highness Sheikh Khalifa Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, is patron of Adipec, and Ali Rashid Al Jarwan, CEO of Adma-Opco is Chairman of Adipec 2012. Adipec is supported by Adnoc, the UAE Ministry of Energy, the Abu Dhabi Chamber of Commerce plus the Abu Dhabi Tourism Authority and sponsors include the world’s leading oil and gas companies.

The grandstand area of Abu Dhabi National Exhibition Centre will be split into three: a 4,000-sq.-metre marquee housing specialist products and services for the offshore and marine oil and gas sectors, an open-air section for heavy-duty machinery, equipment and vehicles, and a VIP area for industry decision makers and local dignitaries. Altogether the outdoor exhibition space at Adipec 2012 will exceed 10,500 sq. metres, more than ten times the outdoor space allocated to the 2010 show, according to organisers dmg::events.

The vast Offshore and Marine Hall, located within walking distance from Adnec’s main atrium, will host over 90 companies involved in exploration and production offshore, including Adnoc Group, Drydocks World LLC, National Marine Dredging Company, Rigmarine FZC and Thuraya Telecommunications Company.

The purpose-built tent will also contain the first ever UAE Oil and Gas Museum, complete with rare artefacts, historical documents and decommissioned equipment donated by companies involved in the country’s oil and gas sector over the last 70 years.

“Adipec has been growing and evolving since the first event in 1984,” said Kimon Alexandrou, Commercial Director of dmg:events. “The 15th Adipec will be the first to have a large-scale outdoor complex serving both the onshore and offshore sectors, developed in response to the considered feedback we’ve received from exhibitors and visitors.”

“The technical sophistication and specific character of offshore exploration and production and marine engineering demanded a unique space for the industry, while the open-air section allows visitors to inspect first-hand cutting-edge solutions much too large for typical exhibition venues,” Alexandrou said.

The outdoor zone in front of the Adnec grandstand will have more than 20 exhibitors displaying the heavy duty vehicles and hardware used in modern-day oil and gas E&P, both onshore and offshore, such as Caterpillar, HB Rentals, National Oil Well Varco, Top Oilfield Industries Limited, and Weatherford Bin Hamoodah.

Also outside, away from the visitors visiting the indoor halls, will be the Middle East Petroleum Club, a discreet venue for Adipec’s most distinguished guests, complete with uniformed attendants and five-star cuisine from Etihad Airways.

“Deals valued at more than US$4 billion were secured at Adipec 2010. With even more exhibition space in 2012, and more opportunities for quality networking, the 15th edition of the show has even greater business potential,” added Alexandrou.

Adipec is the largest oil and gas event in the Middle East and the third biggest worldwide, attracting more than 1,600 local and international companies, 45,500 visitors from 91 countries, and hosting 13 national pavilions.

Looking for the best jobs in the oil and gas industry is a far simpler process today (thanks in no small part to OilCareers.com, of course!) but increasingly recruiters are turning the process on its head.

Energy sector companies have rightly bemoaned the lack of skilled employees the world over, insisting the best candidates are tough to track down.

While many companies are now successfully hitting targets on graduate and trainee recruitment, a major challenge facing the industry is the recruitment of those with five or more years of relevant experience – people able to ‘hit the ground running’ and drive major projects forward quickly and competently.

Now some of the largest organisations are making even more of an effort to put themselves in front of the right audience, rather than just waiting for the proverbial knock on the door.

A perfect example of this approach was the ignite! Energy Recruitment Show at the Gastech Conference & Exhibition in London last month, which offered a unique opportunity to engineers wishing to learn about many global opportunities available, and to the employers out there who are hiring. Much more than a ‘jobs fair’, ignite! was dedicated to helping global employers source talent for specific projects, matching skillsets to regional projects which are under development.

As you would expect, we were there to help “marry up” candidates with employers, and lend our own expertise on how best the industry can address the dearth of personnel.

The event was held from 8-11 October, at the ExCeL, and proved a huge hit with employers and job hunters alike, with more than 30 major global operators, producers and engineering contractors sharing employment opportunities and around 3,000 interested candidates visiting the stands and training seminars that were on offer.

One of the most popular sessions was the Development of Human Capital panel, which focussed on training. Sarah Beacock, professional affairs director at the Energy Institute, told the audience that training was vital in the workplace but also important for those focusing on professional development ­so the skills they learn with their current employer can help throughout the rest of their careers. Her advice to young people was “volunteer for everything”, explaining that employers will always appreciate this approach.

The session, which also discussed how young people find it increasingly challenging to get into the oil and gas industry, heard from Ieda Gomes, managing director at Energix Strategy Ltd. She explained that western companies tend to have more ageing workforces, whereas Latin American and Middle East organisations have a younger technical staff base. She went on to say that the energy industry needed to paint a different picture to the young people of today, to show them that many opportunities – besides engineering jobs – are on offer.

The ignite! event was a great example of the innovative approaches being taken by employers, as they hunt for those hunting for the best jobs on offer. Our own research shows that demand for engineers in the energy sector peaked this year at an astonishing 89,688 open positions – with such competition among employers for the talent out there, it seems likely that more and more companies will be willing to think outside the box when it comes to landing the top talent.

A major Oil & Gas Careers Fair to assist people leaving the UK Armed Forces to find new jobs will be taking place tomorrow at the AECC in Aberdeen [30 October].

In excess of 1,000 people who are scheduled to leave the Royal Navy, Army and Royal Air Force in the near future had the opportunity to speak directly to representatives from circa 50 companies representing industry sectors such as energy and oil & gas. Many attendees have recently completed tours in Afghanistan and a large number travelled from various military locations to be at the fair at AECC and get more information on the job opportunities available in the offshore sector.

The event was organised by the Career Transition Partnership (CTP), which is a partnering agreement between the Ministry of Defence and Right Management. The CTP organisation provides resettlement services including career advice and guidance, training and links to employment for Armed Forces personnel about to leave the Services. They also offer a no cost recruitment solution to organisations seeking to employ leavers of the Armed Forces.

Some of the companies who exhibited at the Aberdeen event were Aker Advantage Ltd, Shell UK, Oceanrig, Petrofac, Maersk and SSE, plus many more. Vacancies on offer on the day included opportunities for; Engineers – covering a broad range of disciplines, Mechanics, Technicians, Logistics Specialists and Project Management amongst many others.

Romana Grant, Regional Employment & Training Manager for the CTP in Scotland said “The oil and gas industry is growing again in the range of opportunities offered and needs the right people with the right skills to make sure that it can continue to meet the demand for technical skills in the future. Military Service leavers can offer a wide range of these necessary skills to employers”.

She advised that the CTP regularly host a number of employment fairs and company presentation events throughout the UK and in Germany, in order to allow Service leavers to find out about job opportunities in particular geographic areas or specific industry sectors.

The event was delivered in partnership with Oilcareers.com who commented “It is well documented that the oil and gas sector faces immense skills shortages and we’re delighted to be supporting Career Transition Partnership. This event provides an invaluable opportunity to talk to ex-armed forces personnel about the range of opportunities to transfer their skills, and carve out a rewarding career in this vital industry. With up to 20,000 vacancies globally, OilCareers.com is the world’s most popular oil and gas recruitment site.”

The event was also supported by a number of Veteran charities such as Poppy Scotland SPVA and The Royal British Legion.

Military Service leavers offer a wide range of transferable skills and relevant experiences to prospective employers. Companies seeking to recruit from this skilled group of individuals can do so by registering and advertising their job vacancies free of charge on the CTP’s job finding website RightJob. This is accessed by a highly skilled and experienced talent pool of Service leavers. RightJob can be accessed by following the link on the CTP website at www.ctp.org.uk

The global oil and gas industry is experiencing a resurgence of activity, due in part to the resumption of activity in the Gulf of Mexico and the discovery of new shale oil plays, according to a joint report from OilCareers.com, the international job board for the oil and gas industry, in association with partner Air Energi, a global provider of manpower solutions to the energy sector.

Following the launch of its Global Workforce Survey, OilCareers.com managing director, Mark Guest, was interviewed on yesterday’s Platts Energy Week show, which airs live in Houston, Washington and other stations across the US.

“The development of current and new shale gas plays is a big step for the United States, and the survey signals a positive outlook for the sector with both mature and developing producing regions providing good reasons for continuing confidence and future optimism,” said Mark Guest.

Click here to view Mark Guest’s interview on Platt’s Energy Week show, which aired on September 30^th 2012.

For further information visit plattsenergyweektv.com.